WHEN TREES WERE GREEN: The Story of Robin Heron

by Inez Heron ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 14, 1978

Robin Heron, eight years old, was hospitalized for appendicitis, then rediagnosed on the operating table--lymphosarcoma, a cancer--and given weeks to live. But the second diagnosis was also erroneous, and Robin was lamentably mistreated for a full year before his baffling symptoms were reappraised and his unique condition properly treated. His mother, an Irish journalist, was taking notes from the first day, so the details of his incalculable suffering and mismanagement are precisely elaborated. The intestinal growth that seemed cancerous in fact developed in reaction to swallowing a rare parasite; and the bizarre complications came from the eggs of a bluebottle fly deposited and hatched in his surgical incision. What Robin endured was grueling agony; once treated correctly, lie recovered, although he lost his sight in one eye, and he remains, at sixteen, fragile, understandably chastened, and intent on a career in microbiology. Early on, another mother said of the daily hospital watch, ""It's not courage, you know. It's endurance. You just go on became you've no alternative."" It's more than that, of course, but despite the true valor of parents and child, the book is less affecting than one might expect. Heron's recall is full of lyrical Irish embellishments, a style which works at first but ultimately wears a bit thin: there's too much Mom in the boy's ordeal. Nonetheless, a case of uncommon fortitude.

Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION