Beyond the Red Door

📖 The Scoop

Janet Shaw was adopted as a baby. At thirteen months, she was diagnosed as having an inherited condition - a malignant cancer called retinoblastoma. While she was still a baby, she had one eye removed and had radiotherapy to her other eye. There was very little expectation that she would survive or ever lead a normal life. But the young girl never regarded herself as a blind person. She had partial sight and supportive parents so when the authorities insisted she go to Blind School (the Red Door of the title), she was plunged into despair.

Against all the odds, Janet has lead a full and active life, even travelling to Europe on her own. But at the back of her mind was the knowledge that she had been handed a genetic time-bomb from her biological parents. She needed to know who they were so, in her early twenties, she began to search for her birth parents. Rejected by her mother, she has since met and maintained contact with her father - a member of a prominent political and media family.

In a final amazing twist, Janet, now permanently blind and in her mid-thirties, has become a champion disabled cyclist, winning four medals at the 2002 World Disabled Cycling Championship and she is soon to compete in the Athens 2004 Paralympics where she is expected to take gold. World Disabled Cycling Championship and she is soon to compete in the Athens 2004 Paralympics where she is expected to take gold.

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / General (fancy, right?)