|
Looking Up: A Humorous and Unflinching Account of Learning to Live Again with Sudden Disability
Tim Rushby-Smith is six foot two and highly active, with a love of high places and the great outdoors.
Three years ago, with a booming garden design and landscaping business and his wife five months pregnant with their first child, Tim fell six metres out of a tree and broke his back, confining him to a wheelchair.
As he came to terms with his injury, treatment and rehabilitation, Tim faced an entirely new life, in which suddenly many of life's simplest tasks became monumental challenges.
This is Tim's very human story of learning to live with disability, from overwhelming feelings of anger and despair, to learning how to face the future head on, and watching his daughter take her first steps.
Emotional but never self-pitying, this is his unflinchingly honest account of how he built a new life; as a man, a husband and a father.
Unputdownable
Moving, witty and nakedly honest, Tim's story is a ripping yarn. Essential reading for anyong (like me) who knows a spinal cord injury victim - my 15 year old son, like Tim, fell from a tree and smashed his T12 vertebra - it is far more than a guide to how not to deal with disability.
Tim makes the point that the victim / patient has no choice but to 'deal with it', and that the real test is for the rest of us, who do have that choice - the passage about the tipsy acquaintance with the unwelcome handshake of congratulations for doing such a great job of being disabled was particularly recognisable.
Until nine months ago I had no idea that spinal injury means no bladder, bowel or genital function - and I'm guessing that Tim had no such idea before April 2005. Tim's account of the obstacles to be overcome, just in the immediately below the waist department, is an enlightenment even for those of us who have had a fairly recent, and relatively close, encounter with those issues.
He distributes both bouquets (for the medical staff, the Motability program, his friends and family and many others) and brickbats (the local authority grant procedure, the idiots who were supposed to be helping him onto a plane, the aforementioned drunken idiot and many others) in measured and heartfelt tones. This book is indeed essential reading - and not just for those who are already in contact with a spinal injury victim, but for anyone who ever might be. You know that means you.
A brilliant read!
What can I say? This book is fantastic! If I could give it 100 stars, I would! I'm over halfway through it at the moment and I can't put it down. I'm disabled myself, although I was born with my disability, so I haven't had to adapt in the same way Tim has, but I can identify with him in a lot of ways. I will be very sad to finish the book, but it's definitely one I will keep forever. It's had me laughing hysterically at times and with huge lumps of emotion in my throat at other times. Everyone, disabled or non-disabled, should read this book!
Honest and moving
Tim writes movingly about how he and his family coped with the massive disruption to their lives caused by his fall.
Much of Tim's coping is through stoicism and humour, but at the same time he doesn't cover up the difficulties he's faced and the anger and helplessness he's felt at times.
His honesty around the impact of the accident is deeply touching, as is his determination to live a normal life again.
|
