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(More customer reviews)With the language, imagery and humor of the novelist he is, Michael Downing creates a powerful and beautiful memoir about the boy he was and the patient he became upon the discovery of a genetic mutation. I laughed and I cried, often at the same time. For example, he writes, "I didn't black out the Kennedy tragedy. I do remember being shown a newspaper picture of the president's kids and feeling something like a paper cut in my guts when I noticed the little boy. I'd seen some old black-and-white photographs of my mother and the nine Downing kids lined up at a public event to honor my father and I knew exactly what it felt like to be the only one forced to wear short pants in public."
Downing sheds light where many would rather look away. With candor and compassion, he recalls the injustices and injuries of childhood and he exposes the harm done to him in the name of medicine. Whether you prefer John Updike or David Sedaris, Frank McCourt or Alice McDermott, you'll enjoy every page of this remarkable book, every book by this extraordinarily talented writer.
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Life with Sudden Death: A Tale of Moral Hazard and Medical MisadventureThe youngest of nine children, Michael Downing was three when his father died - suddenly and inexplicably. No autopsy was performed. The family diagnosis was God's will. As a boy, Downing rigorously trained as a spiritual athlete, preparing to vault into heaven. But eventually he escaped the religious dogma, and the family arena - until one of his brothers died in 2003, suddenly and inexplicably. No autopsy was performed.Alarmed, Downing pursued a diagnosis: Drawn into a world of researchers, clinicians, and manufacturers with their own arcane ethics and faith, Downing discovered he had inherited a mutant protein from his father, and the first symptom would be his sudden death. To save his life, a defibrillator was hard-wired to his heart. Within weeks, he needed emergency surgery to remove the device and the life-threatening infection he got with it. Two months later, he was re-implanted - only to read in his morning newspaper that the new wires anchored to his heart were prone to failure. His device might be powerless, or it might deliver a series of unwarranted, possibly fatal, shocks. From a bedeviled boyhood in the Berkshires to a grim comedy of errors in one of Boston's best hospitals, Life with Sudden Death is a wild ride.
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