A Life Impossible: Living with ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence
Biography of persons with disabilities, Sports biography, Health and medicine
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face of ALS"Gleason is a symbol of resilience, hope and optimism.&” —The New York Times • "Steve Gleason has changed the world." –Roger… Goodell, NFL Commissioner • "An extraordinary book...A Life Impossible will change the way people cope, think, and live." –Mike Lupica, co-author with James Patterson of 12 Months to LiveIn 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel&’s unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one&’s body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.