Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand: The Uplifting True Story of a Mother's Brave Quest to Save Her Daughter - Softcover

Julliand, Anne-Dauphine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1628724447 ISBN 13: 9781628724448

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

Thaïs is almost two. Like most well-loved children, she is happy. She laughs as she runs on the beach. But her footprints in the sand, with toes turned out, tell a different story. Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand relates the overwhelming tragedy experienced by a family as a result of a genetic disorder.

A true tale told by a mother, it’s the story of a little girl, of family, friends, and the medical community united to define life by its beauty rather than its length. On the day Thaïs turns two, her mother, the author Anne-Dauphine Julliand, learns that her child has an untreatable genetic disease, the rarest of the rare, a silent disorder that will slowly paralyze her daughter’s nervous system and kill her. Metachromatic leukodystrophy MLD is the diagnosis. There is no cure.

While the disease may be grim, neither this book nor the people in it are. Grace, dignity, and most of all love mark the lives of all those involved in the care of Thaïs. Julliand does not play down the pain of her child or of her family, or the exhaustion, discouragement, or burden each of them carries. She promises her daughter a full life not a life like other children have but a happy life, a life of love. Thaïs’s family and the medical staff around her fight to provide comfort and efficient care, to conserve her dignity, to give her love, to add life to days when we cannot add days to life.”

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About this title

Review:

Reviews for the international bestseller Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand

"Though the author’s account charts suffering of mythic proportions, the lessons gleaned from her daughters prove incredibly wise. Unflinching and inspirational, a parent’s powerful tale of finding love and understanding beyond the senses."
Kirkus Reviews

Exceptional insights into life.”
ELLE

A story carried by the incredibly tranquility of spirit of a mother put to the test.”
Le Point

An extraordinary autobiographical account.”

About the Author:

Anne-Dauphine Julliand was born in 1973 in Paris. After studying journalism, she went on to work as a journalist. In 2006, she learned that her second child, Thaïs, was suffering from a rare disease and didn't have much time left to live. She wrote this book after the overwhelming two years in which she and her husband, supported by all those around her, took care of Thaïs. At first, she wrote it for herself, her husband, and her children. Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand became a publishing phenomenon that swept France off its feet and is now a bestseller there.

Adriana Hunter is the translator of works by Catherine Millet, Genevieve Jurgensen, Amelie Nothomb, Viviane Moore, and Louis Sanders.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1628724447
• ISBN 13: 9781628724448
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208