Customer Reviews

Hope Springs Eternal: Surviving a Chronic Disease

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My uncle sent this book to me and since my father died of ALS, I read it with great interest. I also found the book to be a starting point for me, a success story of sorts, as I battle with a recent diagnosis of another auto-immune disease without effective treatment. I'm the "monkey see, monkey do" sort, so I needed guidance from someone who's walked in very similar shoes and could offer perspectives and advice I'm not getting from the medical establishment. I am so grateful for this book, as it continues to help me persevere -- I recommend it highly to patients and caregivers alike.

This is a book about both transformation and healing with the healing only coming after David Atkinson's 'transformation' from an unawares, self-absorbed and self-admittedly arrogant individual to one who became healed from a deadly disease as a result.
As a therapist, over the years, I have both recommended and givens this book to perhaps five or six people suffering from similar neuro-motor diseases, desiring to offer them hope and have spoken to David several times on the phone and learning of his desire to help others.
Those few who have 'crashed', as David describes that he had to do in his own life, seeing that the disease was in fact, a 'gift', for him to awaken to a deeper level of being, have benefited greatly from David's story. Most though apparently don't and have 'become' their disease, their identity. All of them of course, absolutely deny that this is so and that's OK. For those people though who love to see 'wholiness' IS possible through the process of letting their present state of being 'die', so that the 'next level' of their being can be 'born', there is no better book that describes this process. David's book, to me, reminds me of the old Sufi adage: "Those who know, never say, for those who don't, never ask and will deny if told"! David 'knows'. He's been there and in his book, he's trying to share what's its like going through a process of death & resurrection, and becoming much more of a truly 'human' being in the process.
If you are ill with a similar disease, and realize that you are NOT your disease, and that this 'dis-ease' is simply the soul describing that a correction is in order, then you may find great joy in David Atkinson's book. For those who don't 'see' the truth in this, the only possible response is Houston Smith's advice when speaking to 'True Believers' of any ilk, and that is 'God bless You'.

David has an excellent way of telling his story and beeing able to beat his ALS. He has given me hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. It is a positive book that every PALS should read.