Nothing But Time: A Woman's Struggle with Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Another survivor of GBS, who is also a writerOnly several thousand Americans get this hard-to-diagnose, hard-to-understand disease each year. It continues to baffle doctors and researchers. The excellent writer that she is, Judy Ayyildiz unfolds her horror story of paralysis with characteristic gentleness and sensitivity. Because she interweaves childhood and family memories into her GBS story, which lends interest to the tale, a speed reader is apt to get confused. This is one book you cannot skim.Judy writes descriptively of the fear this unpredictable disease/syndrome brings. She relates how families struggle to deal with it and lend the kind of support needed by the patient, who spends many lonely hours isolated from family members who don't seem to understand. Her book title, Nothing But Time is dead on. The disease wipes you out, leaving you utterly tired and weak.

Ms. Ayyildiz book is about life and love and family and trauma and survival. It is for any who have faced the very hard times life throws at us. Judy tells her survival in voices of those who shape her life, with tears and laughter.

Judy has written a very interesting and informative book. She has the talent to make you see mential images as she describes her illness, her childhood with her two brothers and parents, and her three children and husband. We enjoyed the book very much. My wife read it in just one day. It's not all about her very painful bout with Guillain-Barre syndrome and eventual victory--she also has written humorous things that had my wife chuckling out loud. We suffered with Judy. Felt her pain and feelings of despair at times. She's just that good as an author We can recommend this book very highly and are happy to do so. Bill and Donna Light

This book is truly an inspiration for anyone who has ever run into a brick wall in life. The author faced what must be one of life's greatest nightmares--finding oneself suddenly paralyzed--and shows how she navigated her way through. Ayyildiz turns this experience into an opportunity to comb through her rich and varied memories--of growing up in West Virginia, of her courtship by and marriage to a Turkish physician, of her struggles to develop her talents and make something of herself as a writer. As she chronicles the various stages of her healing, she stitches together the disparate elements of her life, so that in the end, both her body and her "self" have a new wholeness.