Customer Reviews

When the Road Turns: Inspirational Stories About People with MS

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was not what I expected. Many are jetsetters and world travelers with few monetary worries. When they became ill, the only new problem most all of them had was the disease. The book is about the well-off getting ill...a malpractice lawyer, FAA flight controller, a doctor, a real estate agent, a full professor and other highly paid professionals. Apparently ordinary people are not allowed, with the exception of a father who has a bio in it.

The letter "I" is featured prominently in almost every sentence of these self-bios. Perhaps Montel encouraged her to write it ? With all that said, why can't SOMEONE write about ORDINARY people ? Talk about the REAL struggle people have, losing their spouse quite often from the stress of the disease and the struggle to keep a marriage together. She could then tell the story of how the average person has turned their life around. Instead of the upper-middle class people, who can afford to do it. Statistically, since the poor and middle class people outnumber the upper-middle class, shouldn't they be the focus of the book ?

She should have read the Australian website Jooley's Joint. It has hundreds of bios written by people with the disease. These are the real realities of it that the author doesn't want to talk about, and are the rule. Gaining great success in life from getting MS is far from common, and is an oxymoron. Yet this book promotes that idea. Job loss is even more problematic than the effects of MS. As someone who has the disease, I know about this because my dream in life was theater, and that dream may never have a chance to even get started.

MS and the drugs involved with treating it, also affects short term memory. This makes any career difficult. Yet according to the author "MS is a gift" in her own words. Tell that to the unemployed, divorced people suffering with the disease all alone. The people in the UK are routinely denied the medicines they need. And the poorer people of the world who contract it, are the least able to afford it. One can tell from an author's focus about how well off they are.

I do not have MS, but I know many family members and close friends who do suffer from this debilitating condition. I bought this book originally as a gift for a friend whose mother was recently diagnosed with a very severe form of MS. Once I got the book home, I opened it up to scan through the stories and I could not put it down. Each and every story combines sadness with joy, depression with inspiration. I will warn you, if you are the kind of person who finds personal accounts of tragedy meets spiritual triumph as lame or cheesy, dont buy this book. However if or anyone you know has MS, please buy this book, it will help to light the darkness in the Tunnel you are going through.

The sheer variety of roads traveled in this inspirational, humorous, and engaging book illustrates the difference between merely taking baby steps through life and thriving on your journey. This book introduces us to real-life people planning and achieving awesome goals--yet living very much in the moment. Their stories resound with authenticity, humor, awareness, and determination. I felt myself nodding in agreement at so many of their reactions to everyday obstacles. You certainly don't have to have MS to thoroughly enjoy this book. You only have to be human.

I have just finished When the Road Turns....boy, there are many inspirational stories out there....Boy, I must admit that when I was first diagnosed 14 years ago, I felt so alone. I had a variety of emotions which I had never experienced....

I can now see my emotions were not exclusive to me. For a variety of reasons, I am living well with my MS. I am very lucky.....great neurologist, great family, greater wife...

Good luck to all fellow MSer's!.. You'll love this book!...

This is a book that is long over-due. My life has been touched by wonderful people that are dealing with MS or have loved ones that are. To find a book filled with these courageous people's life experiences, triumphs, courage and yes, despair is an inspiration to all of us. I could not put it down, even took it to work with me. It caught my co-workers attention and as I explained the concept of the book and who had written the chapters, it disappeared for the rest of the day. I explained that it was not in bookstores yet, that I had ordered it through Amazon.com! I think you may have gotten a few more orders that day.

I praise this young woman that reached out to these special people and asked them to tell their stories, along with hers. I don't know if she has written anything else, if she has I would certainly like to purchase it. If not, I sincerly hope this will not be her last publication. I thank Margot Russell for giving us this beautiful book and for following her dream.

I do not recommend this book. I purchased it under the assumption that it would include individual accounts of people dealing with MS. It does, but not in the manner that I presumed it would. The book does offer individual accounts of the struggle with MS, but the stories seem to be incomplete and unorganized. As someone living with MS, I wanted to know about the individual's diagnosis history, symptoms, treatment, etc. Many of the stories never mentioned specifics or they left out important events. The idea of what the individual's have been through does make the stories inspiring, but the lack of content and organization left me feeling frustrated and sad.

I just finished reading When The Road Turns, and found it to be inspirational and informative while maintaining some semblance of humor throughout. I don't think you have to have MS to appreciate these people and to learn from their examples of how to live life beyond MS. It is a wonderful insight into making the most of life and getting somewhere new by rediscovering ourselves. Excellent!

Living with MS is definitely a challenge for each of us, no matter the level of our disability or ability, as I like to think of it. Each author of "When the Road Turns" is a true inspiration to all of us!

I know two of the authors that contributed to "When the Road Turns," Kathleen Wilson and Dean Kramer. Their stories are particularly inspiring. Kathleen has shown us that we can reinvent our lives, despite MS, by looking within ourselves to find a new path. The amazing part is the new path can be even greater and more rewarding than the one we followed before MS.

Dean has given an insightful and humorous look at MS through the eyes of someone doing ordinary things in an extra ordinary way. She has a wonderful talent for taking the reader with her as she shares her innermost thoughts about MS and personal experiences.

Reading each author's story made me realize that we all have our own mountain to climb, it doesn't matter how high it is, but how we climb it.

After reading about half of this book, I had to stop. I am not very inspired. In fact, it had the opposite effect on me. A lot of the stories I read were too much about the hardships and not enough about the positive outcomes that people had. Kind of scared me a bit..is this what I have to look forward to as the years progress? I was more inspired by Montel's book (once I got past the ego part of it).

What I liked so much about this book was that ordinary people were depicted in every chapter. And what is ordinary? Is there such a thing? When MS strikes, it isn't choosey. This book strives to take a sampling of the diverse groups that MS strikes and paints a picture. There is the enlisted military man, the single and struggling mother, the artist, the air traffic controller, the poet, the scientist, all of different sex, career, economic status and type of MS. I learned so much from each and every person's story and I applaud them for coming forward and sharing what they've learned....