An inspiring and optimistic chronicle of illness, recovery, and familial sacrifice.
A father chronicles his struggles with kidney disease and his son’s priceless offering in this memoir.
In a book dedicated to his son, Steve, whom he calls “a true hero,” Minnesotan Simenson dramatically recounts his experiences as a father of two teenagers who falls desperately ill. After battling a rare inflammatory blood disease as a child, the author practiced taekwondo for decades and became a third-degree black belt, but his kidney function had been gradually diminishing for decades. At 49, he was suffering mysterious leg pains, fatigue, and cramps and was diagnosed with kidney failure. After consultations with nephrologists, the author was told that he would need a kidney transplant as soon as possible. The family bonded as they never had before, as Simenson’s wife, son, and daughter thought over how to restore his health. Steve immediately offered to donate one of his own kidneys; it turned out that he was a viable donor match, and the book progresses through the numerous surgeries and intensive aftercare and recovery processes for both father and son. It also chronicles the emotional connection they shared and the challenging years after the surgery, which were filled with trepidation but also fulfillment, compassion, love, and respect. Through it all, Simenson’s prose is amiable and often humorous, as when he tells of making strides toward being medically discharged: “One small pull of a catheter, one large step forward for a man.” In addition to offering an uplifting story of a family’s devotion, the book also effectively addresses tougher material: intimidating and painful medical procedures, unscrupulous physicians, details of how transplants are performed, and the risky side effects for both donors and recipients, which the author frighteningly experienced firsthand. This candid, unvarnished journey, while harrowing in spots, will be informative to those who find themselves in similar situations.
An inspiring and optimistic chronicle of illness, recovery, and familial sacrifice.Pub Date: April 27, 2020
ISBN: 9798627224862
Page Count: 267
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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