Tree Barking: A Memoir - Softcover

Nesta Rovina

3.55

22 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597140813 ISBN 13: 9781597140812

Publisher: Heyday Books, 2008

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Tales of a health-care worker the triumph of compassion and dignity over poverty and bureaucracy As a home health therapist, Nesta Rovina has seen and heard it all: a stroke victim who learned to roll off her bed at night to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of rival gangs and drug dealers; a man who lived off grass and bugs for a week while fleeing his native Laos; a sixteen-year-old gunshot victim who was left for dead by a man targeting prostitutes; a heroin addict who after having her left hand amputated when it is infected from frequent injections begins popping on her right hand. Yet, on the good days, when Rovina s patients share their stories over home-cooked dinners, the result can be an alchemical transformation of mind, heart, and spirit. In these moments, sickness, poverty, and the chaos of the streets outside are forgotten. The bureaucracy of the health-care system is forgotten. The world-weariness and jadedness of the therapist is forgotten. These days of warmth and camaraderie keep Rovina going and give her hope for humanity. Then, Rovina s own story begins to emerge: from her upbringing in South Africa, through family tragedy in Israel, to her decision to become a health-care worker. We sympathize as she confronts America s bruised and battered health-care system; we cheer her on as she joins a union fight against county layoffs, and with her we find compassion and understanding for all her housebound clients who no matter their circumstances carry on with faith, humor, and kindness.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Nesta Rovina was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She received a degree from Rhodes University, in Grahamstown. During her eleven years in Israel, she spent eight years in Kibbutz Ein Dor and received a degree in occupational therapy in Jerusalem. Rovina has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 1980 and she completed a master s degree at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California. Her essays have been published locally and in England.

Review:

STARRED REVIEW Rovina, Nesta. Tree Barking: A Memoir. Heyday. Apr. 2008. c.208p. ISBN 978-1-59714-081-2. pap. $14.95. HEALTH Rovina, who grew up in South Africa but moved to a kibbutz in Israel and married a fellow kibbutznik (also from South Africa), was only 26 when her young husband was killed in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Realizing then that "life is random and unfair, no one is immune from suffering," she decided to study occupational therapy at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, moved again, and then finally settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where she found employment as a home health-care therapist at the Contra Costa County home-health agency. This is the inspirational story of her encounters with homebound patients, all sufferers of old age, devastating illness, or violence. Because she was one of the agency's few home health-care therapists willing to venture into low-income and often dangerous neighborhoods, that's where she was often assigned. With skill and devotion, Rovina cared for her patients, many of whom came to appreciate and love her for it. Not many home health-care therapists have written about their experiences-fewer still with such care reflection, and skill. Highly recommended for general library collections.-Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH --Library Journal, April 1, 2008

The tree barking diagnosis baffled Rovina, even when she saw the patient s legs horribly swollen, gnarled, and with rotting crevasses resembling decomposing bark the results of impeded circulation, she learned, alleviated by simple exercises. She learned much more that she reveals in her fast-moving memoir, in which present scenarios trigger memories. Growing up in South Africa under apartheid, feeling guilty and ashamed, at 20 Rovina studied in Tel Aviv and became a young widow in 1973, which focused her on helping others through occupational therapy. In 1992 she began work in America as a home-health therapist. Her vivid writing provides snapshots, as it were, of the likes of poor, black Sophie, whose pains from herniated discs were repeatedly dismissed by doctors until, furious and desperate, she confronted one; and newsreels of the 1990s insurance- and recession-driven budget cuts that eroded patient care and capped Medicare payments to home-health agencies. Quotas compelled therapists to leave patients untreated, and Rovina wondered why she remained. Compelling reading for those concerned about the health-care industry. --Booklist 3/15/08 (Vol. 104, No. 14)

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.