Drawn to true stories of challenge and triumph, especially if they are set in a medical milieu? Care about improving the health care system? Love good writing that makes you stop and think about your own life? In this series, I'll share some of my favourite and most thought-provoking books on health, healing, and the system around it all.If you are lucky enough to have a local independent bookseller, please consider sourcing these books directly.
This searing memoir describes the journey and challenges of a Native American boy growing up in poverty and his determination to ultimately become an Emergency physician and active member of the Army National Guard in Iraq. On returning home, he suffered a debilitating stroke that completely changed his life, robbing him of his roles as doctor and soldier and forcing him to overcome enormous obstacles of recovery and reinvent his life.
The author’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and so he decided to accompany her to all of her appointments and treatments. They establish a book club for themselves, with just two members, and, through the books and their discussions, mother and sons travel alone and together towards the end of her life. It is a moving memoir of caregiving, mourning, and love.
This book explores what it is like to be a physician who suddenly haemorrhages nearly all of her blood volume, loses her unborn child. and becomes a dying patient. Her vantage point as a patient shows her the fatal flaws in a well-intentioned but often-misguided standard of care. This book provides a brave road map for anyone navigating illness and illustrates the importance of emotional bonds between the cared for and the care givers.
When Kate Inglis’ twin boys were born prematurely, one survived and the other did not. This book is described as “part memoir, part handbook for the heartbroken, this powerful, unsparing account of loss will speak to all who have been bereaved and are grieving.”
The author has volunteered for years with many of the people who have cycled in and out of the wards for the mentally ill at the Douglas Institute in Montreal. She brings us the stories of those who cope with schizophrenia, showing us how they are surviving their lives and what they’ve been through including everything from childhood abuse, compromised rooming houses, and cold jail cells. “A ‘rare work’ of narrative non-fiction that illuminates a world most of us try not to see: the daily lives of the severely mentally ill, who are medicated, marginalized, locked away and shunned.”
This book is a collection of the reflective writings of three daughters of alcoholics, a description of some of the latest research which documents the transformational healing power of writing about trauma, and an invitation to others, along with writing prompts, who want to address their own memories.