Just as her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the author, a professional anthropologist, received a positive cancer diagnosis. She applied her anthropologist’s eye to their experiences, and the result is a touching and unsparing diary of daily life impacted by serious illness.

When two life-shattering illnesses, cancer and Alzheimer’s, strike the same family, what kind of upheaval will follow? Anthropologist and author Liu Shao-Hua had long been a researcher of the vicissitudes of human lives in interaction with their environment and circumstances. When she and her mother received simultaneous diagnoses, she began recording their experiences with an anthropological eye for detail, creating an intimate and objective record of a family coming to terms with grave illness.

As a cancer patient, she states that “to undergo treatment for cancer is to embrace the courage to survive”. Her detailed portrait of the psychology of illness will help readers understand why facile encouragement can make those suffering from serious illness feel more isolated, or even abandoned. She also emphasizes the importance of vulnerability. Entrusting oneself to the care of others and engaging the support of family and friends can help provide what the afflicted need most: a sense of connection.

At the same time, her experience of cancer enhances her ability to empathize with her mother’s condition. Even has her mother’s memory declines, and her daily activities are curtailed, the author takes care to trace the course of her mother’s thoughts, inferring her needs, and taking pleasure in her mother’s quick retorts and easy smile. Even as losses are incurred, and the shroud of disease draws close around the family, many of the most cherished and truly important elements of life remain.

This unsentimental chronicle depicts every aspect of living with a grave illness, down to the burdens and worries borne by loved ones. At the same time, the course of these two diseases has the effect of deepening family ties, and enhancing the appreciation of life’s precious moments. Healing, Redefined reminds readers that we start life dependent on our caretakers, and our life’s journey is not complete until we return the favor. Aging, disease, and death are the darkness that marks the road of life, but with companionship and understanding, the journey will see many bright days as well.