Bound: A Daughter, a Domme, and an End-of-Life Story

by Elizabeth Anne Wood

Overview

Unflinchingly honest and darkly funny, this memoir will resonate with anyone facing the complicated reality of aging and illness in the United States.

Elizabeth and her mother, Judy, have always had a complicated relationship. Now they face a confounding illness, as well as a labyrinthine healthcare system, at a complicated stage of life. Nothing is as it first seems in this riveting account of an unconventional mother-daughter journey—a journey that from the start poses questions about love, life, family, aging, healthcare, sex, and death.

In Bound, Elizabeth Anne Wood addresses these questions as she chronicles the last eight months of her mother’s life—a period she comes to see, over the course of months, as a maternity leave in reverse: she is carrying her mother as she dies. Throughout their journey, Wood uses her notebook as a shield to keep unruly emotions at bay, often taking comfort in her role as advocate and forgetting to “be the daughter,” as one doctor reminds her to do. Meanwhile, her mother’s penchant for denial and childlike tendency toward magical thinking lead to moments of humor even as Wood battles the red tape of hospital bureaucracies, the frustration of planning in the midst of an unpredictable illness, and the unintentional inhumanity of a healthcare system that too often fails to see the person behind the medical chart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631526305
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	08/13/2019
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Anne Wood is a SUNY Chancellors Award–winning professor of sociology at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY. She is also Senior Strategist for Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the nation’s only human rights organization working full time to protect sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. She earned her PhD at Brandeis Universityin 1999 and has written critically about sexuality and society ever since. Born on an Army base in Kentucky, Wood grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and now divides her time between Queens, New York and Jamaica Plain, Boston. She is a devoted fan of Amtrak and an avowed cat person.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Part 1 The Crosses And The Cancers

Chapter 1 There's Always a Catch 3

Chapter 2 Role Reversal 15

Chapter 3 Intertwined 29

Chapter 4 Pleasure and Pain 45

Chapter 5 Diagnosis and Disorder 61

Part 2 The Hospital Domme And The Bondage of Bureaucracy

Chapter 6 Power (or Madam Butterfly) 83

Chapter 7 Consent (or I Don't Want Another Butt Plug) 98

Chapter 8 Permission (or Bureaucratic Bondage) 113

Chapter 9 Boundaries (or Devotion and Submission) 135

Part 3 Buffy, The Medical Advocate, And The Demons of Daughterhood

Chapter 10 Buffy 155

Chapter 11 This is Not a Plan 160

Chapter 12 A Tale of Two Rehabs 175

Chapter 13 Be the Daughter 184

Chapter 14 Whiplash 197

Chapter 15 What Next? 214

Chapter 16 Averting the Apocalypse 223

Part 4 This Is Not The End

Chapter 17 From Living to Dying 235

Chapter 18 I'm Not That Sick 242

Chapter 19 The End 250

Chapter 20 Uncertain Hours 256

Chapter 21 21st Century Grieving 264

Chapter 22 What Remains 268

Chapter 23 In Which the Disorganized Domme Scatters Herself 277

Acknowledgments 281

About the Author 285

Editorial Reviews

2020 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in Caregiving
2020 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in Death & Dying
2020 International Book Awards Finalist in Heath: Cancer
2020 International Book Awards Finalist in Health: Death & Dying
2020 Readers' Favorite Book Awards Honorable Mention in Non-Fiction: Grief/Hardship

“Sex, death, and family are some of the hardest topics for any writer to take on. Elizabeth Wood gracefully and fearlessly explores all three in this moving memoir.”
—Lux Alptraum, author of Faking it: Lies Women Tell About Sex—And the Truths They Reveal

“In this fascinating exploration of a complex mother-daughter relationship, Elizabeth Wood comes to terms with her mother's flaws and eccentricities in order to make peace with her impending death. Wood also shines a necessary spotlight on the myriad bureaucracies within our health care system that make navigating illness challenging and often dehumanizing. A smartly written, thought-provoking read.”
—Heather Frimmer, MD, author of Bedside Manners

“Elizabeth Wood puts a human face on our health care crisis. She offers a loving testimony to her mother—who lived life exuberantly as an elder dominatrix—and an indictment of the way our health care system treats those least able to advocate for themselves.”
—Joan Price, author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud about Senior Sex and the forthcoming Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Loss of Your Beloved

“Bound is a deeply honest, unflinching portrait of a daughter’s relationship with her mother at the end of life. In this affecting memoir, the intimacies of an aging woman’s lifestyle of kink and bondage become fascinating metaphors for hospital life, medical care, and physical dependence during illness and dying. Bound is both a brilliant meditation on helplessness and power and a stirring testament to the strength of bonds between people who care for each other.”
—Victoria Pitts-Taylor, PhD, author of The Brain's Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics

“Told with courage, honesty, humor, warmth, and insight, Bound offers readers a front-row seat to the negotiations between a daughter, her unconventional mother, and other family as they face the medical-emotional whiplash of terminal illness. Wood offers wisdom and perspective that is sure to help others as they straddle the painful space between what they want and the inevitability of loss. This book is filled with love and promises to be a wonderful companion for anyone faced with caregiving for a loved one.”
—Virginia A. Simpson, PhD, FT, award-winning author of The Space Between: A Memoir of Mother-Daughter Love at the End of Life

“Bound explores the complexities of caregiving in the context of a unique mother-daughter relationship. This personal story triggers universal emotions and offers insights that will help you understand your own caregiving journey.”
—Iris Waichler, MSW, LCSW, author of Role Reversal: How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents

“. . . a frank and refreshing exploration of the continued importance of sex and pleasure, even when facing a life-threatening illness . . . a rewarding read.”
—Dallas Voice

From the Publisher