Not Exactly What I Had in Mind: An Incurable Love Story

by Rosemary Breslin

One week in 1989, Rosemary Breslin got a headache that wouldn't go away. After countless tests and treatments, doctors knew little about her strange disease except that it wasn't AIDS or cancer. Two years later, out of a job, in debt, and worried about insurance, Rosemary was invited out by friends--not knowing this would be the night she met her future husband. This is one woman's story about having a real life while facing the question of how long she might live. Serialized in Self magazine. 208 pp. National ads. Author tour. 40,000 print.

Genres: Memoir, Biography

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 1997

Reviews

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely, understated but frequently funny report from medical hell, in a story that unfortunately had a sad ending.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed this book, on a number of levels. Rosemary Breslin, at the dawn of the age of AIDS, came down with an incurable anemia which was so rare that no doctor had ever seen a case of it. So, that's the horse the story rides on, but Breslin's extreme New York humor carries her through, along with poignant asides about just how devastating it can be to be left (as she was, many times) in dark corridors, alone, in hospitals. She is (all right, was - she died seven years after her book came out) so funny, so determined, so incredibly glad when she found the love of her life so unexpectedly. I laughed and cried and loved this book.

[Peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is amazing what this woman went through with an undiagnosed blood disorder, physically and mentally. Knowing she could die at any moment she still married and wrote yet dealt with the horrible treatments she had to endure in order to stay alive.

[Sue Kozlowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. She has a blood disease and isn't sure how long she'll live. Her Dad is Jimmy Breslin and her husband is Tony Dunne.