An informative, empathetic guide to making painful choices.
Lee’s primer coaches people with serious ailments (and their families) to be their own medical advocates.
The author, a palliative care physician, addresses patients with severe health problems, advising them on dealing with doctors who may not always be forthcoming with information or cognizant of a patient’s individual needs, urging them to take the lead in making decisions and plans about their health care. She gives readers advice on determining treatment goals, including extending life and staying active versus alleviating suffering; talking about care and end-of-life issues with family members; setting up advanced directives and medical power of attorney; and handling symptoms like the constipation caused by opioid pain relievers (try laxatives) or debilitating fatigue (plan tasks with intermittent breaks). Lee also weighs in on the pros and cons of cardiopulmonary resuscitation when life may no longer be worth enduring the bruising measures necessary to preserve it for a little while longer; coping with burnout among caregivers; and crafting a deathbed legacy, such as a scrapbook or a recorded testament. The book is laid out in lucid, easy-to-read chapters and bullet-pointed sections and presents wide-ranging discussions of every aspect of illness, from the most basic—how debilitated patients “find the bathroom and pull up and down pants and wipe appropriately”—to more philosophical issues, such as how we define a good life. An appendix includes scripted questions for patients and families to ask doctors, covering both nuts-and-bolts questions (“Who can help me obtain handicap accessible modifications?”) and devastating conundrums (“My family cannot agree on what to do next with my loved one. Who can help us?”). Lee’s prose is straightforward, concrete, and easily accessible to laypeople, and she writes with sensitivity about emotional trauma, drawing on her own experiences with the gravely ill (“Without dialysis, she wouldn’t suffer anymore,” agonizes a husband contemplating ending treatment for his pain-ridden wife. “It’s just…we’ve been together fifty-four years, and she’s the love of my life”). Readers will find this a useful, reassuring resource when confronting a sometimes-baffling and intimidating medical establishment.
An informative, empathetic guide to making painful choices.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798987389300
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Real Palliative Care
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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