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Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic
This taut yet lyrical memoir tells of the author’s experience with a baffling illness poised to take her sight, and gives a deeply felt meditation on vulnerability and on what it means to lose the faith you had and find something better.
One day at the end of 2009, during a routine eye exam that Nora Gallagher nearly skipped, her doctor said, “Darn.” Her right optic nerve was inflamed, the cause unknown, a condition that if left untreated would cause her to lose her sight. And so began her departure from ordinary life and her travels in what she calls Oz, the land of the sick. It looks like the world most of us inhabit, she tells us, except that “the furniture is slightly rearranged”: her friends can’t help her, her trusted doctors don’t know what’s wrong, and what faith she has left just won’t cover it. After a year of searching for a diagnosis and treatment, she arrives at the Mayo Clinic and finds a whole town built around Oz.
In the course of her journey, Gallagher encounters inhuman doctors, the modern medical system—in which knowledge takes fifteen years to trickle down—and the strange world that is the famous Mayo Clinic, complete with its grand piano. With unerring candor, and no sentimentality whatsoever, Gallagher describes the unexpected twists and turns of the path she took through a medical mystery and an unfathomably changing life. In doing so, she gives us a singular, luminous map of vulnerability and dark landscapes. “It’s the nature of things to be vulnerable,” Gallagher says. “The disorder is imagining we are not.”
One day at the end of 2009, during a routine eye exam that Nora Gallagher nearly skipped, her doctor said, “Darn.” Her right optic nerve was inflamed, the cause unknown, a condition that if left untreated would cause her to lose her sight. And so began her departure from ordinary life and her travels in what she calls Oz, the land of the sick. It looks like the world most of us inhabit, she tells us, except that “the furniture is slightly rearranged”: her friends can’t help her, her trusted doctors don’t know what’s wrong, and what faith she has left just won’t cover it. After a year of searching for a diagnosis and treatment, she arrives at the Mayo Clinic and finds a whole town built around Oz.
In the course of her journey, Gallagher encounters inhuman doctors, the modern medical system—in which knowledge takes fifteen years to trickle down—and the strange world that is the famous Mayo Clinic, complete with its grand piano. With unerring candor, and no sentimentality whatsoever, Gallagher describes the unexpected twists and turns of the path she took through a medical mystery and an unfathomably changing life. In doing so, she gives us a singular, luminous map of vulnerability and dark landscapes. “It’s the nature of things to be vulnerable,” Gallagher says. “The disorder is imagining we are not.”
211 pages, Hardcover
First published May 21, 2013
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330 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
July 7, 2013
If I try to talk about this book I'm just going to sound like a goddamn sap, and so I'll just say it was really absolutely just what I needed to hear right now. It's pretty damn good until somewhere past the halfway mark, and then a lot of threads -- illness, religion, good old Uncle Jesus (as Anne Lamott calls him), being present, meditation, &c &c -- are drawn together and then it's pretty fucking amazing.
June 8, 2013
In Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic, Nora Gallagher is healthy, successful, “bizzy,”—then she turns a corner, opens a door, and is in a hallway she hardly recognizes.
“There was something on the periphery I couldn’t make out,” she writes. “A door closes and another one opens, said a friend, but it’s hell in the hallway.”
She calls the hallway Oz. It’s the land of illness. It’s the land of the unknown. Will she go blind? Does she have cancer? What’s causing this mess?
Gallagher writes about the good/bad, warm/cold medical professionals she meets in that hallway, of sudden changes in practice and relationships, of having faith and losing it, of redefining church.
“What I want from the church,” she tells us, “or any faith community, I see now, is a look between human beings that says we are knitted together, standing in a circle, holding each other up, waiting for the nest ax to fall, rather than persons following a crowned Jesus, believing in an oppressive creed and tinny, false hope.”
Her story is sometimes hard to read; she’s harsh at times, and I don’t know if you’d call the ending happy.
But I have a friend in the Land of Oz, and this helps me imagine, a little, what she’s going through. We lucky ones, we healthy ones, are, as Gallagher notes (and owns), oblivious.
It won’t always be true. As the years creep toward sixty, I know that there will come a day—later, I hope, but it will arrive,-- that the door into the hallway opens….and I find myself in Oz.
Can I prepare? Should I prepare? I don’t know. I think, though, that reading Gallagher’s story—and she tells it with little self-pity or drama—gives me at least the beginnings of insight. Maybe, at the least, I can stand in the circle, exchange a look, put out my hand, and support the citizens of Oz still close by.
September 23, 2013
Gallagher writes openly about the disorienting reality of her personal experience of serious illness, and particularly about her spiritual struggles during this time of weakness, uncertainty and fear. I particularly recommend this book to pastors, chaplains, all who work in the medical field and those with family members experiencing this other-world centered on medical appointments and seemingly endless waiting for diagnosis and healing.
March 29, 2016
First of all, I know a little bit about the author before reading this book. This is a memoir, but it is very much informed by her faith. In her previous books, she has explored her search for meaning and faith, which led her to the Episcopal Church and through the discernment process to become a priest (spoiler alert - she ended up not pursuing the ordained priesthood). In this book, she chronicles her experience as a patient with a complex condition, an experience she compares to making her a resident of a separate country from the "well" and "productive." I loved this book, but of course I would - I am Episcopalian, I have been through a discernment process (for the diaconate) and I have been a hospital chaplain. However, if you or a loved one has ever had a disabling or serious illness, if you work in healthcare, or if you like spiritual memoirs, you will love this book. Also, I think this is the most beautifully written book I have read of Gallagher's - her style reminds me of Annie Dillard. I highly recommend it.
April 19, 2016
This is a beautiful and interesting book about the author's transformative journey into illness and vulnerability, and the strange new landscape she finds herself in after experiencing some weird vision problems -- suddenly she's at a remove, behind a glass wall, from her previous successful and and busy life as a writer. It's thoughtful and lyrical - for someone who started as a journalist, it's really more poetic than expository. I loved how deeply and unreservedly Nora gave herself over to the emotions and thoughts she experienced - no false stoicism or sucking it up to make the rather insensitive medical professionals she becomes surrounded by feel less awkward about how they're treating her. I think it's a little misleading to say, as the blurb implies, that it's also about "losing" her faith. It's really about how her faith, and her experience in the Episcopal Church she loves, also goes through a transformation. The Episcopal Church is for people who love words, and that comes through clearly in this challenging and thoughtful memoir/memento mori. I loved this quote, and although it loses a bit of its power out of context, it's still a powerful insight into where she ended up:
"What I want from the church, or any faith community, I see now, is a look between human beings that says we are knitted together, standing in a circle, holding each other up, waiting for the next ax to fall, rather than persons following a crowned Jesus, believing in an oppressive creed and tinny, false hope. That "religion" is about wanting the thing to last forever and make the pain go away. The reality is, instead, more about Jesus kneeling in the dust making a paste of spit and dirt. The reality is much more raw."
"What I want from the church, or any faith community, I see now, is a look between human beings that says we are knitted together, standing in a circle, holding each other up, waiting for the next ax to fall, rather than persons following a crowned Jesus, believing in an oppressive creed and tinny, false hope. That "religion" is about wanting the thing to last forever and make the pain go away. The reality is, instead, more about Jesus kneeling in the dust making a paste of spit and dirt. The reality is much more raw."
August 5, 2016
I was expecting a straightforward memoir about vision impairment and the medical wrangling that resulted. However, the first one-third of the book wandered a bit, touching on aspects of the health and vision issues but more frequently veering off into various asides. All of it was interesting and well written but not the linear narrative that I anticipated. At that point I would have rated it a 4-star book.
The midsection became more focused, delving more intensively into the medical aspects of the stories: the good and the not-so-good doctors, tests and the wait for results, and the author's sense of living a life separate from all the healthy people (who seemed clueless about their good fortune). My book rating rose to 4 1/2 stars.
The last third of the book became more spiritual, in a very general but grounded sense. The author was having trouble with spiritual belief before her health concerns, and traveling through illness and disability gave her an additional perspective. Some of the most insightful and memorable passages are in this final section, and I closed the cover on a 5-star book.
This memoir may appeal to a wide diversity of readers: open-minded ministers; those who are sick, and those who take their good health for granted; doctors and hospitals (if only all hospitals could be managed like the Mayo Clinic, with their emphasis on efficiency, courtesy, and patient comfort--both physical and mental); those interested in spiritual matters, and those mired in spiritual uncertainty.
The midsection became more focused, delving more intensively into the medical aspects of the stories: the good and the not-so-good doctors, tests and the wait for results, and the author's sense of living a life separate from all the healthy people (who seemed clueless about their good fortune). My book rating rose to 4 1/2 stars.
The last third of the book became more spiritual, in a very general but grounded sense. The author was having trouble with spiritual belief before her health concerns, and traveling through illness and disability gave her an additional perspective. Some of the most insightful and memorable passages are in this final section, and I closed the cover on a 5-star book.
This memoir may appeal to a wide diversity of readers: open-minded ministers; those who are sick, and those who take their good health for granted; doctors and hospitals (if only all hospitals could be managed like the Mayo Clinic, with their emphasis on efficiency, courtesy, and patient comfort--both physical and mental); those interested in spiritual matters, and those mired in spiritual uncertainty.
August 22, 2015
I thought I knew where this book was going before I started reading it, so I was puzzled by the first third or so of it. I didn't relate to the picture she painted of herself or understand why the history of her quest for a religion that fit her was such a focus. I still don't know how in the world she ended up considering the Episcopalian priesthood. Once she began focusing on her medical mystery I became much more engaged. She describes her anxiety, her negative experiences with medical practitioners (as well as some positive ones -- notably at the Mayo Clinic), and the difficulty that her friends and acquaintances who had not experienced traumatic events had in knowing what to do. And I saw that her spiritual quest was an issue that was entwined with her medical one.
May 15, 2013
Nora Gallagher delves into the world of illness, into her own land of "Oz" in a deeply personal meditation that is a no-nonsense look at the medical establishment. The story reads like a mystery -- I felt compelled to read on, to discover the culprit. Every one of us will visit this vulnerable and frustrating land, whether ourselves or with a loved one, at one time in our lives. Nora Gallagher's humor and honesty will make a great companion to take with you on your own journey.
August 14, 2013
This book, along with The Fault in our Stars by John Green, is a MUST READ for anyone who works in pastroal care or health care. Nora's journey through waiting rooms and confusion is, sadly, all too real for those with serious illnesses. I encourage my friends who are pastors, chaplains, nurses, doctors, etc to sit with the message of this book and consider how we could change the all-too-common experience of health care, where one is a medical record and not a person.
November 13, 2018
This is an extremely bad book, a rambling mess of thoughts that offers very little positive for anyone suffering with health issues. It's an elitist author who revels in her lack of faith, which is pretty odd in a book that's supposed to be about surviving a serious health situation. I've never read Nora Gallagher before and won't again--her disbelief in true Christianity is apparently her badge of honor that allows her to speak around the country about religion (and be on the advisory board at Yale Divinity School!). It also let her lose her faith while still clinging to the structures she criticizes makes her a hero within the faithless intellectual religious community. It's all very, very sad.
The book has little to do with the Mayo Clinic--you don't even get to Mayo until 2/3's of the way into the text and then she isn't there long. The book starts with a long, boring review of her life and "faith," which is actually not faith. It's filled with facts but no real storytelling. She is a very poor writer, reminding me of all the know-it-all New York Times writers that think their words are clever but in truth it's just them making themselves feel superior to others while failing to put any facts into context. She even admits a couple times that she feels superior to average people--which other elitists will find insightful but again it's just sad. She sets herself up as center of her universe and rejects the historical Jesus in exchange for the modern theology of a liberal Democrat Christ whose social justice verses (of which there are few in the New Testament) are misinterpreted as being more important than doctrines or the afterlife. Much of this has to do with her Episcopalian background, and it's no surprise that she is celebrated within that often heretical denomination which values doubt and standing against "fundamentalists" (a group that she sneers at in the book).
The only one good thing about the book is that she does voice her skepticism toward doctors and points out the flaws in the medical system. Most doctors haven't got a clue what they're doing, they often contradict each other (even within the same clinic), they don't trust the patient, they are dismissive until they have come to their own conclusion and when they think they have the answer they move on from the patient. She overstates how great the Mayo Clinic is (trust me--I've got plenty of experience there and while there are some wonderful surgeons most of the medical staff members are just guessing and average at best). She also fails to address the deep spirituality that is the foundation for the Mayo Clinic. So while she was wise to get the "second opinion" from Mayo (which was really her 5th or 6th opinion), she was right to be her own advocate and push doctors for the answers she wasn't receiving.
I finished the book feeling very sad. This woman may have medical hope after her correct diagnosis but she doesn't have spiritual hope. She concludes that true spirituality is simply "community" where people support each other. Well, that alone isn't going to get a person into heaven based on what Jesus said, and saying community is true spirituality allows her to justify the misguided faith of other religions. Of course she questions every word in the Bible or the doctrines of anything Christian, and seems unclear whether any of it is true or not. It would have made for a better book (and a better end of life) if she would have dived deep into her faith when confronted with health issues instead of backing off and coming away with less faith in God. She ends up objecting to simple prayers, the basic creed, and the term "Almighty God." This woman has much more wrong with her than bad eyes or lung problems--her illness is spiritual and she seems to have ignored the God who created her when she needed Him the most.
The book has little to do with the Mayo Clinic--you don't even get to Mayo until 2/3's of the way into the text and then she isn't there long. The book starts with a long, boring review of her life and "faith," which is actually not faith. It's filled with facts but no real storytelling. She is a very poor writer, reminding me of all the know-it-all New York Times writers that think their words are clever but in truth it's just them making themselves feel superior to others while failing to put any facts into context. She even admits a couple times that she feels superior to average people--which other elitists will find insightful but again it's just sad. She sets herself up as center of her universe and rejects the historical Jesus in exchange for the modern theology of a liberal Democrat Christ whose social justice verses (of which there are few in the New Testament) are misinterpreted as being more important than doctrines or the afterlife. Much of this has to do with her Episcopalian background, and it's no surprise that she is celebrated within that often heretical denomination which values doubt and standing against "fundamentalists" (a group that she sneers at in the book).
The only one good thing about the book is that she does voice her skepticism toward doctors and points out the flaws in the medical system. Most doctors haven't got a clue what they're doing, they often contradict each other (even within the same clinic), they don't trust the patient, they are dismissive until they have come to their own conclusion and when they think they have the answer they move on from the patient. She overstates how great the Mayo Clinic is (trust me--I've got plenty of experience there and while there are some wonderful surgeons most of the medical staff members are just guessing and average at best). She also fails to address the deep spirituality that is the foundation for the Mayo Clinic. So while she was wise to get the "second opinion" from Mayo (which was really her 5th or 6th opinion), she was right to be her own advocate and push doctors for the answers she wasn't receiving.
I finished the book feeling very sad. This woman may have medical hope after her correct diagnosis but she doesn't have spiritual hope. She concludes that true spirituality is simply "community" where people support each other. Well, that alone isn't going to get a person into heaven based on what Jesus said, and saying community is true spirituality allows her to justify the misguided faith of other religions. Of course she questions every word in the Bible or the doctrines of anything Christian, and seems unclear whether any of it is true or not. It would have made for a better book (and a better end of life) if she would have dived deep into her faith when confronted with health issues instead of backing off and coming away with less faith in God. She ends up objecting to simple prayers, the basic creed, and the term "Almighty God." This woman has much more wrong with her than bad eyes or lung problems--her illness is spiritual and she seems to have ignored the God who created her when she needed Him the most.
January 4, 2018
I am an avid Nora Gallagher fan. This is an interesting perspective on illness, being a patient, suffering and faith. She writes about her year of unexplained symptoms and her experience with the medical profession (good and bad). Additionally, a woman of deep faith, finds that she loses her faith and through a long and winding road, finds a way back to a deeper, but different type of faith. If you are a person of faith, I believe it will be of interest. If you are a person of little or no faith, don't let this part of the book dissuade you from an insightful read into the human experience.
July 11, 2019
This book is much less about the author’s time at the Mayo Clinic (the reader only reaches the Mayo Clinic two-thirds of the way through the book!!) and much more about just the author and her spirituality/life. It’s not a bad book- it’s decently written. I only rate it three stars because the contents of the book are definitely not what’s advertised from the teaser flap or the title.
May 14, 2018
I was prepared to not like this book. I was wrong. Her relationship with her religion is often the same journey I find myself. And the land of medicine is one in which all humans will eventually fall into. Her insightful observation is well written.
December 7, 2018
i can't recommend this book. but i can say one thing. Jesus steps into our suffering. He doesn't leave us, and we aren't forgotten. we actually do have a real hope and He recognizes us in our pain.
June 17, 2020
I loved Gallagher's other two spiritual memoirs. This one details her experience with diagnosis and disease, and as someone diagnosed with two kinds of cancer in the past six months, this one spoke to me powerfully. She combines spiritual seeking with navigating the land of the unwell.
January 12, 2019
It has some great reflections, but the structure and suspense of the medical journey take up all the oxygen, leaving me wondering much more about her faith journey.
June 12, 2019
An average story line but I love the courage displayed.. and yeah, never take things for granted. Live your life..
November 1, 2020
I like the story, but not the writing...i personally feel like she was trying too hard...
June 30, 2022
This book gets to the crux of why Jesus is our healer.
March 6, 2017
This memoir deals with becoming a person who is "sick" and learning to live in that new land where, as the author states, "all the furniture has been rearranged."
January 15, 2015
Nora Gallagher has always found meaning in metaphor or, perhaps, has found metaphor as a way of expressing meaning. In her 2004 book, "Practicing Resurrection," Gallagher writes of the reassessment she took of many aspects of her life after her beloved brother's death: her commitments, her beliefs, her discernment to become a priest in the Episcopal Church, among many others. She took the title of her book from lines by farmer/poet Wendell Berry, "Be like the fox/Who makes more tracks than neccessary/Some in the wrong direction/Practice resurrection."
In her most recent book she also uses lines from a poet, this time not so much as metaphor but to announce a theme of her book. From W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts," she quotes: "About suffering they were never wrong,/The Old Masters: how well they understood/... how it takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window/or just walking/duly along." One day in 2009 Gallagher suddenly noticed a blurring of her peripheral vision in her right eye. Undesired and without a passport, she found herself journeying in another country, a country in which she might go blind, a country where a glass wall suddenly appeared to separate her from everybody else.
The journey she relates in "Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic" is part diary, part meditation, and a little bit of a mystery story as she tells of dealing with illness her doctors could not diagnose, of how other people deal with you when you are ill, and of trying to make her way through the maze of the American medical system. Up until this time, her life had been full and, as she says "bizzy," always rushing off somewhere, always planning for the world of things not yet happened. As both she and her doctors tried to diagnose what was happening to her vision, she experienced isolation, fear, and fragility in a way she had never before experienced. It was a long journey to the Mayo Clinic, where she didn't find a cure but did find out what was wrong and that her vision problem had a name.
Gallagher is a beautiful writer and an honest and unflinching one. She doesn't conclude with any kumbayas. She does make some new tracks and loses some former ones. For anyone who knows or faces illness, or knows someone who is ill, or wants to know how to be present for someone who is ill, I think this book will speak to you.
In her most recent book she also uses lines from a poet, this time not so much as metaphor but to announce a theme of her book. From W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts," she quotes: "About suffering they were never wrong,/The Old Masters: how well they understood/... how it takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window/or just walking/duly along." One day in 2009 Gallagher suddenly noticed a blurring of her peripheral vision in her right eye. Undesired and without a passport, she found herself journeying in another country, a country in which she might go blind, a country where a glass wall suddenly appeared to separate her from everybody else.
The journey she relates in "Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic" is part diary, part meditation, and a little bit of a mystery story as she tells of dealing with illness her doctors could not diagnose, of how other people deal with you when you are ill, and of trying to make her way through the maze of the American medical system. Up until this time, her life had been full and, as she says "bizzy," always rushing off somewhere, always planning for the world of things not yet happened. As both she and her doctors tried to diagnose what was happening to her vision, she experienced isolation, fear, and fragility in a way she had never before experienced. It was a long journey to the Mayo Clinic, where she didn't find a cure but did find out what was wrong and that her vision problem had a name.
Gallagher is a beautiful writer and an honest and unflinching one. She doesn't conclude with any kumbayas. She does make some new tracks and loses some former ones. For anyone who knows or faces illness, or knows someone who is ill, or wants to know how to be present for someone who is ill, I think this book will speak to you.
October 11, 2014
This is the kind of book I would not normally read but when people know your wife has a chronic illness, sometimes friends pass on a book like this, saying "when I read it, I thought of you." Gallagher describes her life before her illness, the time spent searching for a diagnosis, and life after her disease is named by the Doctors. Along the way Gallgher reflects on the changes in her life, her marriage and what I found most interesting, her faith.
When your family deals with a chronic illness you often deal with well-meaning, but hurtful comments or questions. Some of the most painful are made by “good church people.” “Maybe if you just prayed more,” “you probably have things for which you need forgiveness,” “if you were just more faithful,” are just a few. Such folks also pass on “advice” about nutrition, vitamins, magnets, and special prayers. It all gets rather annoying.
What I particularly enjoyed were Gallagher's description of her faith through this process. Her reflections on the institutional church can be summed up in the following quote, “Out of Nicaea came the ideas ...'God the Father Almighty,” “Jesus Christ, his only Son,” “he was born of the Virgin Mary,” “he ascended into Heaven.” What had been a messy group of followers on a road of discovery suddenly became the empire’s religion, linked, fatefully, to a state, to power and to conquest.” 54
For Gallagher the comfort of religion comes from focusing on a Jesus who took the sick by the hand, knelt down in the dirt and mud, and was fully present with them. The church of Nicea, the church of empire and power, instead is more intent on protecting its reputation, boundaries, and power. I will be thinking about this one for a while.
When your family deals with a chronic illness you often deal with well-meaning, but hurtful comments or questions. Some of the most painful are made by “good church people.” “Maybe if you just prayed more,” “you probably have things for which you need forgiveness,” “if you were just more faithful,” are just a few. Such folks also pass on “advice” about nutrition, vitamins, magnets, and special prayers. It all gets rather annoying.
What I particularly enjoyed were Gallagher's description of her faith through this process. Her reflections on the institutional church can be summed up in the following quote, “Out of Nicaea came the ideas ...'God the Father Almighty,” “Jesus Christ, his only Son,” “he was born of the Virgin Mary,” “he ascended into Heaven.” What had been a messy group of followers on a road of discovery suddenly became the empire’s religion, linked, fatefully, to a state, to power and to conquest.” 54
For Gallagher the comfort of religion comes from focusing on a Jesus who took the sick by the hand, knelt down in the dirt and mud, and was fully present with them. The church of Nicea, the church of empire and power, instead is more intent on protecting its reputation, boundaries, and power. I will be thinking about this one for a while.
June 21, 2014
When the author described what it is like to find yourself in the land of illness, I nearly cried because I could relate and no one had ever put it so perfectly. I have been ill for 6.5 years, disabled for 2.5.
I found the author's journey to identify the "mystery disease" absolutely riveting because I could relate to so many of the hoops she had to jump through. She goes through many doctors, being told to stop believing what she reads on the internet, to worry, not to worry, and so on... Would I have found it riveting if I wasn't going through something similar? I can't answer since I don't know what that feels like! The narrative wasn't all doom and gloom, but it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies either; it was real. It was about what is is like to find your life suddenly slowed down and to no longer be in control of your body.
I found the parts of the book devoted to history of religion a bit confusing at first, but they do get tied in beautifully. As someone who wouldn't call herself religious, I didn't find the parts about religion off-putting or difficult to relate to.
I found the author's journey to identify the "mystery disease" absolutely riveting because I could relate to so many of the hoops she had to jump through. She goes through many doctors, being told to stop believing what she reads on the internet, to worry, not to worry, and so on... Would I have found it riveting if I wasn't going through something similar? I can't answer since I don't know what that feels like! The narrative wasn't all doom and gloom, but it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies either; it was real. It was about what is is like to find your life suddenly slowed down and to no longer be in control of your body.
I found the parts of the book devoted to history of religion a bit confusing at first, but they do get tied in beautifully. As someone who wouldn't call herself religious, I didn't find the parts about religion off-putting or difficult to relate to.
September 28, 2016
In addition to crystal clear descriptions of the fear, uncertainty, frustration and many other emotions that accompany serious medical diagnoses, this book captures the waxing and waning of a faith journey. Having had enough of illness and the roller coaster of cancer, I likely would never have read this book had it not been gifted to me. I'm so grateful. I recommend it to those of us on the well side of the glass wall. It gives insight to what our loved ones are experiencing in ways they may be unable to express or explain. While our own challenges in dealing with the specter of illness and death for our loved one are real, they can't compare to their experience of them. Yet our faith is also shaken - how can this happen and where is God?
"There was a man in a hole. A priest walked by and said, 'I will pray for you.' A doctor walked by and said, 'I'll try to find someone to help you.' A third man walked by and jumped down into the hole with him. 'What are you doing?' asked the man in the hole. 'I've been here,' said the man, 'and I know the way out.'"
"There was a man in a hole. A priest walked by and said, 'I will pray for you.' A doctor walked by and said, 'I'll try to find someone to help you.' A third man walked by and jumped down into the hole with him. 'What are you doing?' asked the man in the hole. 'I've been here,' said the man, 'and I know the way out.'"
January 28, 2014
A quick read about a woman who is struggling with her faith, and her journey through a medical minefield. An easy to read book - more like an overly long essay. I would say more than 50% faith related. I was familiar with her written work with Patagonia, not at all with her books dealing in spirituality. The 4 pages of stream of consciousness phrases and words sort of turned me off, and the rambling about her faith in the first half nearly had me stopping reading. She finally came back, for the most part, to describe her travels from doctor to doctor, city to city to find nit just a treatment but an actual diagnosis.
November 12, 2014
I usually like memoirs, and since I'm no stranger to serious illness and its effects on the sufferer and their families, I thought this would be an interesting book to me. Alas, I really didn't like it. I found the writer to be whiny. The "poor me, this is the worst possible thing that could happen and it's happening to me" tone was grating and made me less and less sympathetic the more I read. Yes, potentially losing some or all of one's eyesight is a big blow, but really, there are many people living with much, much worse problems. I'm sorry Ms. G. I'm generally a very empathic person, but you annoyed me in this book.
January 6, 2016
I don't know what to say about this book. It is about the author's serious illness and how it disrupts what had once been a perfectly normal life. It's about how you feelings about faith and religion can be impacted by a serious illness. I guess the best thing to say is that - it made me think, and in different ways. It talked a lot about Jesus and his healing of the blind man. I think - had I been fighting a serious illness, my response to this book might have been entirely different. I suspect this is a book you have to experience for yourself, in order to figure out whether it speaks to you or not.
April 23, 2014
A story of long search for a diagnosis through a minefield of physicians who ranged from incompetent through uncaring, to caring but out of their depth, Finally the Mayo Clinic gave her not only diagnosis but interest in her as a person. As a person who has been in similar circumstances and received care at Mayo this book rang true for me. I wish every practitioner was as knowledgeable and kind.
As for the spirituality of the author, I believe she found a much more meaningful form as a result of her experiences.
As for the spirituality of the author, I believe she found a much more meaningful form as a result of her experiences.
September 25, 2015
Nora Gallagher spent several years of her life with serious medical symptoms--reduced vision & hearing--and absolutely no medical answers for her problems. This is the story of the journey--the many doctors, the varying diagnoses (most of which were preceded by "I THINK you may have...", the frustrations, and the spiritual discoveries she made along the way. I loved her honesty. She eventually was given the correct diagnosis but also admits there are no answers to some of her spiritual questions.
February 1, 2014
A non-fiction tale of one writer's journey toward a diagnosis of Neuro-sarcoidosis. The authors struggles with her faith and the diagnostic process are described. The efficiency and humanity of health care professionals at Mayo Clinic are outlined very positively. The title refers to the fact that there is a baby grand piano in a large atria at Mayo that staff, patients and family members are urged to play. Moonlight Sonata was played once when the author was being treated at Mayo.
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