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The author overcame a sustained and painful physical crisis to emerge grateful for the gifts it has offered her. Adebiyi woke up in the hospital one evening, dressed for a party she had been attending, but unable to move and barely able to speak. She had had a stroke. The loss of independence and the gradual total dependence on medical care systems was a great burden with the full implications sinking in as she endured these conditions for nearly two years, spent mostly in a hospital bed. At a certain point, when it seemed she could not recover on medications and therapies, it was suggested that she accept a life support system called LVAD (left ventricle assistive device), which promised some relief but a shortened lifespan. She refused that treatment and took the consequences of further pain and distress until, fortuitously, she became eligible for and successfully achieved transplant surgery.
Adebiyi, who grew up in Nigeria and has lived some years in Ireland where these events took place, believed throughout this intense experience that there would be a healing, despite the dire nature of her symptoms. Her husband, family, pastors, and friends supported her through the prolonged ordeal. She frankly describes the challenges to her faith and the incidents that strengthened it. Facing pain, hunger, boredom, the inability to interact at times with loved ones, and numerous frightening emergencies, she overcame fear with prayer. She had significant revelations of how God might work through her. She came to think of him as her true father, and she, his trusting daughter. She describes her crises and the daily events of prolonged hospitalization in a direct, plain way that can offer those similarly afflicted and their families ways to cope. Her wish is to spread inspiration and hope through this realistic, spiritually enlivened memoir.