Amazing Grace: Autobiography of a Survivor

Amazing Grace: Autobiography of a Survivor by Halloran, Grace. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781880823057.

At eighteen this rebel street kid found herself in Federal prison for stealing a car. When a new program gave her the chance for an outside day job while still in prison, she took it...along with the opportunity for clandestine lovemaking in a cheap hotel with fellow prisoner. She was caught, stripped of her privileges. She also was pregnant. That brought a parole and a devastating betrayal—the price of her freedom was giving up her unborn child for adoption. Out of prison, she plunged into the heady world of radical antiwar politics, playing and partying through the wild world of the late sixties in San Francisco. Until recurring headaches drove her to seek medical help. "Sorry, we cant find any tumors," they said. "However, you are going blind. Oh yes, its incurable, irreversible, and hereditary." She was twenty-three. She bore a second child, a son. He would probably go blind, too. That made her mad and changed her life. No, by God, he wouldnt go blind! This is the true story of Grace Halloran, a survivor, a person who gets things done against all odds. She tells how she, a blind mother, raised her son. She recounts the step-by-step process of intuition and serendipity that led to her developing unorthodox therapies which finally reversed her irreversible disease and reversed it in others, as well! What? The official scientific/medical commuity was incensed. How dare she! She tells about her growing reputation. She gave classes. People from all over the world came to her, and she went all over the world. Her stories of helping people to see again are poignant. One thing is clear: she loves these people. She cares, and passionately. But when she founded the Center for Eye Health Education in northern California, that was too much for the scientific/medical community. Who did this woman think she was? Reversing the irreversible! Political pressure led to the cancellation of the $100,000 grant from the State of California. The Center folded. But Grace didnt. Amazing Grace is the powerful story of one womans courage and fierce determination to save her son and herself from blindness. Full of fun and gritty reality, it is an inspiring account of what determination in the face of overwhelming odds can do. It is also a story of personal triumph over helter-skelter beginnings, even to the final pages, when Grace discovers what happened to the daughter who was wrested from her and put up for adoption over twenty years before.