Today's Featured Book:
The Story of a Heart:
Two Families, One Heart, and the Medical Miracle that Saved a Child's Life
by Dr. Rachel Clarke
Genre: Nonfiction
Published: September 10, 2024
Page Count: 253 pages
Summary:
One summer day, nine-year-old Keira Ball was in a terrible car accident and suffered catastrophic brain injuries. As the rest of her body began to shut down, her heart continued to beat. In an act of extraordinary generosity, Keira’s parents and siblings immediately agreed that she would have wanted to be an organ donor. Meanwhile nine-year-old Max Johnson had been in a hospital for nearly a year, valiantly fighting the virus that was causing his young heart to fail. When Max’s parents received the call they had been hoping for, they knew it came at a terrible cost to another family—in what Clarke calls “the brutal arithmetic of transplant surgery.”
The act of Keira’s heart resuming its rhythm inside Max’s body was a medical miracle. But this was only part of the story. While waiting on the transplant list, Max had become the hopeful face of a campaign to change the UK’s laws around organ donation. Following his successful surgery, Keira’s mother saw the little boy beaming on the front page of the newspaper and knew it was the same boy whose parents had recently sent her an anonymous letter overflowing with gratitude for her daughter’s heart. The two mothers began to exchange messages and eventually decided to meet.
In this “profoundly moving…[and] beautiful, humane book” (Rob Delaney) Clarke relates the urgent journey of Keira’s heart and explores the history of the remarkable surgery that made it possible, stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication of surgeons, nurses and technicians, immunologists and paramedics. A powerful tale of two families linked by one heart, The Story of a Heart is a testament to compassion for the dying, the many ways we honor our loved ones, and the tenacity of love.
This is the story of a boy, a girl, and the heart they share.
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It was hot and stifling in the cramped room. Emma stared at the ceiling as sirens punctuated the night from the ambulances ferrying luckless patients to the hospital. What preyed on her mind more than anything was whether Max would be able to enjoy, however briefly, Christmas dinner away from the ward with his family. She still struggled to compute the fact that, in October, Max had been going to school, yet now his heart was so enfeebled it could barely keep him alive...
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A nine-year-old girl dies in a car crash, but her heart was resuscitated in the ambulance and, though she has no brain activity, her organs might be used to save other lives. Her family receives great consolation from giving Keira's organs to others, and four people are the recipients, changing their lives. One person receiving Keira's gift is Max, a young boy who desperately needs a heart.
This is the story of a miracle for Max, told through the remembrances of Max's family, Keira's family, and the doctors and nurses who made the miracle happen
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November 7th - How many "book" bags do you have? Do you use all of them? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Review)
Let me answer this question with photos taken with my haul from library conferences long ago:
Oh wow! I was more distracted by all the books! Lol. I used to attend book conventions but my favorite disbanded so I haven't found a replacement. I loved the RT Booklover's Convention because it was always in a new city every year. These days the ones I look at as possibilities are always in the same place which is always SO expensive to fly to. I donated most of the totes I got from these as they were pretty thin and couldn't hold a lot of weight but I have acquired plenty more totes of sturdier quality in the years after! Lol.
ReplyDeleteHere's my BBH
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower :)
What amazing stacks of books you received. Of course as a librarian you would be a great possible recipient as you might buy more.
ReplyDeleteThe book you reviewed is indeed sad, as one life saved is always another lost when you are thinking of the heart.
best… mae
As you know, I loved that book. So informative and emotional. So many books!! Thats a graet photo of you with the stacks of books,
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