Customer Reviews

Getting Life

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This book will challenge - and possibly alter - your perceptions of the disabled. The disabled person that you know (your uncle, spouse, neighbor, or client) will be seen in a new light. A friend, working wonderfully with the disabled for years, now sees her clients in yet a new way. You will, also. Read this book. You owe it to yourself. It is beautifully written, with great and moving senstivity.

Author Julie Shaw Cole creates a painful, joyful, enthralling journey toward self-discovery in GETTING LIFE. Told from the first person point of view, she draws the reader deeply into the horrific and frustrating world of nursing home care, seen through the eyes of thirty-five-year-old Emily Mason. Emily spends seventeen years in a wheel chair, watching the play of light on rooftops seen through the window of the nursing home.

When her mother died in an accident, Emily went to live with a tender uncle and an abusive aunt. When these relatives die, Emily comes to live at the nursing home. Her life seemed to be characterized by abuse and neglect, as the people around her assume that because she cannot speak she cannot think. When a devastating accident results in a hospital stay, Emily meets Dr. West, a woman who will change her life. For the first time, someone speaks to her, rather around her or about her. For the first time, her humanity is recognized.

It takes three years and remarkable discipline for Emily to free herself from the nursing home. As she struggles to communicate, to read, to become mobile, and to learn the skills she needs to live independently, her lessons become lessons for the reader about the strength of the human spirit and the weakness of human perception. She confesses her own prejudices and fears, thereby forcing readers to reevaluate themselves. Indeed, readers will find their most basic assumptions challenged; from the accessibility of sidewalks to the way we see those who are different from ourselves. A must read for all caring human beings, GETTING LIFE comes very highly recommended.

this book is true to life for many people with disabilities. Slipping into Em's shoes and reading about how the patients were treated reminded me of a friend that i would visit in a nursing home and found her not quite sitting right in her chair having to eat cold food at mealtimes. Days i would come i would bring some fast food that i bought so she would have something warm to eat.This book is one book that people who are thinking about putting a love one in a nursing home need to read first.

Getting Life offers a rare glimpse behind the closed doors of long term care. This fictional story draws readers into the wheelchair of Emily Mason, a 35-year-old nonverbal woman with Cerebral Palsy, and allows you to share each of her experiences -- painful, thrilling, or confusing. This book will confirm the worst fears of many when it comes to congregate living, but it also demonstrates clearly the power of the human spirit. Anyone involved in personal attendant care for another, should join Emily on her journey. I promise the next time you look around your world -- the view will be different.