The book will appeal specifically to those personally affected by kidney disease but should also fascinate anyone interested...
A nephrologist’s memoir of navigating the kidney disease of a loved one.
Grubbs (Medicine/Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital) came by her medical specialty honestly: she fell in love with and later married a man with end-stage kidney disease; a few months into their relationship, she donated a kidney to him. The author’s absorbing first book leads with that personal interest story, but it doesn’t end there. Moving around, occasionally confusingly, in time, Grubbs explores how an African-American girl from a country town in North Carolina came to become a doctor and move to San Francisco. She darts in and out of her experiences in medical school and residency, occasionally landing in a room with one of her patients. While her husband, Robert, is sometimes overly romanticized, the author doesn’t sugarcoat much else in her life. Robert’s kidney replacement, which took place after a long period of dialysis, hardly ended his struggles. It took several surgeries and a considerable amount of luck before the transplanted kidney started working properly. Other medical crises, as well as conflicts between Grubbs and her husband regarding treatment, followed. Revealing details about the experiences of both patient and donor during kidney surgery will enlighten those inside and outside the loop of kidney disease. Along the path to a career in nephrology, Grubbs fell in love not just with her husband, but with the kidney as an organ, with its hundreds of strands “like interlaced fingers.” The author expresses clear, not always politically correct opinions about a medical system that she believes discriminates against blacks, encourages patients to continue dialysis even when it prolongs suffering, and spends money on patients not committed to their own care. Grubbs also includes a helpful appendix of frequently asked questions about kidney disease and treatment.
The book will appeal specifically to those personally affected by kidney disease but should also fascinate anyone interested in the state of health care in the United States.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-241817-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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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