Dancing in the Narrows chronicles a mother and daughter’s multiyear journey through illness and trauma. At sixteen, Anna’s youngest daughter, Dana, is stricken with a mysterious and debilitating condition, eventually diagnosed as Lyme disease. Desperate to find a cure, the two women are thrust into the established medical world, then far beyond. Full of adventure, humor, and blind faith, Dancing … faith, Dancing in the Narrows is an inspiring story of self-discovery as a single mother fights to save the life of her child.
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Imagine a woman who found her passion early in life. Dancing as a child in the hallway of her home and experiencing the joys of outdoor life on family camping trips fused into a lifelong passion for healing through movement and natural living. Anna Penenberg excelled in technique and taught others how to heal.
As an adult, she married and had two lively, healthy daughters for whom she shared her passions in many creative ways. Imagine children giggling in an outdoor playhouse constructed of sunflowers and vines!
One day, her teenage younger daughter, Dana, began to experience compelling symptoms from an unidentifiable source that included body pain, swelling, headaches and assorted acute sensitivities. So began a six-year saga of seeking proper diagnosis and treating random symptoms in an effort to relieve pain. Every day presented a new challenge. Dana’s body was put through unimaginable challenges – along with the stress on her mother Anna, the sole caregiver, who put her life aside in order to care for her daughter 24/7.
“Dancing in the Narrows” is a journey of trauma, endurance, resilience, hope and finding joy in a life creatively and energetically lived. Anna passed this same passion to both her daughters, leaving a legacy – not of pain, but of joy and living boldly and freely.
“Dancing in the Narrows” is Anna Penenberg’s first book – an intensely personal and sensory journey. Her experience was shared so beautifully with all of us, and reveals great promise for Anna’s future literary expression.
Remarkable Story
Penenberg pens a heart-filled title in Dancing in the Narrows: A Mother-Daughter Odyssey Through Chronic Illness. This is the first book of this author’s that I’ve read. The book gives insight into the struggle of a mother and daughter’s relationship, while dealing with a chronic illness. It’s a memoir that not only shows the truth behind the facades, but the depth of struggle along with hope and faith, and support. This also details the lengths a mother would go through in order to save her child. This is definitely worth the read. As someone who has a chronic illness, this story gave me inspiration, and even a hint of faith. Dancing in the Narrows is not just a detailed adventure into the lives of Anna and Dana, and their family, but also inspiring as well. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.
I read an advance copy of Anna Penenberg’s memoir about her daughter Dana Penenberg’s. Lyme recovery. The raw agony of a mother who is struggling to find medical help for her daughter. Anna is a single mother of two daughters. She tells of her own and her daughters struggle with her daughter Dana’s battle against Lyme.
I found the book brutally honest about the pain and struggle they endured trying to find a treatment that worked. I know from my friends struggling with chronic illness that there is a huge lack of knowledge and understanding about what daily life for a person living with chronic illness is really like. You won’t wonder after reading this book.
They did not give up even when the obstacles felt impossible to hurdle. They kept fighting and searching day after day.
The book was an interesting read. It was filled with honest raw feelings that any mother would recognize and any chronic illness survivor can relate to. It is an inspiring true life story that is worth the read. I highly recommend this book.
This review has been cross posted from my blog seekingserenityandharmony.com/blog/ to Goodreads, Book Bub and Amazon
At the age of sixteen, Anna Penenberg’s youngest daughter Dana becomes ill with a debilitating condition that would eventually be identified as chronic Lyme Disease. Dancing in the Narrows chronicles the journey mother and daughter take in efforts to find a cure.
With openness and honesty, Anna Penenberg shares her “Mother-Daughter Odyssey Through Chronic Illness (the subtitle of her book). But beyond chronicling the many challenges that go with experiencing your child’s debilitating illness, Penenberg portrays the raw emotions, gut-wrenching feelings of helplessness, and the fierce determination of a mother and child.
Seeking a cure became more than a full-time job for Anna and Dana, it became an all-consuming way of life. Together they traveled down many diverse paths: Western medicine, Eastern practices, unconventional cutting-edge trials, and a variety of extreme dietary regimens. They even traveled across the border into Mexico for a specific ozone therapy not approved for use in the U.S. by the FDA.
Dana’s tenacity for finding some relief from the disease that ravaged her body goes far beyond the depths of most people. Anna’s dedication to caring for and supporting her daughter’s quest for wellness comes at great personal toll. Their shared experiences have defined a large portion of their lives. Their relationship vacillates with the ups and downs of Dana’s illness, the (temporary) successes of new treatments and the heartbreaking failures of other treatments.
As Penenberg relates the nightmare of watching a child suffer and being helpless to effect real change for her, she deftly plants the seeds of wonder in the minds of her readers. “I wonder how far I’d go in a similar situation?” “Is there a limit to the selflessness when your child is so ill?” “From where does one draw strength and renewal when all within them is expended for the sake of another?”
Anna Penenberg is, by her own definition, a healer by nature and training. In this, her first book, she unflinchingly shares the trials and triumphs and the joys and disappointments of living with chronic illness. Her journey with her daughter through the effects of both the illness and the treatments is a testament to the human spirit and a mother’s love.
Dancer, writer, healer, and mother Anna Penenberg leads readers on a multiyear odyssey, wandering with her youngest daughter Dana, who suffers from Lyme disease, the chronic debilitating illness. At first, Dana’s illness is not accurately diagnosed. After it is, healing remains elusive.
Dancing in the Narrows A Mother-Daughter Odyssey Through Chronic Illness by Anna Penenberg was a raw and emotional read for me. I was unaware of how debilitating Lyme disease could be in its most advanced stage. I related to Anna Penenberg as a mother and admired the calmness she was able to display on the outside even when she was far from calm on the inside. She never gave up on her tireless quest for a cure no matter how obscure each new treatment might have been and how it might have impacted her own life. Anna and Dana’s determination, intuition, resourcefulness, courage, unconditional love, faith and the bond that bound them together on this long and uncertain journey were evident throughout their ordeal.
Anna was a divorced single mother of two teenage daughters when her younger daughter Dana, then a sophomore in high school, presented her first symptoms which they later learned was caused by Lyme disease. Pain, fever, swelling, rashes, fatigue, hypersensitivity to loud sounds, smells and light, and an imbalance of her nervous system all became the norm for Dana and her caregiver, Anna. In the beginning, doctors contributed her symptoms to mono, a teenage ploy for attention or a case of depression. The talented and social teenager was gone and in her place was a very sick child that no one could diagnose.
Before Dana started suffering from these numerous ailments, she was an accomplished and talented dancer. She was bright, creative and social. Little by little all those things disappeared and Dana was left with pain, the unknown and a lonely world that she and her mother shared. Over the years, Anna drove Dana all over the country to try any treatment they heard or read about that suggested any hope of curing her ailments.
Dana’s illness took its toll on Anna but she rarely let Dana see her frustration or fear. Anna described how she felt by saying, “It was like I was wearing an internal girdle cinching my gut together so emotions wouldn’t escape through my mouth.” It wasn’t until Anna was attending a conference in Massachusetts, almost a year and a half after Dana’s symptoms first began, that Anna discovered a mysterious dark speck on her neck. Anna was fearful that she might have been bitten by a tick, so when she and Dana returned home Anna began to do some research on Lyme disease.
From her research, Anna discovered that she didn’t have the symptoms for Lyme disease but Dana did. “Dana was suffering from what we would soon learn was full-blown chronic Lyme disease.” Through conventional and unconventional treatments, Dana and Anna fought, hoped, cried, occasionally smiled, but never gave up. Anna’s determination as caregiver, mother, and the receiver of Dana’s anger and resentment never deterred her from her ultimate goal which was to save Dana from a life of chronic pain or death.
When this nightmare finally ended after years of suffering and too many scary moments, Dana was able to live on her own and realize some of her dreams. Five years out from the start of her worst nightmare, Anna thought “I hadn’t created a website to showcase my talents or offer services, and I had no following. But I’d had the heroic job of standing by my ailing daughter day and night for years. It wasn’t a job that could be hired out. It wasn’t a job I chose. It wasn’t a job with tenure, benefits, retirement or prestige, but it transformed me. I was beginning anew, alone but determined.”
Neither mother nor daughter chose this path for herself. They survived what they were dealt and could now talk about it and start living their own individual lives. Their story, courage and determination were nothing short of inspiring.
I really enjoyed reading Dancing in the Narrows A Mother-Daughter Odyssey Through Chronic Illness by Anna Penenberg. Their story will stay with me for a long time. Both Anna and Dana are women to admire. I highly recommend this book. I received a complimentary copy of this book from her Literary Publicist, Stephanie Barko in exchange for an honest review.
Dancing in the Narrows
Anna Penenberg
Barbara Bamberger Scott
Author and therapist Anna Penenberg has created a mother-daughter memoir that evokes chills, sadness, frustration, and relief.
The author’s younger teenaged daughter Dana suddenly begins showing bizarre physical symptoms, symptoms that include fever, fatigue, headaches and a sense of being under attack by the world around her, as though something were assaulting her senses. She is by turns irrationally angry and pitifully childlike and helpless. Her body becomes swollen in odd places at different times. Dana must quit school, and she and her mother begin a several-year odyssey to seek a cure.
Initially diagnosed with Lyme Disease, perhaps from a tick bite, Dana responds to standard remedies for that ailment – mainly antibiotics – but only for a while. Time after time, new healing methods are tried, from magnetism to sleeping in a coffin-shaped box, to having blood taken out and then put back in her body at a Mexican beauty salon. Dana improves at times, and then becomes so sensitive to any stimuli that a random smell can make her scream. She sometimes feels as though her head is bursting and that she can barely breathe. Through an arduous, often terrifying search for any sort of long-term healing, traveling across the country in sometimes enjoyable interludes, the pair finally settles on a regimen of raw and natural foods combined with energy techniques. By the time she is twenty-one, Dana is able to live on her own.
Penenberg describes her daughter’s suffering and her own anxieties and setbacks in a gentle, almost understated manner, perhaps owing to the unconventional nature of her upbringing and character. Anna is a dance therapist, using techniques learned from dance masters as well as from Eastern, yogic and energy-gathering sources. Prayer played a role in her long journey with Dana, while their openness to supernatural phenomena and the gifts of ancient and foreign cultures also underpinned their relentless determination to save Dana’s life. The author admits that one painful aspect of the years with Dana was that she could not be physically close to her daughter, owing to the distressing nature of her symptoms. This resulted in her feeling a lack of closeness, of physical comfort, in general, something she had to overcome when in her sixties she was finally relieved of caring directly for Dana. A most remarkable closure to her memoir comes with Anna’s amazing reunion with a book – her childhood diary.
Anna Penenberg describes her coping technique throughout this period as “normalizing the abnormal.” Dancing in the Narrows provides a close-up look at the fears and hopes of a parent desperate to save her child, a child clinging to life despite its pains. This story will be read with serious intent by any parent, any mother, anyone who has experienced even a small portion of the pair’s long, strained yet close-knit bonding.
Very interesting but odd
I found this book in some ways hard to read, illness in a child is always hard but the connections between the mother and child going through what they did, was worth reading. It was hard to put down as I was hoping that every page would bring good news, and in a way it did. The love between them is well worth celebrating as they fight the good fight,
Anna Penenberg, the author of “Dancing in the Narrows” has written an amazing, and intriguing biography of searching for a cure for her daughter Dana’s illness. The genres for this book are biography, non-fiction, and single parenting.
Anna Penenberg is a divorced loving and caring mother of two daughters. She describes her love of nature, exploring, adventure, and encouraging her daughters to do that as well. I love the part of this book when Anna describes getting caterpillars for her girls, and having to travel with them while they are transitioning to butterflies. She is extremely open-minded about movements music, dance, artistic expression, and aromatherapy.
When Dana is 16 years old she becomes very ill, and is swollen, running temperatures, and hurting. First Anna takes Dana to all kinds of specialists, practitioners, and consultants to find out what Dana has, and then explores everything there is at the time to cure it. She ties conventional medical procedures, and then non-conventional medicine, and some illegal treatments. Eventually, mother and daughter find out that Dana has Lyme disease, and has had it for quite a while. All kinds of diets, herbs, medicines are mentioned, and Anna is on a quest out of love for a cure. I would highly recommend this thought-provoking biography.
Heartwarming! We connect with the author through her turmoil as she does everything she can to determine why her daughter is so ill. The book brings joy, fear, heartache and hope – emotions flip flopping throughout with the challenges they face, the setbacks and gains.
This exceptional story of a single mother who walks a long 5 year journey with her very sick teen daughter is a story not to miss. Penington’s commitment for learning her diagnosis is a lengthy struggle all in itself that takes the two seeking relief in both the medical and non-medical fields for years. I highly recommend this never-to-be-forgotten book.
I did not care for this book.
Dancing in the Narrows tells the story of Anne Penenburg and her journey to help her daughter Dana, who is battling Lyme Disease. Anne tells the story from her perspective, allowing us to feel her emotions and thoughts on her everyday life with combatting this disease and trying to find a medicine or practice that will ultimately help Dana’s symptoms.
Overall, I was quite intrigued to learn more about Lyme Disease, and this book has given me the urge to further learn about it. With this being said, I felt as though some parts of the book were rushed and/or didn’t flow smoothly into the next part. I would just be settling into a scene, learning more about a specific therapy or medicine, and the scene seemed to abruptly fast forward to a different point in time. This made it hard sometimes to connect with a character’s situation, or to fully understand what was happening in the book. I still enjoyed the book and am thankful NetGalley gave me the opportunity to read it.
This is the second book I’ve read this year on Lyme Disease, and it completely breaks my heart. A tricky illness that is hard to diagnose and even harder to extinguish symptoms. Anna and her daughter Dana battle every step of the way. It’s a story of a mother’s love and the lengths she will go to give her child any amount of relief. It’s a story of Dana’s resilience and courage to take the reigns and keep fighting for herself when others say there’s nothing else they can do. I’m rooting for you Dana
Thank you for my gifted copy in each for an honest review
I *wanted* to like this book – as someone who is living with a chronic illness, I always root for and find inspiration in stories from others in similar situations. But man, this was not great. Not even good. Maybe it was Penenberg’s writing style – the unrelated side-trips into her own upbringing; the melodrama and flowery language; the juvenile “dialog.” Maybe it was the way she portrayed her daughter Dana (whiny, entitled, selfish) and herself (a martyr, gullible). Maybe it was just the story itself: the way she dragged Dana all over this country and to Mexico and subjected her to snake-oil “treatments” without much research into them first (believe me, I understand wanting to feel better SO BAD that you’re willing to try almost anything – ALMOST – but not going to an unregulated foreign clinic to have your blood taken out of your body, infused with “ozone,” and then put back into your body!); the way she bent over backwards to attend to Dana’s every moan and groan (even when it was clearly something Dana could do herself, like make a phone call to her doctor – if she can call her mom to ask her to do so, she could’ve just called the damn doctor), or maybe it was their oblivious life of extreme privilege that most people with chronic health conditions do not enjoy (did Penenberg have a job? How was she able to just drop her entire life to care for Dana 24/7? How did she pay for her homes in L.A. and all of her travels and all of Dana’s medical expenses?). Add to this the chapters on Penenberg’s own journey through completely freaking out-there “treatments” for her trauma (being “reborn” in a swimming pool through the thighs of her therapist – WTAF) and this book was just too much.
If you don’t have a chronic illness and want to understand what it’s like (or if you do, and want to find some comfort, understanding and help), skip this unrealistic and melodramatic take and instead check out something like Brave New Medicine by Cynthia Li.