Blindsided: Lifting a Life above Illness CD

Illness came calling when Richard M. Cohen was twenty-five years old. A young television news producer with expectations of a limitless future, his foreboding that his health was not quite right turned into the harsh reality that something was very wrong when diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For thirty years Cohen has done battle with MS only to be ambushed by two bouts of colon cancer at the end of the millennium. And yet, he has written a hopeful book about celebrating life and coping with chronic illness.

"Welcome to my world," writes Cohen, "where I carry around dreams, a few diseases, and the determination to live life my way."

Autobiographical at its roots, reportorial, and expansive, Blindsided explores the effects of illness on raising three children and on his relationship with wife, Meredith Vieira (host of ABC's The View and the syndicated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?). Cohen tackles the nature of denial and resilience, the ins and outs of the struggle for emotional health, and the redemptive effects of a loving family. And while dealing with illness is not the way he chose to live his life, it did choose him.

Illness came calling when Richard M. Cohen was twenty-five years old. A young television news producer with expectations of a limitless future, his foreboding that his health was not quite right turned into the harsh reality that something was very wrong when diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For thirty years Cohen has done battle with MS only to be ambushed by two bouts of colon cancer at the end of the millennium. And yet, he has written a hopeful book about celebrating life and coping with chronic illness.

"Welcome to my world," writes Cohen, "where I carry around dreams, a few diseases, and the determination to live life my way."

Autobiographical at its roots, reportorial, and expansive, Blindsided explores the effects of illness on raising three children and on his relationship with wife, Meredith Vieira (host of ABC's "The View" and the syndicated "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"). Cohen tackles the nature of denial and resilience, the ins and outs of the...

Publishers Weekly

In 1972, when he was 25, Cohen, an up-and-coming television journalist, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease for which there is no cure. In this wrenching memoir, he tells how he has for the past 30 years succeeded in his determination to "cope and to hope." For a long time, he hid his condition from friends and co-workers, taking on dangerous assignments for CBS in Poland, Lebanon and El Salvador even though his mobility and vision were impaired. He became a senior producer at CBS, and although he eventually quit the station in 1987 because he felt it was pandering to commercial and political pressures, he worked as a producer for PBS, CNN and Fox until he left TV in the late 1990s to become a writer and teacher. In spite of his illness, he also married and had three children. He nearly lost his courage in 1999 when he learned that he had colon cancer, but after two operations and the realization that despair and anger would drive his family away, he come to grips with this, too. In painful detail, he chronicles the progress of multiple sclerosis-the increasing numbness in his hands and legs and the resultant falls, loss of vision to the point where he is now legally blind and, lately, mental confusion. Nevertheless, he writes: "These pages are not about suffering.... This book is about surviving and flourishing, rising above fear and self-doubt and, of course, anger." His wife, Meredith Vieira, a well-known television personality, has been portrayed in popular magazines as a martyr who bears a terrible burden. Cohen proves that nothing could be further from the truth. First serial rights to People magazine. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Richard M. Cohen's distinguished career in journalism earned him numerous awards, including three Emmys and a George Foster Peabody Award. He lives outside New York City with his wife, Meredith Vieira, and their three children.