After Shock

Learning to Reinhabit My Body After Illness

De: Rana Awdish

Narrado por: Farah Kidwai

In this powerful follow-up to her bestselling memoir In Shock, a doctor asks: What does it truly mean to heal?

This program features author notes and a dedication read by the author.

In the aftermath of her own critical illness, physician and writer Dr. Rana Awdish finds herself oddly estranged her from her own body. Medicine has conditioned her to view sick bodies as broken objects, not as sites of meaning, mystery, and quiet wisdom. So, when her own body warns her that she'll be dead in five years, she's unsure whether to trust it enough to follow where it leads. Allowing for this kind of innate, bodily wisdom would require her to dismantle and reconfigure her entire belief system. She decides to take a leap of faith, abandon certainty and surrender to the message—a choice that ultimately saves her life. What emerges is a profound and vulnerable meditation on the true nature of healing.

Guided by the evocative power of art from Frida Kahlo to Mark Rothko, as well as her own creative process, After Shock is part memoir and part guidebook to sustaining wonder and attention to beauty even in the face of grief and loss. Awdish elegantly draws us into a space where our perception shifts and curiosity leads to profound revelation. She invites us to reclaim the power that resides in our attention, relationships and willingness to stay present with suffering long enough for it to transform into something else.

Through her poetic prose and evocative imagery, we learn to see differently, feel deeply, and trust that healing is always possible.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

Intimate, Brave, and Achingly Beautiful

After Shock by Dr. Rana Awdish is one of those books that stays with you long after you've turned the last page. Beautiful, intimate, and deeply brave, it's the kind of writing that makes you feel as though you've lived alongside the author, transported through every room, every memory, every moment of reckoning she invites you into. The descriptive writing is extraordinary; Awdish has a gift for placing you so completely inside a scene that the world around you disappears.

What surprised me most was the full range of emotion this book conjures. I laughed, I cried, and I sat in quiet awe more times than I can count. It never felt heavy-handed, just honest, and achingly human. I genuinely could not put it down.

Awdish's child, Walt, featured in this book, has a way of exploring the world that can only come from someone who hasn't been talked out of what they notice. It's the same quality that runs through this book, to let what’s instinctive and true be enough.

This is a very special piece of writing. Whether you come to it as someone who has navigated illness, worked in medicine, experienced grief, or simply loves language that does something to you. Awdish doesn't just tell a story; she transforms the way you think about healing, the body, and what it means to truly listen to yourself.