Search

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw


In Laughing at My Nightmare, Shane Burcaw described growing up and striving for (and often achieving) a normal life despite his spinal muscular dystrophy, a condition causing his muscles to gradually waste away.  His follow-up, Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse, mostly focuses on his adulthood, including his love life’s challenges and rewards.  Just as young Shane strived for normalcy as a child, twentysomething Burcaw maintains a large degree of normalcy as a young adult.  It is inspiring to read about someone fighting the urge to give into despair by depending on his loved ones without resenting them, living his life actively, finding hope where he can, and most memorably, using humor.  Laughing at My Nightmare found the ridiculousness in Burcaw’s situation, including, sometimes graphically and hilariously, scatological matters; Strangers Assume does the same but adds sex as well.  As the title suggests, some of the book’s humor comes from strangers not knowing how to react to a man with a full-sized head but a child-sized body in a wheelchair leading a functional adult life, including his love life.

Strangers Assume has serious moments as well, notably when Burcaw expresses anger over a viral story about Jerika Bolen, the girl who wished and received crowd-sourced support for a make-believe prom followed by her planned death.  Burcaw did not find the story as inspirational as many apparently did.  “After it ran its fleeting course and the hoopla fizzled out,” Burcaw recalls, “a child was dead and the disabled community had been dealt a serious blow.”  Another (happier and funnier) thought-provoking chapter explains what happens when events occur requiring Burcaw and his girlfriend Hannah, who assists him with many daily tasks, have to switch roles temporarily and Shane comes to understand Hannah and the joys of caregiving better.

If the idea of reading books about someone with a debilitating disease sounds depressing, rest assured that there is a lot more triumph—and comedy—than tragedy.

Recommended by Andrew