I recently read an excerpt from Amy Silverstein’s Sick Girl, a new book about the harsher realities of post-transplant life.

 

 

Just when you think you are having a bad day, a book like this comes along and smacks you right back into reality. Ms. Silverstein’s harrowing account of her experiences as a heart transplant patient – at the still-innocent age of 25 – is good reminder to count your blessings. She describes painful after painful procedure and what it feels like to walk around with someone else’s heart in your chest – most notably how the brain works with the never-to-be-connected again nerve endings. She brilliantly – and painfully – outlines her body’s reaction to “the war of chemicals” she must take like clockwork no matter what she’s doing – even the celebration of her wedding must be paused for consumption.

Ms. Silverstein talks about what it’s like to forever walk around with the label of “sick girl” and how her entire life is shaped around this experience. But perhaps most surprising – to those of us who would imagine being a transplant recipient is a good thing – is how she describes a life full of “sick-girl kind of exhaustion.” The kind of exhaustion that makes you want to take your own life:

“There is no point at which, statistically speaking, a heart-transplant patient is on safer ground, because from the moment a donor heart begins to beat in a foreign chest, the immune system begins to destroy it.”

I can’t imagine living life that way. But Amy, keep living it. Stay strong – we’re glad “you’ll try” and that you’re here to share your experiences.

For more, read more reviews, the excerpt from US News & World Report or buy the book.