Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces

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Not everyone is able to access a timely diagnosis, have a choice of DMTs let alone reach the "holy grail" of stem cell treatment. The electric shocks that ran up and down his spine if he bent his neck forward made him feel as if he was being Tasered at close quarters; in the mornings, his vision was blurred; his legs grew more unpredictable, and his falls more frequent.In his new book, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst likens his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2017 to the opening of a trapdoor on which he unfortunately happened to be standing “like Wile E Coyote” at the precise moment when the lever operating it was pulled. After his transplant, he would need to remain in an antiseptic bubble until his body started to repair itself with the help of his new stem cells. It meant a six-month wait, during which time he developed problems with speech and speed of thought. Elsewhere the giggles bubble up from fantastical figurative language, comparable to Dickens’ zany similes and metaphors.

Words stop working, and it is hard to make a joke when one is afraid of making some ghastly breach of taste, like farting in church. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance.

Cummings, who died aged 30, didn’t give the name of his illness but the symptoms are unmistakably those of MS. His partner, M, set the right example: rather than maunder or end the relationship, he lightened the air with jokes. His symptoms – the struggle to get out of a hot bath; the feeling, after a long walk, that his legs could no longer carry him – had hitherto been more bothersome than distressing or painful. Yes, I’d had many months to prepare for the pandemic – and again, this is going to sound holier than thou, but I think it gave me more empathy for people when it began. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed.

In that environment you’re just an object to be filled with drugs, and drained, poked, prodded, moved around. Written by an entertaining storyteller and offers a rare insight into a situation that few people will have to face, but that it does us good to contemplate. His MS has, you see, changed his relationship with his body in ways that are – unlikely as this may sound – good as well as bad.

A darkly comic and moving memoir on what it means to be human in a world where nothing is certain, from the award-winning Oxford professor. Perhaps reading shouldn't be thought of as a way of avoiding [our] problems, but rather as an invitation to look at them through fresh eyes.

MS sufferers who suffer with the more common relapsing/remitting ('good days and bad days') form of the disease, which is more prevalent amongst women. Other authors include Beckett, Burgess, Joyce, Keats, Tennyson, Heine – among many, many others – and, of course, Kafka – varifocal lenses on other worlds. it persuasively builds the case for the ability of stories to offer hope and solace; to help us become ourselves, over and over, even in extremis.His books include Becoming Dickens (2011), which was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize, The Story of Alice (2015), which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces (2023). What he gives us isn’t just the story of an illness but a story about the importance of stories – of imaginative literature as bibliotherapy. A darkly comic and moving reflection on what it means to be human in a world where nothing is certain, from the award-winning Oxford professor'The best book about multiple sclerosis'THE TIMES'An outstanding feat'SUNDAY TIMESWe all have trapdoors in our lives. When a trapdoor opened in Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s life – the abrupt diagnosis, in his 40s, of multiple sclerosis – he couldn’t help thinking of Gregor in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, a young man who’s changed into a giant beetle, imprisoned in bed, legs waving feebly in the air. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.