The Other Side of Impossible: Ordinary People Who Faced Daunting Medical Challenges and Refused to Give Up

by Susannah Meadows Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Overview

You're faced with a difficult health condition. You have exhausted medicine's answers. What do you do? Susannah Meadows tells the real-life stories of seven families who persisted when traditional medicine alone wasn't enough.

Their adventures take us to the outer frontiers of medical science and cutting-edge complementary therapies, as Meadows explores research into the mind's potential to heal the body, the possible role food may play in reversing disease, the power of agency, perseverance, and hope-and more.

When journalist Susannah Meadows noticed her three-year-old son, Shepherd, shying away from soccer practice, she had no idea it was the first sign of juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The diagnosis was the first step of a long journey, physically painful for Shepherd and emotionally wrenching for Susannah and her family. But they pressed on, and using a combination of traditional and complementary medicine they beat the disease, and the odds.

Meadows chronicles her own story, and takes you into the lives of other remarkable people, exploring their heartbreaks and triumphs. One boy who has severe food allergies undergoes an unconventional therapy and is soon eating everything. An organic farmer in Washington State tries to solve the puzzle of her daughter's epileptic seizures. A physician with MS creates her own combination of treatments and goes from a wheelchair to riding a bike again. A child diagnosed with ADHD refuses to take medication and instead improves his life, and the life of his family, after changing his diet. Other families take on rheumatoid arthritis and autistic behaviors.

Meadows includes new information about traditional and nontraditional medicine and the latest science on how the health of our gut bacteria is connected to wellness-and how the right foods play a key role in helping this microscopic population thrive. She also talks with scientists who study the traits and circumstances that may make some people keep going when others feel helpless. These researchers are illuminating the psychology of healing-how the mind, and asserting control over your body and health, can play a part in recovery.

Fascinating, moving, and profoundly inspiring, The Other Side of Impossible gives us people driven by love, desperation, and astonishing resolve-a community of the defiant who share an extraordinary talent for hope and for fighting the battle for healing in today's world and tomorrow's.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/17/2017
At age three, journalist Meadows’s son Shepherd was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. Concerned about the side effects of traditional medications, she entered “the healthcare underground” of patients struggling with chronic, debilitating autoimmune illnesses and willing to look at complementary or alternative strategies for treating and defeating them. This book presents the stories of several people who found relief through new, still-unproven approaches such as dietary changes or fecal transplants. Meadows is skeptical in the best sense, considering the treatments, as well as the character traits of her subjects, as potential keys to success. She never sufficiently acknowledges that her stories are anecdotes, not conclusive research, but she has confidence that they point to real solutions. Her purpose is to “suggest potential targets for new research,” and she does so with writing that’s compelling and fair. When presenting a case, she is balanced, as in discussing Terry, a doctor stricken with multiple sclerosis, who subdued her illness through medicine, diet, meditation, physical therapy, strength training, and massage. This is a terrific book for those who need encouragement to take control of their diagnoses, and for their physicians and families. (May)

From the Publisher

[Meadows] has compiled compelling stories about people who faced and ultimately surmounted daunting medical challenges. . . . The families’ ventures into a realm that some would call quackery were typically inspired by love, desperation and hope, and were fueled by irrepressible grit and determination to find solutions to debilitating health problems that defied the best that conventional medicine could offer. Their stories left me in awe of their persistence against formidable odds.”—The New York Times

“The stories featured in this book are really remarkable—a child making a full recovery from a painful illness, a woman confined to a wheelchair walking again—and all because they wouldn’t stop looking for answers.”—Good Morning America 
 
“This is a book of hope. . . . An amazing book for everyone.”—Fox & Friends

“At the age of three, the author’s son Shepherd was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. When Western medicine didn’t help, Meadows, a journalist, found a special diet—no gluten, no dairy—that did. For this book she found other families who, as she writes, had similarly explored ‘the wilds of unfinished science.’”—Newsday

“[Meadows’s] purpose is to ‘suggest potential targets for new research,’ and she does so with writing that’s compelling and fair. . . . This is a terrific book for those who need encouragement to take control of their diagnoses, and for their physicians and families.”—Publishers Weekly

“Throughout these tales, a common attitude binds people together: hope. . . . What cannot be refuted are the will power, perseverance, and hopefulness of the patients and families profiled here.”—Booklist

“Can eating the right food play a major role in healing medical problems? . . . Encouraging, honest information and real-life cases that show the role food can play in healing the body.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[The Other Side of Impossible] introduces readers to courageous patients, parents seeking help for their children, and scientists searching for cures and explanations. . . . The author highlights the importance of persistence, hope, and research when facing difficult medical situations.”—Library Journal

“In this affecting and illuminating book, Susannah Meadows emerges as the kind of sound, sensible, and invaluable friend you want by your side when medical disaster strikes. She brings a strong grasp of science, a writerly sensibility, and a good heart to the difficult subject of the present and future of healthcare. If you love someone, read The Other Side of Impossible.”—Jon Meacham

“I laughed out loud more than once, choked up more than twice, and generally marveled at the lovely humanity and sharp mind at work. This extremely useful guide to never giving up is journalism at its most responsible, intelligent, and compassionate.”—Kelly Corrigan

“The Other Side of Impossible is an amazing book—insightful, compassionate, and quite possibly life-changing.”—Curtis Sittenfeld

Library Journal

04/01/2017
Journalist Meadows's quest for a cure for her son's juvenile arthritis led her to complementary and alternative therapies. Along the way, she encountered others seeking solutions for serious medical conditions. This book introduces readers to courageous patients, parents seeking help for their children, and scientists searching for cures and explanations. Among them are a physician with multiple sclerosis, a mother determined to stop her daughter's seizures, and parents helping a child with ADHD. While noting that both traditional and alternative medicine practices are useful and that much is still unknown about what works and why, the author highlights the importance of persistence, hope, and research when facing difficult medical situations. Those profiled here refused to give up and were willing to try unproven therapies with no guarantees. This title includes supplementary information with websites for updates from the researchers and patients profiled and a glossary. VERDICT For those facing catastrophic illness and willing to explore alternative therapies. Public and consumer health collections will want to consider.—Barbara Bibel, formerly Oakland P.L.

Kirkus Reviews

2017-03-21
Can eating the right food play a major role in healing medical problems?Rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ADHD, severe seizures, multiple sclerosis, and food allergies related to peanuts, gluten, dairy, soy, and a host of other allergens—these are just some of the medical issues explored by former Newsweek senior writer Meadows in her first book. Most of the author's interviewees are parents of children with these serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses who have tried every conventional medical method—most often, prescription drugs—to help their children lead healthy lives. But when those traditional methods have failed to produce long-term positive results, they have turned to alternative methods, often as a last resort, and been overwhelmed by the drastic, progressive changes. Highly attentive to important details, Meadows takes readers through the agonizing months and years of pain, suffering, anxiety, and fears that these parents and adults faced as they tried to find solutions to their medical issues. As the author discovered, food played a significant role in all of these situations. Once the diet was changed, the symptoms changed, and the children improved, primarily because the body's gut bacteria, or microbiome, had changed. Other methods Meadows clearly discusses include fecal pills and enemas, identifying the mind-body connection between food and its allergic reaction in the body, and the importance of positive feedback and the drive to feel better. Although the author doesn't outline a specific diet, she includes enough information about foods that helped others for readers to piece together their own menu and do their own experimentation to help overcome some of these debilitating diseases. The author's helpful additions include further resources, websites, a sample menu, and bibliography, as well as references to the many doctors and practitioners interviewed in the text. Encouraging, honest information and real-life cases that show the role food can play in healing the body.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172080494
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Excerpted from "The Other Side of Impossible"
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Copyright © 2018 Susannah Meadows.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
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