Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes Review

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(More customer reviews)You know how you talk when you are around another Type I diabetic? You tell silly stories about how you act when your blood sugar is low. You talk about how irritating it is to suddenly have your blood sugar high for no apparent reason. You talk about how it used to be when you were diagnosed. It is such a relief to be able to talk to someone who understands all that you go through every day. That is exactly how I felt when I read this book. I have had diabetes for 25 years. That is not nearly as long as Mary Tyler Moore, but our feelings about our disease are very similar. Of course, this is a great book for someone with diabetes, but I think it is also a great book for family and friends of diabetics. Mary describes in an entertaining way just what it feels like to live with our disease. We are living in a world where more and more people are getting Type II Diabetes. Those of us with Type I are living in their shadow. I hope that Mary's book brings the subject to light again and helps people remember that fighting against Type I Diabetes is still important.

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With generosity of spirit, ebullience, and sly humor, Mary Tyler Moore presents the intensely private, often funny, and sometimes startling story of her life with diabetes. Growing Up Again is a delightfully candid read for her legion of fans, the more than 20 million Americans with diabetes, and everyone struggling to cope with life's unexpected challenges.Mary Tyler Moore, actress and activist, relates the highs and lows of living with type 1 diabetes for the past forty years. With inspired, well-crafted prose, she drills down to the most heartfelt, yet universal truths about life—including the lives of those with diabetes. She unflinchingly chronicles her struggle with diabetes, as well as her successful rehabilitation from alcohol dependence, all while deriving gratification from her roles as an actress, mother, businesswoman, campaigner, and fund-raiser. Her revealing tales of both her successes and failures in coping with diabetes offer others with the disease guidance and inspiration through example. In the book, stories include her rebounding from a low-blood-sugar episode during a Mary Tyler Moore Show script reading after the director poured orange juice down her throat, to misadventures caused by diabetes-related vision impairment at a dimly lit party for John Travolta.She also taps into the vast diabetes research network to talk to diabetic children and adults and with leading experts who are discovering new ways to control diabetes and its complications, and pursuing new ways to cure this disease.

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Incidental Findings: Lessons from My Patients in the Art of Medicine Review

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(More customer reviews)Dr. Ofri's first book of essays, "Singular Intimacies," was a soul-searching, thought-provoking self-portrait of becoming a doctor at a busy, inner-city hospital, New York's Bellevue. Ofri is still at Bellevue as an attending physician and editor of the Bellevue Literary Review.
This second reflective and graceful book of essays ranges over her experiences since - from far-flung temp positions during a post-qualifying travel break to her own rude awakening as a patient during her first pregnancy. But the bulk of the book revolves around Bellevue; the month-long rotations on hospital wards and the ongoing clinic practice which is her base. In the hospital rotations her interaction with a patient is intense, but finite. She prefers the clinic where the people are less sick, but the relationship is ongoing.
The book opens with Ofri's first experience as a patient dismayed by a busy doctor's delivery of fear-inducing news, the intimidation inherent in the relationship, and the medical professional's casual use of jolting jargon, like "high risk." In one of the last essays, she delivers her baby and discovers the reality of being an ordinary patient:
"I had no idea how much shame and humiliation are part of the experience: from the horrid gowns that never cover enough, to the exposure of some of the most private and embarrassing bodily functions, to the smells and sights which one is forced to wallow in, to the helplessness and inability to assert one's control." Ofri does get to exert control though, when eventually she succumbs to the temptation to throw her weight around - "I am an attending physician on faculty here" - and service improves dramatically.
She describes an ordinary chaotic day in the clinic, capped with anguish when she discovers an elderly Chinese man has a brain tumor and the language barrier prevents her from offering comfort or even information. There's lots of that - the problems of communicating in a place that encompasses so many immigrants. Communications problems do not always stem only from the lack of language interpreters, but also from cultural gulfs.
Ofri is no saint and she's often driven to the edge by frustration - too little time, too many demands, unsympathetic patients. One woman, always accompanied by her young daughter as translator, is a non-compliant, depressed hypochondriac whose arrival fills Ofri with teeth-gritting dread. Until a simple query from the daughter opens her eyes to the real pain that reverberates through the woman's family.
Ofri's treatments often stray outside medical boundaries. She negotiates ways for immigrant children to stay in school rather than accompany non-English speaking parents to the clinic; tutors a boy for the SAT test because her best recommendation for his long-term health was "to take the SAT and get into college."
Issues of poverty, helplessness, dignity and medical ethics dominate. A number of essays deal with terminal issues, two at length. In the first, "Living Will," a man with numerous debilitating health issues stops taking essential medication and lands in the emergency room. Once there, he allows emergency personnel to bypass his living will and ventilate him. This is either a panicky instinct from a man who can't breathe or the spark of a will to live. Like most doctors, Ofri decides the man really wants to live and helps to treat his depression and equip him with a modicum of dignity and usefulness.
The second essay is a bit more invasive. Elderly Mrs. Binet, also with multiple problems, decides to quit dialysis, in effect announcing her will to die. The resident in charge accepts this decision as does Ofri initially, but then she has second thoughts. What terminal illness does the woman have? None. Her life is a misery of pain, pills, procedures and complications, but she is not terminal. Ofri visits the woman and gently but insistently persuades her to postpone death while the doctors work harder on her pain problems. Although the case ends with Mrs. Binet going to the nursing home she so wanted to avoid, Ofri recalls the pleasure she took in eating a meal. Whether she did Mrs. Binet any favors is something with which the reader may quibble.
Ofri is compassionate and painstakingly moral. She is keenly aware of how the structure of her job distances her and insulates her from the poverty, cultural differences, fears and illness of her patients. She takes to heart the lessons they have to teach her, and works to remember that the very fact of illness is a handicap, and the position of being a patient is a disadvantage.
Ofri's intimate, anecdotal prose conveys wonder, humility and pride. For the duration of each essay her struggles are ours and - most of the time - the reader will applaud her judgment. Ofri's books contribute greatly to a dialogue on the doctor-patient relationship that only grows more urgent and difficult as medical treatments advance and doctors grown more specialized.
Portsmouth Herald

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The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit Review

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(More customer reviews)This book took me a long time to read, but it was well worth it. Laurie Barkin has written a memoir-type account of her work experience as a psychiatric nurse and woven her personal life throughout. The account read like a good novel, and the personal life experiences rounded this therapeutic story. Laurie's personality shone through her expertise as a nurse; her sensitive care of her patients made me wish there were more nurses like her. What we have lost in quality patient care has touched all aspects of society and has caused costs to skyrocket instead of decrease. Laurie mentions this issue throughout her chapters; she has direct insight from having worked in a hospital when managed care was just taking off. I related to the notion of vicarious trauma that some caregivers experience; this is probably more widespread than some of us want to admit. Although I did not work with such severe trauma cases as Laurie, I did work for a facility that ministered to special populations and after 5 years of working there, sought a career change.
One has to admire a person that loves her job and that loves helping people with traumatic histories. Laurie related these stories in a sensitive manner while making an impact on the reader. I found myself wanting to know more about them and how they had survived such conditions. She did admit that there were a few people she did not warm to, and this added to the book's credibility. I related to her worrying more about her loved ones and wondering if her luck would run out in her own life. It is impossible for many of us not to wonder if our relatively stable lives will all of a sudden be shattered as is the case for many. I am a worrier and I feel like I have to walk on glass sometimes so as not to disturb life's rhythm; although, I am much better as I age. I suppose there is less time left to worry.
Laurie seemed cautious as the book began, not going into too much detail on the first patient she described, but as the book unfolded, the descriptions of the patients and their histories made more of an impact. I especially liked the description of Mr. Livermore, the seemingly cold, inhuman patient who appeared near the end of the book. Then, there was Will Avery, who wondered why the doctors saved him; he felt worthless. I liked Mrs. Holloway, who had gotten a knife wound, from one of her neighbors, and the comical Jack Whitman, who joked about his injury.
Laurie balances the sad horror stories of her work with anecdotes of her home life, her last pregnancy, her husband, and three children. They live a good life, the reader watches Benny, her last child, grow; they take vacations and do normal family activities. Toward the end of the book, Laurie describes her pounding heart and her growing misgivings about her work situation. She finally reaches the breaking point, and as the book ends, she decides to take a break from work and worries about reinventing herself. Will her identity survive when she is no longer a nurse? This is an issue many of us grapple with when we make a career change. Will we succeed, or will we fail? It was therapeutic to share the author's feelings and thoughts throughout this book. Readers will find many issues to relate to and share in the ways that Laurie works through them. Is is obvious to me that she is a success; a book is a great accomplishment. In the acknowledgments, she says it took her nine years to write her book; the work she did is evident in the carefully written accounts of her career.
This book should be read by anyone thinking about going into the mental health profession, and it would be therapeutic for those already in it. It really describes the day-to-day struggles and triumphs in the helping professions.
The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit

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The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit by Laurie Barkin

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