Head above Water: Reflections on Illness
SynopsisPlot
Shahd Alshammari is just eighteen when she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and told by her neurologist that she would not make it past age thirty. Despite what she is told, by thirty, she has become a professor of literature, and has managed to navigate education systems in both Kuwait and the United Kingdom and inspire generations of students. Charting her journey with raw honesty, Alshammari explores disability, displacement, and belonging—not only of the body, but of culture, gender, and race, and imparts wisdom of profound philosophical value throughout. It is people, human connections, that keep us afloat, she argues—"and in storytelling we have the power to gain a sense of agency over our lives."
Story
About this book
Shahd Alshammari was eighteen years old when she received a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Her neurologist told her she would not live past thirty. This memoir traces what followed: years of navigating medical systems, university life, and the daily realities of chronic illness across two countries, Kuwait and the United Kingdom. Alshammari writes with directness about what it means to be categorized as ill by the people and institutions around her, and how that label shaped her sense of self.
By the time she reached thirty, Alshammari had become a professor of literature. The book moves between her experiences as a patient, a student, and a teacher, examining how disability intersects with questions of gender, race, displacement, and cultural belonging. She is interested not only in the body's limits but in the social structures that define who belongs and who does not.
Throughout the memoir, Alshammari returns to reading and storytelling as forms of agency. She considers how literature offered her a way to make sense of her own situation and to connect with others. The book is philosophical in tone, grounded in specific lived detail rather than abstraction.
