Dancing at the River's Edge

Dr. Michael Lockshin's Latest Radio Interview

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:33:00 -0400

On March 28, 2010, co-author Dr. Michael Lockshin spoke with Bob Salter of WFAN about Dancing at the River’s Edge, the newly passed health care reform bill, and the state of American medicine. Click here to listen to the radio interview.

The New England Journal of Medicine 8/13/09

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:35:33 -0400

Dancing at the River’s Edge:

A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness

By Alida Brill and Michael D. Lockshin. 253 pp. Tucson, AZ, Schaffner Press, 2009. $23.95. ISBN 978-0-9801394-0-2.

The drama of chronic disease has many actors, but the single most important one — and far too often, the silent one— is the patient. Chronic illness changes the lives ofpatients and their families in profound and personal ways. Relationshipsare destroyed, identities are lost, careers are redirected or abandoned, and finances are ruined. In most instances, chronic diseases can be as “life threatening” as diseases that havean inevitable fatal outcome. Chronic diseases challenge eventhe most skilled health care providers and strain a health caresystem that is poorly equipped to provide the necessary care.Coexisting conditions compound the management of chronic illness,and good options for treatment are frequently limited. Finally,the costs associated with chronic disease are truly alarming.For example, arthritis and related diseases — the mostcommon causes of disability — currently affect 46 millionpeople in the United States at an annual cost of $128 billion.These numbers are staggering, and they are projected to increaseexponentially over the next two decades. This fact alone shouldadd a sense of urgency to the quest to address the problem ofchronic disease, which must be front and center if we ever hopeto achieve effective and meaningful health care.

This book captures the thoughts and emotions of coauthor Alida Brill — in whom an atypical form of Wegener’s granulomatosis developed at a young age — along with the thoughts and experiences of coauthor Michael Lockshin, a rheumatologist who has cared for Brill throughout her illness. We learn very little about Brill’s disease or how it is managed, but we learn everythingabout how profoundly it affects her. She goes through periodsof denial, anger, fear, hope, and resignation, which give wayto her acceptance of her illness as a “life sentence.” Her relationshipwith Lockshin is built on trust, respect, and openness, andit becomes fundamental as they navigate her illness, even whilethey keep their distance and independence from one another.Their solution for effective health care is simple and straightforward— the focus must be on the patient.

Together, Brill and Lockshin work to maintain Brill’s “dignity,mobility, [and] independence,” which would seem to be goalsof every patient facing a serious chronic illness. Chaptersalternate between Brill’s writings and Lockshin’s writings,and over the course of the book the two narrative threads seemto merge into one, with the recognition that the authors arevery similar people — both are fiercely independent, caring,and working to protect people from the health care system. Theirwritings are poetic, revealing, insightful, and at times shockingin their honest and frank discussion of aspects of chronic diseasethat are rarely brought out into the open.

The reasoning behind the choice of the book’s title, Dancingat the River’s Edge, is not apparent until near the end of thebook, but it is worth the wait. It adds special meaning andleaves a memorable image of what it is like to live with a seriouschronic disease.

John H. Klippel, M.D.
Arthritis Foundation
Atlanta, GA 30309

GOT THE TIME?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:02:00 -0400

Today is a perfect Los Angeles day. It is a day that is my father’s idealized Southern California. It’s warm but not hot. Blue skies. No smog. Sufficient breezes flow past my building to ripple the palm trees producing that unique sound. It is a sound I remember from childhood. In a few minutes a reporter from the Long Beach Press Telegram will arrive. She will interview me about the book. The Press Telegram is the first newspaper I read. I began to pick out words far earlier than normal. I think it was at that point my father and mother realized they had either a joy or a major problem on their hands. There was probably not much chance I was ever going to be anything but a writer, but there were other flirtations.

There is only one recent event that keeps this from being a perfect day in California. It is an enormous event. On the small table to my left burns a memorial candle, which I have placed in front of my favorite picture of my father in his late years. Also arranged on the table is a vase of flowers a neighbor and dear friend brought to me. Next to the vase on the other side is a second photograph – it is of my parents in a frame lettered with the quote: “There is only one happiness in life. To love and to be loved. —- George Sand.”

My father died suddenly, if one can say a very old person dies suddenly. But surely he died unexpectedly. He died exactly 3 months and 10 days after my mother. She had died in his arms. He died asleep, but alone. In a marriage of mutual respect and enduring love, my father had made the sacrifice never to give into his physical fragility —- he would not leave her in life, or in death.

He did however leave me alone, without any immediate family, and just before a planned and much anticipated visit with him. Yet, he is very present in this day and in the air and in much of what I am and what I hope to continue to evolve to become as a human being. My father was not famous; he held no advanced degree and his life was one marked by many hardships. What he was, however, was relentlessly optimistic. Not foolish optimism, because he had been in the WWII and knew the face of absolute evil and the annihilation of most of European Jewry. — his own people — but he never forgot so many other losses as well from Europe to Russia and into the Pacific.

The core truth about my father was this: he knew what mattered and what did not.

He knew that each day we live is a good day and that you must do the best you can do with that day. He had many expressions that were unique to him. His slightly accented speech was a mixture of his Southern roots and the sweetest tinge of Southern African American cadence as he grew up surrounded by Black people. In the heart of the land of hatred and segregation he grew up in a house filled with love and with the commitments of what would evolve later into the civil rights movement. Compassion and an open heart were the tenets of his personal faith in humanity’s ability to rise above its lower tendencies.

He never asked you “what time is it?” but always “Got the time?” As a child I thought time, therefore, was a substance that one could hold in your hands. Perhaps it wasn’t just an eccentricity of his speech. Perhaps it was a reminder that time is an element that is as essential as anything ever will be to us. And that we must cherish it, honor it and hold it unto ourselves and share it with others in each moment we are granted.

Additionally, he was mischievous and enjoyed the horses and the dice tables from time to time but they were not an addiction, only an amusement. He was funny and outrageous and laughed often. He was, however, saddened watching my fight with and against chronic disease but he refused to refer to me as his sick daughter or to give up on the notion of cure and good health for me, and others like me.

His addiction was to life and love. He loved my mother, in all times and under all circumstances. His cosmic love was for all things that were alive and for the world, and was in each breath he took — in the last many years those were hard breaths to take as he had a severe case of COPD –Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. He had stopped smoking when I was in high school (more than 40 years ago) but the damage had been done, and multiple bouts with pneumonia further weakened him.

I mean, of course, he was weakened physically, but not in any other way. His life had been filled with a pretty healthy helping of disappointments from an early age but complaining and whining were not part of the vocabulary of his existence. Lots of people ask me how I have maintained a series of reasons to live above and beyond my disease. — Or, at least attempt to do that. There are many reasons, personal and the public ones I have written about – however it all began and will continue to be inspired by one man, my father.

His life was a constant blessing to me in a life that has been somewhat short of those, but what an enormous one I was given by his existence and his beautiful courage.

Alfred Lewis Brill, Jr. — 11 December 1912 – 15 May 2009

Bonnie Hunt Show!

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:51:00 -0400

Alida Brill was on the Bonnie Hunt Show recently. Click here to see her interview.

Alida Brill with Bonnie on the Bonnie Hunt Show

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:25:00 -0500

Alida Brill with Bonnie on the Bonnie Hunt Show

A CRAZY GIRL

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:14:00 -0500

I was 12 or perhaps 13 the first time I heard a doctor suggest that perhaps there was something else wrong with me. — Something other than illness. — Maybe I was a Crazy Girl. It was said in different words but it was said in front of me. “You know it might all be in her head.” I was too bright not to know what this meant. My mother had old-world ways and with remedies in her repertoire, she melted paraffin and made wax gloves for me with the warm liquid, not too hot, but comforting. She had read somewhere that melted paraffin soothed arthritic hands and mine looked like claws. She also had observed me trying to get out of bed. Standing absolutely still for minutes I was unable to take a step because of intense shooting pains in my ankles and feet.

There was something wrong for sure. She would permit doctors to use the words “growing pains” as I was reaching a height beyond any family genetic code, except for my father’s mother. That was as relevant emotionally as factually. My grandmother and my mother hated each other. If something or someone could be blamed other than my mother’s claim it was her fault because of her advanced age at my birth — she happily would have passed guilt in the direction of my father’s mother. Neither woman was responsible. And, no, I wasn’t making it up —it wasn’t all in my head.

I remember my mother shrieking at a particularly opinionated doctor. “It’s in her bones, not her brain, you moron.” My mother had little difficulty being disagreeable, uncontrollably enraged, screaming, acting out in a variety of dramatic tirades. This was one of the few times I enjoyed a maternal outburst.

It wasn’t too long before we moved into a new realm of conversations with doctors who employed words that were harder for me to decipher. But only briefly did I remain unaware of their presumptions about me. Psychosomatic illnesses, and hormonal surges are phrases I recall. Whatever they said and however they uttered their hypotheses it all meant the same thing to me. I was a Crazy Girl. My entire life as a teenager was filtered through this prism. I thought, “They think I’m crazy and I’m not, but I know I will never convince them otherwise.” So, I chose to become mute much of the time during medical appointments. Intermittently, a strange blessed relief appeared mixed with horrific pain in the form of hugely visible flares. It was a relief because they didn’t think I was crazy. At last, I was of real interest to them. They took me seriously during these episodes. And a part of me hated them for that.

When did I become a feminist? Right then, as a child, long before the words feminism or feminist were well known to me. It was just about the time Betty Friedan first began to write and talk about a different kind of feminism. She emphasized that a woman needed an identity beyond wife and mother. But, I became a girl-feminist because I knew I wasn’t crazy and the doctors only believed me when they could see something. They did not believe me when I told them in my own words exactly what happened in carefully detailed language taken from my diary that I used to record my journey of illness.

I learned far too early that male doctors in those years needed to see something before they would take a girl at seriously, however smart she was. I didn’t dislike men or boys, but I did hate many of those doctors. Quacks covered my wrists and arms in copper bracelets. Some form of alternative faith healer made me drink a teaspoon of apple vinegar every hour. (I have maintained a lifelong aversion to anything that resembles vinegar.) A physical therapist of sorts bound my joints with ace bandages. And the real doctors with fancy medical school diplomas hanging on their walls filled me with gold shots, which was a fairly common practice.

A Crazy Girl filled with gold in a childhood that was anything but golden.

Those years still reside inside me and the scenes reverberate. I weep for that child. She is a part of me, but she is also far removed from me. Medical schools changed their approach to some extent but not fast enough to save my childhood or adolescence. As an adult woman I found a doctor who listened even when there wasn’t much to see. So, I must keep the girl I was at a safe distance in order to preserve my sense of compassion, especially in my memories of those doctors. I must keep on moving forward unhampered by bitterness. Yet, sometimes late at night, alone in crunching pain that little girl comes creeping back into my life, walks into my room and sits on my bed. She says, “It’s still real isn’t it? We were never crazy were we? We aren’t crazy now. And we still hurt, don’t we?”

YES! I tell her. WE hurt like hell.

-Alida Brill

'Tis the season to be...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:12:11 -0500

Reflective, I suppose.

The Chanukah/Christmas/New Year cycle is hard for many of us and particularly sad for me. I’m far too old to believe in Santa Claus, and finally too wise to hope a package will arrive with the ultimate Magic Wand to cure my illness.

So what is left for me to revel in about my life as I light the first candle of Chanukah at sundown tonight with Christmas also knocking on the door and ‘09’s mysteries swirling? I could recount my medical woes and many tribulations of this year but my chronic disease hardly gives me the exclusive right to a monologue on suffering. And ’08 and its challenges hit almost everyone I know. It’s been an exceedingly difficult year for many both those well and unwell.

Despite it all I feel something should be recorded in my last posting of the year. This 21^st century with its exhilarating, maddening and magical technologies gives me the opportunity to share a Holiday Greeting with my friends and all the visitors to the Dancing website.

In the midst of my own pain and the conscious awareness of that of others, I come back to the concept of joy. And am reminded of a quote by the author Djuna Barnes from Nightwood written in 1937: “The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.”

During this year I have reached almost the last moment of my endurance, creeping into an admission of the unendurable. My family of choice has lovingly crushed me into going forward. Their concern and presence and unfailing loyalty comprised exactly the meaning of the Barnes quote. They are the beginning of the curve of joy in my life. Words and phrases said and written to me in this entire year recycle in my memory and give me courage to go ahead into an unknown year with less fear.

Just before I headed to the West Coast I forced myself the few blocks from my apartment to Fifth Avenue to observe once again all the usual festivities at Rockefeller Plaza. Anger at my body turned into a cranky silent whine and a growing dismay I had attempted it when I overheard a small girl speaking. She said to her father, “Is it always like this here? I’ve never seen anything like this before.” I couldn’t stop myself from intruding. I said, “It’s always like this at Christmas, but the rest of the year in Manhattan holds wonderful surprises too.” She could not have been more than five years old. She said to me, “I am going to live here when I grow up.” I smiled and told her that had been my dream and she could make it her dream. It surely was my adolescent dream and became a reality when I was still in my 20s. It’s been a life with many surprises and not always happy ones. But living in Manhattan has made me understand more fully the gift of being alive and my desire to remain present for each moment of human joy however small the offering given to me.

Surrounded by the comfort of close meaningful friendship in Manhattan mutes the noise of physical pain. Now I am in Los Angeles, a far more solitary place for me. For others it is a social place, a family place and a glamorous city or an impossible one. It is my place of solitude and contemplation and where I write most of the time I am here. It is a place where the intensity of pain and the acceptance of relentless disease is a vocal presence against the backdrop of personal silence. Los Angeles is also my childhood love. The love of a city is just like the truth of first love. It is impossible to see realistically or to let go of the illusion of how perfectly glorious it was. Here there are fewer friends and distances by automobile are not easy for me to navigate. Too easily I move into “stall and wallow” mode. My solo-status is not as acceptable here as it is in Manhattan, a city that has made being alone interesting, if not downright sexy. Pain vibrates across me; frightening helicopters hover in the sky over my neighborhood. I question my sanity, my purpose, my judgment, the pointless quality of all of it or any of it. I think about flying into the blizzard and reclaiming my “real” life in Manhattan — immediately.

Then, as before, when I come close to the edge of the unendurable an old friend calls to take me to lunch. The restaurant turns out to be a stunning revelation to both of us. It is in a fairly charmless neighborhood surrounded by freeways and homes with bars on the windows but inside it is a true Latin Christmas. It’s as if we had gone for a quick vacation to Central America. The food is delightful, the setting cozy, our companionship and conversation comforting and stimulating to me. Families sharing holiday lunches are seated all around us. I do not have a family but I feel a part of the happiness at one particular table. My friend and I note it to each other. I am alone but suddenly I do not feel isolated. Then my friend tells me that the night before someone ran a stop sign and came within inches of a crash that sends chills down my spine as the story is recounted. I think of the years of our friendship and the many conversations we might still have about any number of things. I realize that the world and my life would be less filled with light, with joy, if the unimaginable had happened to my friend the night before with the reckless driver. We may well share other meals together in the future that are just as wonderful but probably not ever again one that will be as precious to me as this one.

Another day as I was driving around lost and in the haze of my L.A. directional dyslexia, my cell phone rang. I pulled over to the curb — because of the new cell phone laws in the state of California. It was my friend Gail, recovering from orthopedic surgery, in a snow-bound Manhattan. I sat in my car and we talked about our lives, our friendship. I told her that my work, the writing, was what I had to hold onto, what I had left from the ravages of disease and personal errors. When I hung up I saw the mountains with their snowcaps surrounding the Los Angeles basin. They popped up in 1950s Kodachrome clarity. They had been there since my arrival, but I could not see them. A close friend in New York gave me back my love of Los Angeles because of her concern for me and belief in me and another part of my reality came into focus — I began as a child-writer here, not in Manhattan.

When I got back inside the apartment, I remembered a very cold and snowy December day in the Hamptons many years before. Gail and I were on our way to a holiday party and were in the car alone. The roads had been cleared and so we took a back route. There to our right we spotted a fox playing in the snow. We were children ourselves in that observation, “it’s a fox” I whispered. We stopped the car and watched the fox not at all sly, but in unbridled joy scampering through his white empire, unafraid and lushly protected by his heavy coat. Was he as beautiful as I recall? Was his fur that red? Could his tail have been that long and fluffy? Probably not, but it does not matter.

There will be other holidays that might be less lonely than this one or that might be far worse. There might be other years when I am sicker than I am now, or perhaps the long awaited remission will arrive. There will be other meals and other times and conversations with this friend who has mattered. There will be other moments when the realization of how fragile it all is comes sweeping over me. There might even be a fox in the snow again. It is the reality of the present and the sweetness of the memory of past happiness that brings me to close this year with hope. The Irish writer and journalist Nuala O’Faolain wrote a memoir entitled Are You Somebody? It had great influence on me because I read it when I felt I was Nobody At All. I was saddened to read her obituary in the New York Times in May of this year. Although I knew she had been very ill, the news of her absence hit me. My real sorrow was because of something she said in one of her last interviews: “…the world said to me, that’s enough of you now and what’s more, we’re not going to give you any little treats at the end.”

I wished I could have told her before she became so ill what I have learned about living the unwell life to the maximum, to the absolute last morsel of it. There are so many treats along the way of life no matter how ill or in how much pain we find ourselves. It’s our job to find them and to hold them close to us — from our deepest friendships to the memory of the fox in the snow drifts. And to remember to give treats large and small to as many others as we possibly can.

I conclude 2008 with a Theodore Roethke line that is probably everybody’s favorite Roethke but it seems the only way for me to say Happy Holidays, A Light Filled Chanukah and A Very Merry and Blessed Christmas.

“What Else is there to say? We end in joy.”

—Alida Brill

The Triumphant Return of Mr. Rot

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:24:09 -0500

I’ve been in a rough campaign battle and I’ve lost – again. According to my personal polling results, it wasn’t even a close race. I am not going to be elected The Well-Woman with at least a four-year term guarantee.

I call my autoimmune disease Mr. Rot and he has returned. He’s right back at my side, as close as he can get to me and is he ever triumphant! He and I have been partners for so long it seems appropriate to give him a name. I have an atypical form of Wegener’s Granulomatosis, named for a distinguished doctor, who, unfortunately, was also a Nazi doctor. There is continuing discussion in the medical community about changing the name of the disease. Strip him of his awards posthumously, but keep the name. If ever there were a Nazi of a disease, this one is it. But, I just call it Mr. Rot. It suits his behavior. He feasts on my cells, munches on my tissues and tries to take away my chances for happiness and success. Once again we are at war, with no end in sight.

I officially declared part of 2008 The Summer From Hell. I moved from the bed to the couch to the hospital’s infusion room to admission as an in-patient inside the “Slammer” (my term for the hospital). My jokes about my condition have grown lame. I no longer have the energy to quip that, while others may think they are chic with trips to Italy, France, England or country homes, nothing beats chic like an August adventure in Manhattan from bed to couch to hospital.

I am sad and numb; but even as he steals my thunder, I stubbornly refuse to let him take away my humor. Mr. Rot is fresh and combative. Why doesn’t he get out of town? What I mean, of course, is why can’t he retreat from my body this instant? At the end of the summer I was ready to be finished — take the staircase to the next energy field or the celestial gardens – or whatever particular metaphor or theological belief about the after-life you prefer. Good-bye. Ciao. I was so over it all – putting up with Mr. Rot, being brave, having friends insist how heroic I was, or that they had no idea I was ill at all because I looked so good. But, I didn’t get that hall pass to leave forever. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it might be for a few blessed moments in the hospital. I was spared to live another day or more, and tell more tales. That’s what writers do. I write my stories with the hope citizens on the “other planet” will also find the courage to go forward or draw a laugh of recognition from our shared experiences.

I continue on with Mr. Rot, and as in any relationship gone stale, we have reached the stall-and-wallow stage. However, I do bow before his power and pay him respect. I spend the rest of my spark plug reserve attempting to make deals with him. I just quietly and talk only to him, “Here I am still sick as a dog and weary. Let’s have an agreement, okay, Mr. Rot?” I tell him he could play fair just once. “Why don’t you go away now, really disappear, for just a few years, and then you can come back. You’ve been far too constant a companion.” As usual, his response to me is physical, never verbal. If he could it would be a resounding rejection of my pleas — “No way. I am used to you. Besides, you know something, Alida? I’ve got to tell you, you’re really a great hostess.”

My reality trumps words and witty nonsense and I must stare him down. What is wrong now is that I’m so sick of being sick. I am hiding out from almost everyone. I thought by my silence I had given my friends a holiday from my troubles. It turns out I frightened them. Why can’t my performance as Mimi end? Can’t I just sing that last aria, collapse, die, and get off the stage? Get the hook. This Mimi is ready. I know I am ready. Curtain, please. But, just as I’m convinced I’ve had it with my life, I worry I might miss something. Maybe I’m as unstoppable as this disease after all.

Now I am searching for a plateau named acceptance but do not wish to journey to a place called complete resignation. I am as worn out emotionally as I have ever been. A friend asked me whether there was a danger I would become bitter because of the disappointment of not having a real remission despite the treatments. “Bitter would take energy, wouldn’t it?” I respond in my well-rehearsed theatrical role as “Sarah Heartburn.

I might well be on the road to bittersweet, which is not a good destination for an aging woman with a seemingly vigorous disease. Why is Mr. Rot so healthy and robust as I grow older, exhausted and sad in a way that takes words from me? Without words do I exist at all? A more terrifying philosophical concept sweeps through my brain-filters…without Mr. Rot do I exist at all?

I wonder if I will finally succumb to what I have fought against since childhood. Will I become a set of symptoms and manifestations of disease, totally eclipsed by Mr. Rot? Will he have the last laugh, the last dance, or in the worst-case scenario: will he steal the very last word from my lips, or hop on my laptop and write my last lines. He’s very crafty and he might well do that. –But not just yet.

-Alida Brill

About the Authors

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:08:00 -0500

Alida Brill is a feminist social critic who has written on such diverse topics as medical and sexual privacy, the ethics surrounding the right to die, the role of gender in society, tolerance and prejudice and the conflict between the personal and the public. See her website for more.

Michael D. Lockshin, M.D. is one of the world’s leading experts in the long-term care of chronically ill people. He is the Director of the Barbara Volcker Center for Women and Rheumatic Disease at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. He is Professor of Medicine and Obstetrics/Gynecology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Arthritis & Rheumatism. In November of 2008, the New York Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award. See his website for more about his work, writing and research.

Press Release

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:08:00 -0500

Press Release: DANCING AT THE RIVER’S EDGE: A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness

SCHAFFNER PRESS KICKS OFF 2009 BY TAKING THE MEMOIR FORM TO NEW HEIGHTS WITH ALIDA BRILL’S AND MICHAEL D. LOCKSHIN’S PROVOCATIVE MEMOIR DANCING AT THE RIVER’S EDGE:A PATIENT AND HER DOCTOR NEGOTIATE LIFE WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS

LOS ANGELES, CA- DECEMBER 10, 2008-Schaffner Press will publish Dancing at the River’s Edge: A Patient and Her Doctor Negotiate Life with Chronic Illness January 8, 2009 in hardcover for an SRP of $23.99. The book will be supported by a series of signings, lectures and a radio tour starting in New York in early January, and rolling out across the country with emphasis on the east and west coast.

The dual memoir is a personal look inside the world of the doctor/patient relationship, as the reader learns of the day-to-day struggles endured by a patient with chronic illness, as well as the deep concerns and conflicts of the doctor who is engaged in the ongoing decisions to help his patients maintain a reasonably “normal” and full life. The book is an intimate portrait of the delicate balance between doctor and patient, and will help people who struggle with chronic illness, and the friends and family who support them. All topics are discussed, ranging from sex and suicide, to careers, fears and loneliness.

Publisher Tim Schaffner exclaims: “This book is a revealing and original look at chronic illness and the medical world. I am proud to publish this truly original dual memoir, and hope that it helps to bring comfort and understanding to all those living with, or caring for, a person struggling and living with a chronic illness.”

The book is already gaining momentum and buzz in all spheres of influence,

“DATRE is an extraordinary meditation on illness….” says Dave Isay, Executive Director, StoryCorps and editor of the bestseller Listening is an Act of Love.”

Film Producer (You’ve Got Mail, The X Men trilogy) and Lupus patient, Lauren Shuler Donner says of the book,” it delves into the intricacies and intimacy of chronic illness…..It illuminates the spirit…..”

and Paul Volcker states “Dancing at the River’s Edge…is about the trials and tribulations of chronic disease. I have been able to read it in advance and I tell you—I get no royalties from these books, but you ought to get a copy and read it. You won’t be able to put it down once you pick it up…”

Alida Brill is a social critic, essayist and author of several non-fiction books, including, Dimensions of Tolerance, Nobody’s Business and A Rising Public Voice. She lives in New York City.

Michael Lockshin, M.D., is one of the country’s leading experts in the long-term care of chronically ill patients. He is the Director of the Barbara Volcker for Women and Rheumatic Disease at the Hospital for Special Surgery and a professor of medicine and obstetrics/gynecology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He lives in New York.

Schaffner Press, Inc. is an independent small press publisher in Tucson, Az., specializing in provocative and socially-conscious works of fiction and non-fiction, both reprints and originals whose books are distributed for the trade by IPG: 312-337-0747.

For further information on DANCING AT THE RIVER’S EDGE, visit the website at Schaffner Press or the following blogsites: news.schaffnerpress.com and Dancing at the Rivers Edge.

Also for further information about the authors, visit their websites: Alida Brill and Michael Lockshin

# # #

SCHAFFNER PRESS

Tim Schaffner 520.743.1836 tim@schaffnerpress.com