I can't recommend The Body Silent enough. It was written by an anthropology professor who got a tumor that eventually took his life. Wikipedia has a quote of his:
"This book was conceived in the realization that my long illness with a disease of the spinal cord has been a kind of extended anthropological field trip, for through it I have sojourned in a social world no less strange to me at first than those of the Amazon forests. And since it is the duty of all anthropologists to report on their travels . . . this is my accounting."
It really is a book on anthropology first and foremost.