An Alpha-1 COPD Love Story by Sally Everett

Sally Everett, a 1965 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, retired in January 2003 as Regional Director of the New York State Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. She lives with her husband, Dr. Gordon L. Snider, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. This book is her gift to her Alpha-1 community. Half of all profits will go to the Alpha-1 Foundation to further research for a cure for Alpha-1 and COPD.

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
Like others writing here, I have the privilege of knowing Sally Everett, and so not only appreciate the outer truth of her story, but also recognize the inner truth of how she tells it - so economically and with such awe-inspiring matter-of-factness. How many of us, I wonder, could find within themselves the inner resources to handle - as she has - not only their own increasing vulnerability to the inroads of an incurable disease, but also after the joy of a late-flowering romance and then marriage to have to take on so soon, and without warning, the role of loving and constant care-giver to a husband much more suddenly, grievously, and repeatedly stricken with illness.Her book is thus indeed a love story, but it is also a whole lot more. It begins as a concise and useful information source about a disease which, due to the slow and unspectacular progression of its symptoms, has led to Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency remaining still one of the world's more hidden killers. It continues as an autobiography which blossoms into the titular love story - as moving as any you will find. It also embraces many tributes to other Alpha heroes and heroines whom Sally knows and has known; primus inter pares being John Walsh, the joint founder, CEO, president and driving-force behind the Alpha-1 Foundation, the ultimate mission of which is to find a cure for Alpha-1. And by its end it becomes a primer from which all readers can profit on how to meet and cope with adversity. Indeed, merely "coping" is exactly what Sally does not do, along with showing any tendency to fall into cynicism, or bitterness, or relinquishing personal responsibility to blind faith. Her four life principles spelled out at the beginning of her last chapter are worth quoting in full:1. Live life to the fullest. Life only comes around once; go for it! 2. Cherish family and friends. They are your rock, your foundation. 3. Be flexible. If at first you don't succeed, regroup and try again. 4. Plan ahead, Accept that life isn't always fair, then get on with living.Admirable, apparently simple, even obvious; easy to say, easy to write... but not easy to live up to. Sally Everett has.