Tag: mecfs

My Book is Officially Published!

Today is a big day — my memoir, When Force Meets Fate, is officially published.

In addition to more than 70 reviews on Goodreads (4.66 stars), When Force Meets Fate has already received some solid press coverage. The Press Democrat did an excellent piece on the book, and it also received a glowing review in the Providence Journal.

I won’t say that I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a kid, because I probably cared more about firefighters back then, but I’ve definitely been imagining this moment for a long time. Over the course of the decade it took me to write When Force Meets Fate, there have been countless times in which I thought the book would never be published.

There was the time my laptop stopped working, and I lost all my drafts, only to miraculously recover one from an email. Then, of course, there was the eighteen month stretch when I was so sick I couldn’t speak, let alone finish writing the book.

There have been so many obstacles that could have prevented me from publishing this book, and in the end, I had to finish writing it on my phone, at times wearing tanning goggles because the screen was too bright. That should tell you how important it was for me to share my story. The thought of it has kept me going when I couldn’t speak or eat, when I very much thought death was lurking around the corner.

Little did I know, writing the book wouldn’t be the hardest part. Once I finally finished it, I had to find a publisher. It was a long and grueling process, which took up most of my free time from 2016 to 2019 (another story for another day), but I eventually found a publisher, and just as fate made me face the obstacles I wrote about in the book, it has now allowed me to share my story with the world.

Many, if not all, of the wonderful people who preordered the book have now received a copy. It’s a marvelous thing. But suddenly I’m seeing people reacting to something that, for such a long time, has been mine and mine alone. Now it’s out in the world and people are sharing their opinions of it through Goodreads reviews and Bookstagram posts.

These opinions have been overwhelmingly positive, but there have also been a few harsh criticisms. While many people have called my memoir the best book they’ve read in a long time, praising the story for its “honesty and openness,” others have said it’s not for them, calling me self-destructive and “navel-gazey.”

Although I expected this, I didn’t fully grasp how it would feel. I knew there would be both good and bad opinions of the book, but now that I’m actually seeing the opinions, I find myself trying to cope with the fact that two people can have such dramatically opposing opinions of the same book. This realization hasn’t exactly made the negative reviews any easier to read, but I have found peace in knowing that if I had changed the book to appease one set of opinions, it would have created an entirely new set of negative opinions.

Through this, I have also realized a simple truth: my book can’t mean everything to everybody, but it can mean everything to me. And now it does.

BEFORE YOU GO…

1. As I just mentioned, WHEN FORCE MEETS FATE is now available for order. If you’d like to support the book please leave it a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Also, here’s a list of places to order the book (by country):

US: Amazon, Apple, Target, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, BooksAMillion, Book Depository (ships worldwide for free!), Indiebound, BookShop.

Canada: Amazon, Kobo, Chapters/Indigo

UK: Amazon

Australia: Booktopia

Mexico: Amazon

Germany: Amazon

Norway/Sweden: Book Depository, Adlibris

2. The audiobook is also available on all platforms, including Audible! Here is a sample of the audiobook:

3. You can also support the book by donating to help pay for the audiobook and publicist, expenses that will have to come out of my own pocket.

by JamisonWrites.com

Almost Walking

It’s been a rough year. I think we can all agree on that, so I thought I’d share some good news—my health has been improving lately. The other day I got out of bed and stood up three times in the span of a few hours, the most I’ve done in the last six years.

I’ve been measuring how much body weight I put on my legs using a bathroom scale. I step on the scale, and because it’s the first time I’ve been well enough to do so in years, I’m not entirely sure how much I weigh. But I am sure how much weight I can put on my legs. At first I could only put ten or twenty pounds on the scale. Now I can push off of my bed and put what I believe is all of my body weight on it. The fact that I’m able to put any weight on it is progress for me, but using all of my body weight is something I haven’t done since I became bedridden in 2015.

It has been quite a journey since then. For a long time I was too sick to speak or eat; I couldn’t even sit-up in bed or look at my phone. Now I’m eating and speaking, and hopefully soon I’ll try to walk.

It blows my mind that I’m so close to walking again. When I stand up and put my feet on the floor, the cold surface tingling my toes, it’s exciting (and exhausting) to know that all I have to do is take a step and I’ll be walking. But taking the first step is always the hardest, and before I do, I need to make sure my legs are strong enough and my balance is steady.

The tricky part about this phase of my recovery is that I can’t afford to fall. Normally I’d be willing to take the risk, and potentially fall on my face, but in the midst of a deadly pandemic, I just can’t risk getting the coronavirus because I need someone (or multiple people) to help me get up.

So I’m being very careful, going slow and safe, but I’m also staying consistent with my rehab. I’m not going to use COVID as an excuse to not make progress. I am still working hard to get better every day. I’m doing light stretches and exercises with my feet and legs before I stand up multiple times a day.

It feels good to make this kind of progress, reminding me of what it used to feel like to work out with heavy dumbbells, back when I measured my progress by how many pounds I could take off the scale. Now I’m measuring my progress by how much weight I can put on it.

BEFORE YOU GO… 

1. Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, please follow my blog.

2. For those who haven’t heard, my memoir, WHEN FORCE MEETS FATE, is going to be published next month.

You can read sample chapters, leave an early review on Goodreads (those really help!), and preorder it through Amazon and other online retailers, in both print and ebook. The audiobook is FINISHED! We’re just waiting for Audible and other retailers to approve it. I will keep you posted on that. For now, here is a sample of the audiobook:

You can also support the book by donating to help pay for the audiobook and publicist, expenses that will have to come out of my own pocket.

Here’s a list of places to order the book (by country):

US: Amazon, Apple, Target, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, BooksAMillion, Book Depository (ships worldwide for free!), Indiebound, BookShop. Canada: Amazon, Kobo, Chapters/Indigo UK: Amazon Australia: Booktopia Mexico: Amazon Germany: Amazon Norway/Sweden: Book Depository, Adlibris

by JamisonWrites.com

The Battle Against Bitterness

It’s hard not to be bitter.

In the macro sense, it’s hard for me because, well, my life hasn’t turned out the way I imagined it would. I’m 32 and haven’t walked in more than five years, I’ve been through intense physical and emotional trauma, and because of my illness, I haven’t been able to get married or have kids.

In the micro sense, I find it hard to not be bitter mostly because some people suck, especially online. Whether it’s someone saying something mean about me, or an editor rejecting an essay that I pitched, or just an innocuous comment that I take the wrong way. It’s all there, and it all sucks.

So how do I deal with it? Usually I sulk for a few days and eat several large bags of tortilla chips until the part of my brain that says none of it really matters prevails over the part of my brain that wants to even the score, to get revenge for every slight that has ever been thrown at me. That, my friend, is called thin skin. Do I have it? Yeah, sometimes. And I hate it. I want thick skin — the kind made of Kevlar and a flame resistant coating.

The worst is when my micro bitterness and macro bitterness combine to create the perfect storm of bitterness — when some shit head online says that I’m a burden on my family for being disabled or that my writing goes off on too many tangents (By the way, did you hear that a coronavirus vaccine is coming out soon? Oh sorry, what was I just talking about?). Right, it is this perfect storm of bitterness that I hate the most. It makes me angry about the way my life has gone, and defensive about every little negative comment directed at me.

But there’s a silver lining, and boy is it a shiny one. As much as I sometimes hate my life and all the shit I’ve had to deal with, I still have a lot to be grateful for. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in at least six years — standing on the side of my bed multiple times a day. I have people in my life who care about me and support me. I have a book coming out that has been an immensely helpful therapy session. As for all the shit heads online? They don’t matter. None of it really matters.

I say this knowing that it is exceedingly hard to change how I feel. It’s hard to flip the switch and just let everything go. It’s a constant battle to not be bitter. But it’s a battle worth fighting, a battle that I’m determined to win.

BEFORE YOU GO… 

1. Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, please follow my blog.

2. For those who haven’t heard, my memoir, WHEN FORCE MEETS FATE, is going to be published in January.

You can read sample chapters, leave an early review on Goodreads (those really help!), and preorder it through online retailers, in both print and ebook. The audiobook will be available for preorder soon. You can also support the book by donating to help pay for the audiobook and publicist, expenses that will have to come out of my own pocket.

Here’s a list of places to order the book (by country):

US: Amazon, Apple, Target, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, BooksAMillion, Book Depository (ships worldwide for free!), Indiebound, BookShop.

Canada: Amazon, Kobo, Chapters/Indigo

UK: Amazon

Australia: Booktopia

Mexico: Amazon

Germany: Amazon

Norway/Sweden: Book Depository, Adlibris

by JamisonWrites.com