An invaluable resource for NB sufferers.
Lake’s debut offers a candid memoir of her experience with neurogenic bladder and a wealth of practical advice about coping with its daily complications.
Five million Americans suffer from neurogenic bladder, which has symptoms and stigmas similar to incontinence. It occurs when nerves between the brain and bladder are damaged, often due to spinal injury or prolonged vaginal delivery of a baby. Lake, a Seattle-based special needs educator, had several strikes against her, including heavy lifting during her youth on a California farm, a difficult first labor, a hysterectomy that included removal of her cervix, and back surgery on a herniated disk. By age 55, her pain was intense enough to require a urologist’s attention. It turned out that urine retention had stretched her bladder and left her prone to frequent infections, so Lake now had to use an intermittent catheter for every bathroom visit. This book arose from her anonymous blog, begun in 2012 under the name “Trudy Triumph.” By revealing herself as an NB sufferer and discussing it in detail, she reassures others that they’re not alone: “I see toileting dysfunction as a last frontier of topics that need to have mature acceptance and an active audience,” she says. The text, attractively laid out with leaf motifs and inset boxes, is packed with helpful tips on diet, exercise, hygiene, and intimacy issues. A nitty-gritty chapter on urinary devices and aids recommends adult diapers and special toilet seats and provides a diagram for inserting a female catheter. While useful, however, some sections aren’t always pleasant reading for the squeamish. The book’s second part, “Blog Chatter,” is less essential, but its reader testimonials reveal the diversity of NB experiences. Lake seems clued-in and research-savvy, so she might have been able to write the “Knowledge Nuggets” and answer the reader Q&As without “Biosleuth” Julia Parker on board as a medical consultant. Appendices list suggested products, books, and websites, and the glossary is especially useful. Epigraphs from the Bible add an appropriate inspirational aspect, with Lake encouraging readers to see “setbacks a bit like sea glass….As we encounter adversity, we are forced to adapt and grow.”
An invaluable resource for NB sufferers.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-99-643054-8
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Triumph Media Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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