All in My Head: A memoir of life, love and patient power

Description

All In My Head is a memoir by a woman who in her early fifties received a life-shattering diagnosis. It is about her determined search for effective treatment, the birth of a campaign to get proper data and funding for research into glioblastoma (GBM), and finally her coming to terms with the knowledge that she has reached the end of the road. Jessica Morris takes the reader on a whirlwind journey. How does an ordinary person who last studied biology aged sixteen negotiate with world-renowned doctors and surgeons about cutting-edge treatments she must decide between? How do you remain positive when the median statistics suggest you have only fourteen months to live? How instead do you cast those fears aside and bounce back? All In My Head is much more than a book about GBM. It takes the reader into the life of a woman who when confronted by devastating news chooses to be strong. It is about fighting adversity with hope and finding reasons to be positive in the darkest moments.

Jessica Morris's life dramatically changed course at the end of January 2016, when out of the blue a seizure led to the diagnosis of an aggressive brain tumour. Since then she has been on a whirlwind journey of experimental treatments at the cutting edge of the fight against the most difficult forms of this disease. Born in Greenwich, London, Jessica has spent the past 14 years living in New York. She cut her teeth as a campaigner working for the UK homelessness charity Shelter and with refugee groups, going on to provide communications consultancy to some of the biggest companies and government departments on both sides of the Atlantic. She responded to her diagnosis by setting up a unique patient community combined with the latest interactive technology in the form of OurBrainBank, that seeks to move her tumor, glioblastoma, from terminal to treatable. She has negotiated treatment from some of the world's leading neuro-oncologists and surgeons, as well as caring for her family of five in Brooklyn.

For five years Jessica Morris fought the deadliest of brain tumours - glioblastoma (GBM) - but that was not all. She set up an international charity in the battle to render GBM treatable rather than terminal. This utterly uplifting book is a remarkable insight into a disease and one woman's battle to beat it. Doctors and patients alike responded to her determination to galvanise them in the search for a cure * Jon Snow, longest-running presenter of Channel 4 News * The pages are immense, in many ways grueling and painful and affecting, but also so deeply uplifting and wondrous. The writing is meticulous, I felt that Jess was holding my hand as I read it, she is so very present. This is a book of love and life, of courage and hope, of loss and togetherness * Philippe Sands, author of East West Street and The Ratline * Jessica Morris' account of living with brain cancer is not a book about illness, or loss, or navigating treatment options, although all of these elements are there. But in a story that travels to the outer edges of human experience, Morris's wit, determination, and powerful literary insight make this book an extraordinary exercise in joy, even as it breaks your heart. It is impossible to read All In My Head and not come away ignited * Emma Brockes * All In My Head is both painful and uplifting. It taught me a valuable lesson - to go on fighting even when you can't win. Jessica charts the ups as well as the downs with searing honesty. I felt by the final beautiful chapter nothing could take away the essence of Jess, her boldness, optimism, intelligence and the will to fight on. She made me think, and she made me cry, and of course, being Jess, she made me laugh -- Linda Grant, author of A Stranger City What a force she was, to turn her harrowing experience into something so positive, for the benefit of others. So much vision and energy in the face of such an ordeal. The book is infused with her generous spirit and self-debunking humour and evident throughout are her great gift for friendship, her love of family and zest for life * Annalena McAfee * Indomitably optimistic yet sharp, philosophical and frank, Jessica Morris is alive in these pages: a woman faced with a terminal illness who galvanised her doctors, supported fellow patients and outlived expectations. But even if luck or medicine had not made that possible, her contagious warmth and wit would remain a force to be reckoned with. To meet Jessica in this book is to join the ranks of those who loved her, and whose lives she improved every day * Gaby Wood, Director, Booker Prize Foundation * A remarkable read - life-affirming and funny and full of force and vigour and love * Sabine Durrant * Written in a voice that is loud, defiant and beautiful, and that demands to be heard...a joyful, stubborn, rambunctious fight -- Nicci Gerrard * Observer *