An encouraging but haphazard self-care guide.
“Patient, heal thyself” is the message in this primer on recovering from surgery.
Although screenwriter, film producer, and financial services professional Warren’s (Drop Debt, 2011) advice here is applicable to other types of surgeries, it centers on spinal surgery, and includes specific measures that patients can take to “optimize” their healing. The author underwent several spine operations after a 2010 car crash, and his measures include nonsurgical, alternative treatments for back pain: injections of cortisone or epidural anesthetics, pre-operation physical conditioning to strengthen core muscles to withstand surgical trauma, post-operation physical therapy exercises, and more. The author swears by aquatherapy, which involves walking in a pool, pre-op and post-op. On pain management, he suggests taking opioids to get rest, but to stop as soon as possible to avoid addiction. Post-op home care procedures include using special equipment to negotiate beds, chairs, and the bathing process without bending, lifting, or twisting motions. Warren also devotes much attention to digestion and nutrition; anesthetics, antibiotics, and opioids, he says, can paralyze the gut and wipe out its microbiome, leading to constipation and poor nutrition, necessitating probiotic foods to restore proper function. He further recommends a diet that’s high in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and low in meat and sugar, and as much exercise as one’s spine can tolerate. Above all, he emphasizes the patient’s psychological “will to get well” by pursuing every possible measure to hasten recovery. Overall, Warren provides a lot of useful material in this book. However, its disorganization makes it a chore for readers to access. He presents his advice piecemeal and unsystematically, drawing it from anecdotes and lengthy interviews with surgeons, physical therapists, nutritionists, and other spinal surgery patients, including a young violinist whose chronic back pain drove her to consider suicide. There are almost no bullet points, charts, lists, or summaries to orient readers or distill lessons. Long sections from interviews are repeated in meandering chapters with redundant exhortations, such as “Whether you think you can get better or whether you think you can’t get better, you’re right.” Readers will need to take careful notes to extract a clear program from this book.
An encouraging but haphazard self-care guide.Pub Date: July 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-944200-71-8
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Legends Library Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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