Together
A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap
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4.1 • 14 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Novelist and poet Judy Goldman's inspiring account of the mishap that left her husband paralyzed, how it tested their marriage, and their struggle to regain their "normal" life.
When Judy Goldman’s husband of almost four decades has a routine spinal injection to alleviate back pain, he is instantly paralyzed from the waist down—a phenomenon no doctor can explain or undo. She’s forced to take over, navigating the byzantine medical world they suddenly find themselves in. Her husband is forced to give in. This is the starting point for Together, which looks at the changes every couple faces—the slow, ordinary ones brought about by time and the sudden, dramatic ones that take us by surprise. Identities shift; roles switch. How do we adjust? How do we let go of the if-onlys? Together is a deeply honest story about the life we dream of and the life we make—an elegant and empathetic meditation on what happens to love, over time and all at once.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Goldman (Losing My Sister) offers a tender view of her marriage and a suspenseful account of her husband's frustrating struggle to regain mobility after a routine hospital procedure left him unable to walk. In his 60s at the memoir's opening, Goldman's husband, Henry, an optometrist, set out for a spinal epidural to ease his nagging back pain. Goldman's text alternates between reflections on their decades-long marriage and the medical saga surrounding a botched steroid injection that left Henry partially paralyzed. An energetic, athletic man, Henry was unaccustomed to feeling helpless, but as the days passed in the hospital and in rehab in Charlotte, N.C., the couple became increasingly aware that their lives had been forever altered, and their roles (he the strongman, she the protected wife) had shifted. Goldman also writes of how she found her angry "hospital personality" rising as she dealt with inattentive hospital staff. Goldman looks back on the sturdy roots of their marriage, the love that brought them together and continues to sustain them in challenging times, as well as at their differences and disagreements. This loving tribute to her husband and to the solidness of their union will engage and inspire readers, especially aging boomers facing potential health concerns.
