About this ebook
As a respiratory therapist, Mitchell spent most of his adult life on the professional side of healthcare. He worked with frightened patients, explained treatments and medical equipment, and learned how much compassion can matter when someone is sick.
But nothing fully prepared him for the day the hospital bed became his.
A five-millimeter kidney stone led to severe pain, hospitalization, surgery, a Foley catheter, a ureteral stent, and an unexpected loss of independence. Mitchell understood the medical language around him, but knowing medicine did not make the pain hurt less or make him feel any less vulnerable.
For the first time, he experienced healthcare from the other side of the bed.
Beyond the Bed is the story of what happened next—and what Mitchell learned when the caregiver became the patient. He writes about pain, fear, dignity, communication, compassion, recovery, friendship, and the small acts of kindness that can become enormously important when someone feels most vulnerable.
As his body recovered, Mitchell also began finding his way back to the life he loved. Friendship, purpose, and returning to the water through paddling became part of a recovery that was about much more than simply getting better physically.
This renewed and updated second edition revisits the memoir that began Mitchell Ball's journey as an author, told with the perspective he gained after continuing to write and looking back at the experience with new eyes.
Beyond the Bed isn't only a story about illness. It is a story about perspective—about what patients need, what caregivers sometimes don't see, and how quickly any of us can find ourselves on the other side of the bed.
The caregiver became the patient.
And the patient changed the caregiver.
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About the author
About the Author
Mitchell Ball spent more than forty years working in respiratory therapy, caring for patients and helping people understand treatments, respiratory equipment, and the challenges that come with illness. After decades of seeing healthcare from the caregiver’s perspective, his own medical experience unexpectedly placed him on the other side of the hospital bed.
That experience became the foundation for Beyond the Bed, a deeply personal memoir about pain, vulnerability, dignity, compassion, recovery, and the lessons healthcare can look very different when you are the patient.
Mitchell is also an author and avid paddler who lives in South Florida. His writing draws from his experiences in healthcare, travel, history, everyday life, and the people and places that have shaped him. Whether writing seriously or with humor, he believes that behind every diagnosis—and every ordinary life—is a human being with a story worth telling.
Learn more about Mitchell and his books at www.booksbymitchellball.com.
