HEALTH
REVIEW
A Few Minor
Adjustments:
A Memoir of Healing
By Cherie Kephart
T
he title of Cherie Kephart’s mem-
oir A Few Minor Adjustments be-
lies the depth of pain, illness, and
fortitude she has endured while
battling a mysterious and relent-
less illness contracted during her
world-traveling adventures. With
humor and insightful storytelling, Kephart grabs
the reader with vivid descriptions of her Peace
Corps assignment in a remote village of Africa
that was the start of her medical odyssey. She
then narrates in alternating funny and anguishing
prose her repeated encounters with well-mean-
ing, but clueless medical doctors and healers in a
torturous and uncertain journey to find healing.
A Few Minor Adjustments: A Memoir of Healing cov-
ers seven years in which the author devolves from
a healthy, adventurous explorer to a pain-filled,
health-challenged patient buffeted by medical
diagnoses that gave her no relief from her suffer-
ing. Through it all, Kephart stays true to her desire
to maintain an active life, regardless of her symp-
toms.
Kephart’s writing flows with beautiful, and some-
times disturbing descriptions of her adventures,
both in the wild and in her doctors’ offices. In the
end, her book is a testament to Kephart’s will to
live in the face of the inadequacies and myopic
vision of modern medicine.
17 | HAPI Guide
In trying not to die, Kephart learned to live.
Through it all, she found self-acceptance, love,
and forgiveness. In the end, she found the gift in
facing death: Life.
Reviewed by MJ Schwader