A riveting chronicle of stunning achievement against the odds.
Just days from his 13th birthday, Daniel Trush suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage; this is the story of his miraculous recovery, recounted by Preisler (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Skin Deep, 2010, etc.) and the Trush family.
Three weeks after emergency surgery, Danny was still in a medically induced coma and dependent upon life support. At first, the odds that the boy would survive were slim. Though doctors performed surgery to deal with the multiple, previously undiscovered aneurysms, the brain damage was extensive. Danny’s father, Ken, spent every night at his son's bedside, singing along as a boom box played their favorite songs, but the boy's neural activity had virtually flat-lined. Doctors urged the family to pull the plug, but they refused, and their faith that he would recover was rewarded. On Easter Sunday, Ken was sitting on the end of his son's bed to make room for visitors. Suddenly, he felt a toe poke him. Turning to look at his son, he saw a faint smile on his face. During the next several days, there were more indications that Danny was becoming conscious and trying to communicate, but at first, doctors remained skeptical. The authors chronicle the process of Danny's yearlong rehabilitation in the hospital. Singing was part of the process. Despite problems with short-term memory and a paralyzed arm, Danny studied music theory and piano. He also completed the New York City marathon at a walking pace. Eventually, he and his family started a nonprofit music foundation to provide free music education for the disabled. In 2011, he led students in a Broadway performance sponsored by the New York Yankees. Later, they sang the National Anthem at Yankee Stadium before the game.
A riveting chronicle of stunning achievement against the odds.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62087-694-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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