My Year Off
Subtitle: Recovering Life After a Stroke
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 231
Subjects: McCrum, Robert -- Health.; Cerebrovascular disease -- Patients -- Great Britain -- Biography.; Book editors -- Great Britain -- Biography.; Authors, English -- 20th century -- Biography.
Genres: Memoir
First sentence: When I was just forty-two I suffered a severe stroke.
Description: On the morning of July 29, 1995, Robert McCrum - 42 years old, newly married, at the top of his profession as one of British publishing's most admired editors, and in what he thought was the full bloom of health - awoke to find himself totally paralyzed on the left side, the victim of a stroke brought on by a massive cerebral hemorrhage. After a nightmarish day struggling to reach a phone, he finally summoned help.

In the weeks to come, McCrum would have to face the reality that his life had irrevocably changed and that medical science, maddeningly, could neither pinpoint the cause of the stroke nor offer any guarantee of recovery. What ensued was a battle beset by frustration and depression but equally marked by small victories, the help of dedicated physicians and therapists, and, first and last, the support of his new wife, whose love proved equal to their dismaying circumstances.

My Year Off is a story of hope, written with the sort of candor and detail that has been missing in the literature of strokes up to this time. It is as well a grown-up love story of the most realistic - and hence, inspiring - kind.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-228).
Table of contents: title: Introduction: A Severe Insult to the Brain; title: One Fine Day; title: An Awfully Big Adventure; title: In the Blood; title: Brain Attack; title: My New Life; title: Sarah; title: 'Robert McCrum is Dead'; title: 'Not a Drooling Vegetable'; title: Death and Dying; title: Better Dead; title: Deficits; title: Slowness; title: The Rapids; title: Seizing the Carp; title: An Aspirin and a Glass of Wine; title: Candlemas; title: Further Reading, Some Useful Addresses and Acknowledgements