Life in the Balance: A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia [Hardcover]

Thomas Graboys MD (Author), Peter Zheutlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

At the age of 49, Dr. Thomas Graboys had reached the pinnacle of his career and was leading a charmed life. A nationally renowned Boston cardiologist popular for his attention to the hearts and souls of his patients, Graboys was part of “The Cardiology Dream Team” summoned to treat Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis after he collapsed on the court in 1993.  He had a beautiful wife, two wonderful daughters, positions on both the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the staff of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a thriving private practice.
Today, Grayboys is battling a particularly aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease and progressive dementia, and can no longer see patients or give rounds.  He is stooped, and shuffles when he walks, the gait of a man much older than his 63 years. Despite the physical, mental and emotional toll he battles daily, Graboys continues his life-long mission of caring for the world one human being at a time by telling his story so that others may find comfort, inspiration, or validation in their own struggles.
This is an unflinching memoir of a devastating illness as only a consummate physician could write it. One can’t help but imagine what Dr. Graboys, the healer, would say to Tom Graboys, the patient—a face-to-face scene imagined in this inspiring book.  In his joint roles, Thomas Graboys finds a way to convey hope, optimism and an appreciation of what it means to be truly alive.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

At the top of his professional game at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and on the Harvard Medical School faculty but at a personal nadir after the death of his wife, cardiologist Graboys began presenting physical and mental signs he at first wrote off as after-effects of prolonged stress and exhaustion. Despite his best efforts to control the situation, first through denial, then by reducing his private-practice patient load, the symptoms doggedly progressed. In the meantime, he remarried. But when he passed out on the wedding day, he knew his problems were more serious than he wanted to admit. Before long, he was diagnosed with the double whammy of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, an associated degenerative disease. In this stirring and chilling memoir, he takes an unblinking look at himself as his mind and body suffer unrelenting hits from those progressive illnesses. An unforgettable doctor-as-patient account, including reflections by Graboys’ daughters, sons-in-law, and members of the families blended by his marriage. --Donna Chavez

Review

Praise for the Life in the Balance

 

“[A] small wonder. Unsentimental and unpretentious, it manages to hit all its marks effortlessly. …“[Graboys] does one of the best jobs on record of doggedly unpeeling the onion-skin layers of alternating ego and vulnerability that encase the doctor turned patient”—The New York Times

 

"A powerful and poignant portrayal of a physician who refuses to have illness rob him of his dignity and joy. A unique and inspiring memoir that captures the resiliency of the human spirit."– Dr. Jerome Groopman, Professor, Harvard Medical School, and author of How Doctors Think

 

“Beautifully written, searingly honest, this book lets us see the impact of serious illness on a man who is both a doctor and a patient.”–Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People

 

“I was blown away. ...An eye-opening read. ...A remarkable book.” —Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC News Medical Correspondent

 

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Union Square Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402753411
• ISBN-13: 978-1402753411
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Diseases & Physical Ailments > Parkinson's Disease

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Master Cardiologist and Healer May 2, 2008

By John O. Pastore

Format:Hardcover

Only fifteen years ago, in 1993, Dr. Tom Graboys was on top of the world. He was one of the most respected physicians in the rarified atmosphere of Boston cardiology and a member of the "dream team", convened to look into the controversial case of Reggie Lewis, the Boston Celtics star. Tom was a stalwart leader in the Lown Cardiovascular Group, named for Bernard Lown, a co-founder of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1985. Especially in the years leading up to the Nobel, Tom was active in IPPNW and in its US affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility.

But Tom was more and had much more than that.

He had a wonderful, accomplished and universally admired wife, Caroline. He had a brilliant mind and an athletic body. And he had a legion of patients who virtually worshiped him, as much for his humanity as for his skills as a Harvard cardiologist.

Tom was known to the rest of us in Boston cardiology as a premier practitioner of non-invasive cardiology in its truest sense. He spoke and published widely on the over-use of expensive and often unnecessary invasive technologies. Even more importantly, he argued tirelessly in favor of seeing, listening to, and treating as a fellow human being the whole patient. Countless times on ward rounds, I have told residents and fellows that my friend Tom Graboys across town would have encouraged us, with evidence to support his view, "not to rush to angioplasty or coronary bypass surgery on this patient".

But even I did not know everything that Peter Zheutlin and Tom himself have disclosed in this magnificent and beautifully written book. I did not know that Tom, after examining his patients, would sit with them on a couch, almost knee to knee, never with a desk interposed. I did not know that he gave each patient his home phone number. And I did not know that he always wrote out longhand some encouraging suggestions after his patient visits, never giving the patient a pre-printed sheet of instructions.

In essence, Tom was in many ways the best of us at holistic cardiology care.

Aided selflessly by the considerable writing skills of Peter Zheutlin, Tom recounts in this deeply personal book what he has lost in the last ten years: his cherished wife Caroline to colon cancer in 1998; his career to severe Parkinson's with Lewy body dementia in 2005; and perhaps forever, his graceful athleticism and the confidence it conveyed. Tom does not pull any punches. The Parkinson's and Lewy body dementia have ravaged his body, his mind, and sometimes his spirit.

What he has retained and gained is equally important, though. While he clearly still grieves over the loss of Caroline, he is re-married to an extraordinary woman, Vicki. One surmises from this book that Vicki is essential to his physical and psychological stability, and a woman who loves and supports him despite now being married to a very different Tom than she had expected. He also has the love and strength of his adult daughters, Penelope and Sarah, their spouses, Vicki's children, and his grandchildren. And he has great friends and former patients from of old.

In the last several pages of this book, Peter Zheutlin has Tom reflect on what advice Tom the skilled and compassionate physician would give to Tom the patient with a devastating illness, or to any patient facing what he has faced. The wisdom and poignancy of those pages, but also the entire book, convinced me to put this unique and unflinching story into the hands of every cardiology fellow at my own medical center. Despite having been a cardiologist for more than 35 years, I have learned from Tom's unforgettably honest story how to live and practice better.

Tom freely admits throughout the book that in retrospect he has not handled every aspect of his devastating illness as well as he might have wished. But in my view, he has been as graceful a patient as he ever was a physician. Both as patient and as physician, he has also not lost his capacity to heal.

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43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and heart wrenching! April 2, 2008

By Susan E. Witt

Format:Hardcover

Dr. Graboys pulls no punches in being real about what his life has become living with a debilitating disease. He writes not only about how this has affected him, but also the effect on his family, friends and the people that are part of his daily life. Anyone who has a loved one, be it family or friend, with a chronic disease should own and read a copy of this book - you will want to read it again. It will give you insight into the emotions and frustrations of living with a disease that currently has no cure. If this book does not touch your soul in some way, you might want to make sure you have a pulse. There is no "happy ending", but there is hope and love.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In many ways a remarkable book May 2, 2008

By D. Kaplan

Format:Hardcover

For a person to clearly articulate what is going through their mind as they grapple with a debilitating mental dementia (and physical) condition is remarakable. This is what Dr. Tom Graboys does in this book with great clarity. I know that my family who is grappling with a very similar issue with one our parents found the book extremely helpful- and for that Dr. Graboys deserves our real gratitude. He is continuing to provide valuable medical help to patients and their families in a new way- through this book rather than the exam room.

This book is so well written that I think people who don't have dementia related illness among their family or friends would still find the book compelling reading. Dr Graboys chance encounter with the Chief of Neurology in the parking lot is stunning.