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As Much as I Care to Forget

When I sat by Jimmy’s bed to comfort him, I was the one seeking reassurance. I thought of the pain scale that hangs in a doctor’s office or in an ER’s bay. There should be one for caregivers. I was a ten at all times and Jimmy was barely registering on the scale. When he was asked about his pain, he’d pick a low number to keep everything going. He wanted the party to continue for more days.

But I knew he was barely alive.

I had moved to NYC for a job and to be close to Sam, but after four years of dating I still wondered if marriage was right for me. Aside from understanding how Jimmy managed his mental health issues, the most important question I’d ask Jimmy was the recipe of true love. I wanted to know how Jimmy knew Hazel was the one.

I had a ton of questions about love, but I knew I should cover the most important ground in case we ran out of time.

I asked Jimmy about young Hazel, and he glowed more than usual when he talked about meeting his bride. He was proud, smitten, and in love more than I had ever seen before.

Jimmy told me about his first date with Hazel.

- From  Chapter 13: True Love

"As Much As I Care to Forget"

As Much as I Care to Forget

E.B. Howell 

Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Emily graduated from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and obtained her Masters in Journalism and Public Policy at American University in Washington, DC. She served as the Scientific Communications Director of the National Kidney Foundation in New York City from 2006 – 2014;  and as a Communications Specialist at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund. The unifying thread to Howell’s career in patient advocacy is her experience generating awareness for public health issues by developing and disseminating health messaging locally and globally.

What Readers are Saying 

 

 

 

Reading. Wow.

Your writing is beautiful

and the story

is so compelling and important.

-Bethany McLean,

contributing editor at Vanity Fair. She is also a columnist at Yahoo Finance and a contributor to CNBC..

Her two books are the The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron and All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.

 

"This brave, honest and heartbreaking, but often humorous narrative takes the reader into the inner-workings of a mind besieged by bipolar disorder.

 

The journey of Liddy, her family and husband is a story of struggle, friendship, and love; but perhaps, even more importantly, it is a window into the world of how the US health care system, which continues to see the mind and body as separate entities makes those with 'mental illness,' search for proper care and support."

L. Liss, reader, artist & mother.

 "The rollercoaster ride was relentless and the spiral storytelling made me so inside the tale that I needed to find my ground before finishing up the story.

 

It takes courage to live, but it takes more courage to write about living. E.B. has hit the truth so hard I was thrust into a new understanding and such enormous compassion for what she and others with bipolar disorder go through.

 

This is brilliant work and so necessary."

 

Michèle Raper Rittenhouse, Playwright, and New Jersey Institute of Technology, Director of Theatre Arts and Technology.

E.B. Howell's candid and honest memoir intertwined with fictional storytelling is an important work that would benefit any family member, neighbor, classmate, or friend who is ready to understand in new ways the bipolar mind. Her work is sensitive, heartfelt, while being couched in a creativity that makes this an easy read to a sometimes difficult subject. The love that went into this work sweeps through every page!

- B. Brown, avid reader, wife and teacher.

What Readers Say
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Both books are a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

© 2022 by E.B. Howell

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