The Ballad of Billy The Kidney

Leaving your old life behind: the case of Michael J Fox

Today's Weekend Australian newspaper publishes an extract from Michael J Fox's book Always looking up.  (See also book icon to the right of this page.)

In this extract, Mr Fox talks about walking away from his former profession of acting in response to his dealing with Parkinson's Disease.

In fairness to Mr Fox, perhaps the excerpt was not clearly contextualised properly.  And I hasten to add that I have not read the whole book yet.

But in the excerpt he goes on a bit about "walking away" from his old profession of acting in a manner (in my humble opinion) of suggesting totally abandoning all that he might have elarned from that career.

...my resolution was to leave behind everything that I had resolved to achieve, acquire, and accumulate over the last twenty years.  I knew I wouldn't just be leaving the show [Spin City] - I would be putting aside my life as an actor.  While I always had difficulty thinking of myself as an artist, I took pride in being a craftsman.  I think I understood that even though, officially, my retirement was from Spin City and not my career as a whole, I couldn't just tweak the schedule or the working conditions and expect to take on another leading role in a television series or film.  That was it.  I was essentially pulling the plug.

I believe that people shouldn't be thinking of terms of turning their back on their old lives when they have to abandon an old career due to medical circumstances - such as illness leading up to a transplant.

Sometimes people can hang on to their "old" lives too much - as I believe might possibly have been the case with Jonah Lomu.

But there are skills and aspects of your "old" life that you should hang on to and seek to develop in your "new" life.  No sense hiding this under a bushel!  (This is what I try to get across to my mature-age students making a career change.)

You have a lot of skills and aptitudes that you continue to carry about in your head - even after you've left your old career.

I dunno - am I being unfair to Michael J Fox?

• The picture of Michael J Fox is from Celebrity Values

• John's disclaimer regarding commentary on health issues

Great figures in Transplant / Non-Transplant history: James A Michener

James A Michener (1907-1997) was an American author who, in the words of Wikipedia,

...[wrote] more than 40 titles [ie books], the majority of which are novels of sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in a particular geographic locale and incorporating historical facts into the story as well.

Michener travelled extensively, and his experiences are interwoven into his words.  Visit the Hawaiian Islands (other than Waikiki Beach) and you will get a glimpse of this.

Michener died in his 90th year following his decision to discontinue dislysis treatment. 

In the limited time I had to research this article I was unable to learn how long he had kidney troubles (whether this was an old-age condition or whether it had been present for longer) - if any reader happens to know (and can cite a reference) then the readers and the writer of this blog would be pleased to learn.

There is a huge amount of material on James  A Michener in the World Wide Web.  May I scratch the surface by suggesting the following:

• Academy of Achievement : biography of James A Michener
• University of Northern Colorado > James A Michener Library. : This is one of the campus libraries of the institutional successor to his old school, the Colorado State College of Education.
• The Michener Collection of the University of Northern Colorado : Built and extended upon Michener's first donations of his papers to his old school in 1978
• State Library of New South Wales [Australia] : listing of material by or about James A Michener
• The James A Michener Society
• The James A Michener Art Museum of Doylestown PA USA
• United States Postal Service issue of 59c James A Michener stamp in May 2008
• BrainyQuote : quotations by James A Michener. I particularly like this one:

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

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• The picture at the top of this post is from the website of the Presedential Medal of Freedom.
  

Great figures in Transplant / Non-Transplant History: Kumantjayi Perkins

Reader advisory:  Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following post includes an image of a person since deceased.