WALK IT OFF

Walk It Off: The True (and Oddly Hilarious) Story of How I Learned to Stand, Walk, Pee, Run, and Even Have Sex Again, After a Nightmarish Diagnosis Turned My Perfectly Awesome Life Upside Down by Ruth Marshall is a laugh-out-loud funny, endearing anti-misery-memoir.

Furiously Happy meets Lainey Lui in this truly original – and surprisingly hilarious – memoir about one woman's journey to learn how to walk after a debilitating diagnosis turned her life upside down.

Ruth Marshall – mom, wife, actor, and daughter – was in great health, until one day when she was 46 years old, her feet started to tingle. As the feeling traveled up her legs, Ruth visited doctors and specialists for tests, but no one could figure out the cause of her symptoms. Was she imagining those pesky tingles? And then came the new numbness spreading across her lower half. Was this menopause coming way ahead of schedule? She tried to brush it off, even as she tripped over curbs and bumbled into people. Clumsiness is charming, right?

But when Ruth suddenly couldn't feel her legs at all, she knew something was terribly wrong. An MRI revealed a rare tumour – a meningioma (fun to say, awful to have!) – that had been quietly growing on her spine for over a decade. Surgery was scheduled, and after the intense eight-hour ordeal, Ruth woke up to find her legs and feet had forgotten how to do well, everything. She didn't know if she'd walk again.

What Ruth thought would be three days in the hospital turned into months of rehabilitation as she learned not only how to stand, step, walk, run, and even have sex again, but how to better appreciate everyone around her – including her doting husband; her two young sons; her worried parents; her loving friends; and the caring staff at the rehab center who helped her tackle her recovery head on.

Laugh-out-loud outrageous and searingly honest, this is a memoir that not only entertains but inspires readers to put their best foot forward and walk off anything life throws their way.

Ruth Marshall is a Canadian actor known for her TV roles in ‘Flashpoint,' ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation,' and ‘Doc' with Billy Ray Cyrus and for her voiceover work. Walk It Off is her first book and we hope you'll agree that her background as an actor translates to the page: she draws the readers in not just to the words on the page but to her personally. Ruth wants to give any reader who's going through a tough time, regardless of the circumstances, the chance to laugh and forget their troubles, even if it's just for a moment, and to make them feel slightly less alone in their worries.