Fortunately, all the endless hours in hospitals and clinics, all the chemotherapy and psychological therapy and bloodwork and anguish resulted in her continued habitation of the kingdom of earth-though not all of her fellow travelers were as fortunate.
Eventually, home after living in Paris, the author learned the truth: She had a form of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow, manifested by that itching and fatigue that no amount of coffee or uppers could overcome, “not evidence of partying too hard or an inability to cut it in the real world, but something concrete, something utterable that I could wrap my tongue around.” Battling her advanced leukemia, Jaouad also wrestled with complicated issues about mortality and hope. I began to wonder if the real problem was me.” The problem was not her, though the post-graduation ambit of cocaine- and alcohol-filled nights didn’t help. But deep down, I doubted there ever was a parasite. “As my energy evaporated and the itch intensified,” she writes, “I told myself it was because the parasite’s appetite was growing. Jaouad, then a student at Princeton, attributed it to some internal pest. “It began with an itch.” So commences a story whose trajectory is sadly familiar to many survivors. Drawing on Suleika's TED Talk, now with 4 million views, it illuminates universal questions about how we live, mourn, heal, grow up and begin again.A thoughtful memoir of dealing with cancer and feeling “at sea, close to sinking, grasping at anything that might buoy me.” And so she set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her about their experiences of life, death, healing and recovery in response to her Emmy-Award winning New York Times column, 'Life Interrupted'. At twenty-seven, and celebrating her first year of remission, Suleika realized that, having survived, she had no idea how to live. For five years her world comprised four white walls, a hospital bed, fluorescent lights, tubes and wires.
When things don't go to plan this is the book to reach for - an inspirational memoir about what the struggle to survive teaches us about how to live.Īt just twenty-two, Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia and given a 35 per cent chance of survival. We all face moments that bring us to our knees: heartbreak, trauma, illness.
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