Where is the Mango Princess?

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Ms. Crimmins gives the reader a real-to-life perspective of what a TBI survivor and his or her family endures. I had a severe TBI 7 years ago and am now an RN working with TBI and stroke patients in the rehab setting. I had the opportunity to hear Ms. Crimmins speak last year and was so enthralled with her story, I rushed out to get the book. I read it, loved it and passed it on to my family to read. I have recommended it to some of my patients' families because of the honest language. This book has helped my family and other families feel like "we're not the only ones".

Rating:
Summary: Now we laugh.....
Review: My husband suffered TBI in 1996, a year after we began dating - that was over five years and a lifetime ago. We struggled through the first year just trying to get through each day. He never gave up and neither did we. "We", include his son and my three children. Watching him "fight" and evolve into a different person (a composite of the "old" & the "new") created a range of emotions for us all from anger, denial, sadness to relief (when we found the right mix of health care resources)& hope & happiness. We "blended" our families a year after his injury and while there are moments when we wonder "why did this happen to him", we continue to face each day - one day at a time. Some are good, and some downright stink.
Cathy's book reminded me once again that we are not alone - I dove into the research just like Cathy (the knowledge & my understanding of it was my life jacket. Our children, our reason for not giving up) Her messages are our messages - I hear my voice in her written word. There were moments when I had to put the book down as it saddened me to remember how painful those days, weeks, months were. How the fear and frustration made us feel physically and emotionally spent. And there were many passages where I laughed with her! I'm writing to say - we too survived! It's not easy, and it never, ever ends. It's about courage, love and support. It's about our new little family sticking together despite the challenges and now we look back and talk about some of our dimmest moments & smile. (Cathy's dedication to Al says it all for me - "to the past, present and future") Read the book - take the journey - you are not alone. Cathy, thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Where is the mango princess?
Review: My son recently suffered a brain injury. This book helped me more than anything else that I have read. It also made me laugh and cry. It was really great to know that I was not alone in my struggle to help my son recover. I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: A book I could never write
Review: My wife suffered a traumatic brain injury a year and a half ago as a result of a ruptured aneurysm and subsequent brain surgery to repair it. This book was recommended to me while she was in rehab. This book is so candid about the effects of TBI on the patient, the spouse, the family. I could never write this book because my experience was too painful. I want to both remember and forget at the same time. This book told me I was not alone in what I was experiencing. Many times in this book I thought to myself "Yes, I know that. I have been there too." This is a must read for anyone who has had a loved one suffer TBI. Please know you are not alone.

Rating:
Summary: A book I could never write
Review: My wife suffered a traumatic brain injury a year and a half ago as a result of a ruptured aneurysm and subsequent brain surgery to repair it. This book was recommended to me while she was in rehab. This book is so candid about the effects of TBI on the patient, the spouse, the family. I could never write this book because my experience was too painful. I want to both remember and forget at the same time. This book told me I was not alone in what I was experiencing. Many times in this book I thought to myself "Yes, I know that. I have been there too." This is a must read for anyone who has had a loved one suffer TBI. Please know you are not alone.

Rating:
Summary: A book that will change your life!
Review: Nothing I have ever read has touched me more than this book. Someone I love and respect very much was struck down by a brain injury in August 2000. I felt alone, confused, at a loss as to how to help or deal with this changed version of the person I had known and loved. Cathy Crimmins' humor, honesty and knowledge have become a beacon of hope, as trite as that sounds, for me and many of my friends also affected by this situation. We are not alone. We are not losing our minds. We too can survive our loved one's brain injury and find a level of quality, contentment and happiness with this changed person. We know this now, thanks to Cathy Crimmins.

Rating:
Summary: A Journey Through TBI, HMOs and Changed Family Dynamics
Review: Okay, the title snared me, but this little book is not about either mangos or princesses, but rather about traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its effect on the author and her family. Ms. Crimmins sketches a gritty, brutally candid and knowledgeable tale of what happens when her husband is terribly injured in a boating accident. I would label this book a must read for anyone dealing with TBI, as well as for all of us who will probably come upon it in some form at some time or another. "Imagine a world where the library is intact, but the librarian has gone insane." When something terrible happens in a family, the dynamics that made that family what it was, can and do disappear forever - and what's left is a far shot from what we bargained for. The book is not warm or fuzzy or inspirational or spiritual, the characters are not always very likeable, but the insights are very personal and true, from her own admittedly stupid mistakes to simple miscalculations, and the reactions of folks who can't or won't understand brain injury. Ms. Crimmins not only writes of their personal journey through the maze of TBI, but the entire medical support/non-support systems that are in place and how "Managed Care" is a silly oxymoron that is being sold to us to insure [no] care when we most need it. The transfer of her husband from the Canadian hospital to the US left me gasping - simply incomprehensible and inexcusable. The responses of the HMO were sobering and agonizing and maybe even criminal? Crimmins says "I fantasize about roasting the executives [of HMOs] on a spit, then taking them down and throwing a few Band-Aids and a jar of Vaseline at them: 'Here's the treatment - this is what we've authorized for first-degree burns under your plan.'" Read this book for first hand knowledge and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: jdubuc
Review: Recently my mother suffered a severe brain anuerism and stroke. She was unconscious for over a week and spent 27 days in the SCU. She was very young and this experience was very tramatic. Crimmins does a tremendous job to explain the oddities of TBI and name them without ever making you feel like you are reading a medical novel. By reading this story, I have been able to cope with confabulation and many other behaviours that TBI patients exhibit, that would have been shocking before reading this book. It is a truely amazing story as all recoveries from TBI are. I would hightly recommend this book to anyone dealing with any form of TBI.

Rating:
Summary: Astoundingly beautiful and brutal in its honesty.
Review: There is much literature on the diseased and disabled and their caretakers, full of raw emotion and excruciating pathos. There's plenty of that here too, but seldom has the loving anguish and unmitigated joy of caretaking been so gloriously and eloquently expressed. Crimmins is a fine writer and her book so plaintively sings the song of her husband, the endlessly charming, disability and all, Alan; her daughter Kelly, and herself. What a privelege and pleasure to be allowed to share their incredible story! She even pointedly garrotes HMOs and the American health care system. Simply brilliant!

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book
Review: This is a wonderful book. I read it in one sitting and found myself moved to tears many times. The book shares the experience of coping with a loved one's severe brain injury and recovery process. It deals with what it's like to be with someone whose personality, whose "self," has been altered and in many ways diminished. The book explores the question: What does it mean to love someone? We have the idea that we love another person, particularly our spouse, based on the totality of who that person is: character, personality, our shared experiences with them, etc. This memoir gives lie to that notion. In reality, loving is the process we go through in being with and caring for another person. I am grateful to Cathy Crimmins for allowing me to be reminded of this truth without having to experience the lesson first-hand.