
A Life Impossible
Living with ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence
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Narrated by:
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Daniel Cummings
About this listen
From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face of ALS
"Gleason is a symbol of resilience, hope and optimism.”—The New York Times • "Steve Gleason has changed the world."–Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner • "An extraordinary book...A Life Impossible will change the way people cope, think, and live."–Mike Lupica, co-author with James Patterson of 12 Months to Live
In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.
His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel’s unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.
This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one’s body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.
©2023 Steve Gleason and Jeff Duncan (P)2023 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Steve and Michel Gleason have helped ease suffering and restore hope for countless families grappling with ALS. In the face of unrelenting adversity, they’re teaching us all what it means to show up and fight for others."—Bill Gates
"Steve Gleason stands for hope, and he stands for infinite possibilities.”–Drew Brees, former New Orleans Saints quarterback
“Steve Gleason has proven to be a great man, a great partner and father, and a truly great competitor. . . . His battles are daily and his victories are to be celebrated. . . . The same goes for this book. It is not written by a mere mortal, but a true hero whose wisdom is hard-earned and his generosity a public service. I love and admire him, deeply.”—Eddie Vedder
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Story
The road from a high school track to an Olympic starting line is long and sometimes shadowy. Obstacles like chronic injuries, under-fueled nutrition, and coercive coaching can threaten to derail careers before they’ve even begun. Frustrated by seeing young talent burn out before reaching their potential, professional distance runner Molly Huddle and college coach Sara Slattery have teamed up with trailblazing running legends and sports medicine professionals to create an essential guide to reach your running potential.
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Buy the paper copy
- By Kara Abshire on 07-20-24
By: Molly Huddle, and others
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I Can't Save You
- A Memoir
- By: Anthony Chin-Quee
- Narrated by: Anthony Chin-Quee
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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At first glance, Anthony Chin-Quee looks like a traditional success story: a smart, ambitious kid who grew up to become a board-certified otolaryngologist—an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. Yet the truth is more complicated. As a self-described “not white, mostly Black, and questionably Asian man,” Chin-Quee knows that he doesn’t fit easily into any category. Growing up in a family with a background of depression, he struggled with relationships, feelings of inadequacy, and a fear of failure that made it difficult for him to forge lasting bonds with others.
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A great read by the author
- By A. Li on 04-10-23
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We Should Not Be Friends
- The Story of a Friendship
- By: Will Schwalbe
- Narrated by: Will Schwalbe
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, writers, visual artists and comp lit majors, and various other quirky characters including the handful of students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.
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Great read
- By Victoria L. on 03-22-24
By: Will Schwalbe
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More than I Imagined
- What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew
- By: John Blake
- Narrated by: John Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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John Blake grew up in a Black neighborhood in inner-city Baltimore that became the setting for the HBO series The Wire. There he became a self-described “closeted biracial person,” hostile toward white people while hiding the truth of his mother’s race. The son of a Black man and a white woman who met when interracial marriage was still illegal, Blake knew this much about his mother: She vanished from his life not long after his birth, and her family rejected him because of his race. But at the age of seventeen, Blake had a surprise encounter that uncovered a disturbing family secret.
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Should be required reading!
- By Karen Campbell on 05-15-23
By: John Blake
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When the World Didn't End
- A Memoir
- By: Guinevere Turner
- Narrated by: Guinevere Turner
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In this immersive, spell-binding memoir, an acclaimed screenwriter tells the story of her childhood growing up with the infamous Lyman Family cult—and the complicated and unexpected pain of leaving the only home she’d ever known.
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Boring
- By Jes on 06-15-23
By: Guinevere Turner
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Out of the Darkness
- The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Aaron Rodgers is among the two or three most talented players to ever hold the most important job in American team sports–quarterback. He also stands as the most mysterious and polarizing figure in the modern-day national pastime that is professional football. From his controversial Covid stance to his methods of spiritual awakening to his estrangement from his family to his high-profile romances to his devastating Achilles injury a mere four plays into his New York Jets career, Rodgers has long dominated the NFL’s news cycle.
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Author seems clueless as to what draws a lot of people to Aaron
- By Amy on 09-12-24
By: Ian O'Connor
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Hidden Mountains
- Survival and Reckoning After a Climb Gone Wrong
- By: Michael Wejchert
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2018, two couples set out on a climbing expedition to Alaska’s Hidden Mountains, one of the last wild ranges in North America. A rarity in modern climbing, the peaks were nearly unexplored and untouched, a place where few people had ever visited and granite spires still awaited first ascents. Inspired by generations of daring alpinists before them, the four climbers were now compelled to strike out into uncharted territory themselves.
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Disjointed Narrative and Confusing Storylines
- By Emily A. Brown on 08-16-24
By: Michael Wejchert
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Candace Pert
- Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science
- By: Pamela Ryckman
- Narrated by: Jess Nahikian, Pamela Ryckman
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Candace Pert stood at the dawn of three revolutions: the women’s movement, integrative health, and psychopharmacology. A scientific prodigy, she was 30 years ahead of her time, preaching a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to healthcare and medicine long before yoga hit the mainstream and “wellness” took root in our vernacular. Her bestselling book Molecules of Emotion made her the mother of the Mind/Body Revolution, launching a paradigm shift in medicine. Deepak Chopra credits her with creating his career, and he said as much in his eulogy at her funeral.
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Fascinating and important story!
- By Suzanne Duvalsaint on 11-16-23
By: Pamela Ryckman
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Wildflower
- A Memoir
- By: Aurora James
- Narrated by: Aurora James
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Aurora James’s life is a great American “success story”—precisely because it looks so different from others we’ve seen. Scouted as a teen model, James struggled with body image and became disenchanted by the industry’s objectification of women and commodification of race. After she’d hit rock bottom, dropping out of high school and being arrested for street racing, she was forced to reshape her life. A slew of fashion-related jobs led James to discover the power of the runway, and she started her own business in a flea market.
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Mesmerizing!
- By Julie on 05-15-23
By: Aurora James
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Good Grief
- On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter
- By: E.B. Bartels
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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An unexpected, poignant, and personal account of loving and losing pets, exploring the singular bonds we have with our companion animals, and how to grieve them once they’ve passed.
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Much needed reflections.
- By Stephanie Joens on 11-07-24
By: E.B. Bartels
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Heretic
- A Memoir
- By: Jeanna Kadlec
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful--in her marriage to a pastor’s son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God--but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. Heretic is a memoir of rebirth. Within, Kadlec reckons with religious trauma and Midwestern values, as a means of unveiling how evangelicalism directly impacts every American--religious or not--and has been a major force in driving our democracy towards fascism.
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Average story about faith and being LGBTQ
- By A. Sampson on 11-26-23
By: Jeanna Kadlec
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Nervous
- Essays on Heritage and Healing
- By: Jen Soriano
- Narrated by: Jensen Olaya
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Activist Jen Soriano brings to light the lingering impacts of transgenerational trauma and uses science, history, and family stories to flow toward transformation in this powerful collection that brings together the lyric storytelling, cultural exploration, and thoughtful analysis of The Argonauts, The Woman Warrior, What My Bones Know, and Minor Feelings.
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Trauma Wisdom
- By Anonymous User on 01-22-24
By: Jen Soriano
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Unraveling
- What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater
- By: Peggy Orenstein
- Narrated by: Peggy Orenstein
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater.
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Nailed it!
- By Miss Effie on 02-19-23
By: Peggy Orenstein
Worth it
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The honesty of the raw emotions of the Author makes this book so great.
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The good the bad and the ugly
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Brutally Honest
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Courage
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Simply Beautiful
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My mother had ALS and I was one of her caretakers for several years. She lived with this awful disease for 4.5 years. She passed on 12/1/24, and I’m still reeling with grief. She received a feeding tube in 2022, but opted not to get a trach. The feeding tube extended her life for an additional two years for which I am very grateful.
Reading Steve’s book brought back so many memories of all of the struggles as we navigated a disease we knew nothing about, but were forced to learn very quickly. Listening to all of the mental, physical and spiritual struggles that Steve shared made me feel closer to my mom. I always tried to understand how she was feeling but I could never fathom the nightmare she was living each day. I know first hand, what caregiver burnout feels like and could relate so much to Michel’s feelings. It’s an awful feeling to pray for an end, because you feel like you just cannot live in the chaos of ALS another moment. Watching your most loved one wither away to nothing is pure hell on earth, it’s torturous beyond words. Yet, when my sweet mother’s life came to an end I swore I’d do it all over again to have my her back with me one more day. Reading this book made me feel so close to my mom for some reason. I felt deeply connected to the entire story. The good memories, and the bad.
If you’re looking for another good book to read, No Pressure, No Diamonds by Teri Dillion was excellent. She also wrote her entire book using her Tobii eyegaze. Like this one, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I have so much love, respect and admiration for Steve Gleason and his entire foundation, who help so many people with ALS. I love you Steve!! Thank you for sharing your beautiful soul with the world. You have left such a lasting imprint on my heart.
Genuine, Raw, Heartfelt
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Can’t say enough
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Gleason's story is inspirational
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Life changing
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