Sick Girl [Hardcover]

Amy Silverstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2007

“[With] humor and radiant courage . . . Silverstein delivers a searing insight into the battle to stay alive.”—Ted Koppel
“Spectacular.”—Mehmet Oz, MD, cardiothoracic surgeon and coauthor of You: The Owner’s Manual
At just twenty-four, Amy Silverstein was your typical type-A law student: smart, driven, and highly competitive. With a budding romance and a heavy academic schedule, Silverstein did not have time for illness—even one that caused her to black out and suffer temporary blindness. When her family doctor suggested her symptoms were due to stress and diet, she was happy to think calm thoughts and eat fistfuls of salt. At such a young age, how could she have guessed that her heart was about to give out? With a grace and force reminiscent of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face or Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Silverstein chronicles her harrowing medical journey from first misdiagnosis to astonishing and ongoing recovery, all amidst a romantic bedside courtship with her husband, Scott, and her uncompromising drive to become a mother. Silverstein presents a patient’s perspective that is fierce, provocative, and sometimes controversial, allowing readers to live her nightmare from the inside—an unforgettable experience that is both painfully disturbing and utterly compelling.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Silverstein's memoir offers a rare glimpse at life as an organ-transplant recipient. She was a young law student when the first signs of a deadly virus in her heart appeared. When her doctor said she merely needed to keep her stress in check and add salt to her diet, she happily complied. At 25, after several months of terrifying symptoms and misdiagnoses, she received a heart transplant. Like all organ recipients, to prevent her body from rejecting her new heart, she depends on high doses of immunosuppressants—bitter poison that leaves her nauseous, trembling, aching, and highly vulnerable to infection—for the rest of her life, which was only expected to last another 10 years. To better her chances, she heeded her doctors' advice, sacrificing everything from coffee to alcohol to pregnancy. Still, it seemed that the best she could hope for was the illusion of a normal life, so she kept her body's punishing blows from her friends, her adopted son and at times even from her loving husband, her ever-confident coach through years of devastating illness. [T]o make myself 'normal' again would be the most extraordinary feat that I would never quite accomplish she writes. Now, more than 17 years after her transplant, Silverstein reflects on the often misunderstood journey through the torments of being saved in a stirring story of survival and unyielding love. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Unsparing . . . the life of a heart transplant patient is an intricate, often frustrating duet with impending death. It sometimes seems that memoirs already have detailed every possible affliction and condition, but Silverstein's tills new territory." -- John Marshall, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"[Sick Girl] shocked me. It was a revelation. I couldn't stop reading it. . . . It's a book that made me shake my head in disbelief with every chapter. What a potent reminder it was that quality is about more than walking out of the hospital alive." -- Avery Comarow, U.S. News & World Report

"Feisty, insightful, improbable . . . Silverstein has cheated death to thrive in her post-transplant existence and to write about it with incredible courage, determination, self-scrutiny, and verve." -- Lisa Shea, Elle

"[A] compelling memoir . . . Silverstein's humor and devotion to her husband and son see her through, and by the end you'll be rooting for her next 20 years." -- Kim Hubbard, People (3 of 4 stars)

"[Silverstein's] unsentimental humor and spitfire response to mortality help [her] deal with a `time-bomb heart' that has kept on ticking for nineteen years. With apologies to Adlai Stevenson, it's not always better to light a candle; sometimes you need to curse the darkness, too." -- Cathleen, Medwick, O, the Oprah Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802118542
• ISBN-13: 978-0802118547
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,187,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book with real heart, October 26, 2007

By 

Jill I. Shtulman (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sick Girl (Hardcover)

Amy Silverstein's book is compellingly readable...and that's amazing for a first-time writer. Her experience flies in the face of the "miracle transplant recipient" whose life begins after her operation.

There are many, many scenes that will stay with me and much that I learned. I didn't know, for example, that transplant patients MUST take immune-suppressing drugs -- poisons, really -- which leave them susceptible to all kinds of illnesses and cancers. Or that the transplanted heart is really an unnatural one -- so that if someone were to say "boo", it would take minutes before the transplanted heart would begin to race. Ms. Silverstein reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly and she does a great job of setting the record straight.

Who among us would feel "lucky" if we were 24 years old and a high achiever -- only to be told that we had a ten-year life expectancy and that those ten years would be filled with pain? Or that a bride's wedding day would include a rush to the coat check room for a dose of a drug that will surely cause nausea and discomfort for the rest of her reception? This is the brutal reality that Ms. Silverstein reveals.

Although I certainly can glean some of Ms. Silverstein's antipathy toward the doctors, some of it seemed a bit unfair. For example, on first hearing her diagnosis, Ms. Silverstein, by her own description, retreated to the safe haven of a ten-year-old girl -- and a bratty one at that. Perfectly understandable. BUT, later, she becomes angry that the doctor did not sit down with her and reveal everything; in fact, he wrote down that she was "fragile." That is understandable as well. She also becomes angry when her doctors "punt" diagnoses and won't take a firm stand; however, in today's world of malpractice, we've created our own monsters.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't want their stories sugar-coated. This one shows the author's courage as well as her anger, envy, even nastiness. It's very courageous to expose yourself, warts and all, for the world to see...and at the same time, to inform people about what the life of a transplant recipient is REALLY like.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Story with an Unfortunate Perspective, January 1, 2008

By 

Tiffany Christensen "Tiffc73" (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sick Girl (Hardcover)

Amy's illness journey was an interesting one. By all practical/statistical accounts, her life is a profound success story. As a double lung transplant recipient, I can only dream and hope to live as long as Amy has since her heart transplant.

Sadly, the book begins with Amy contemplating stopping her transplant meds as a way of ending "the torture of survival" and leaving behind her saintly husband and beloved son. For her, these 19 years have not been successful, they have been almost unbearable.

It was painful reading this book--I had to put it down often. Amy portrays herself as woman who seems to resent even the idea of looking at the positive side of things. She has locked herself in a mental pattern of self-pity. For example, she lists all of these things she has had to cut out of her life because they are too closely associated with a traumatic medical event. This ranges from certain foods to a certain outfit. To this day, she will not put her hand on her husband's knee when he is driving because it reminds her of a horrible ride to the hospital. This is where I think choice comes into play. In this situation, she has chosen to embrace the trauma instead of embrace the new day. This I find to be extraordinarily tragic.

This is Amy's story and she has a right to tell it as it is. My only fear is for those awaiting transplant and for those who may have been, or will someday be, in the position to donate a loved one's organs and save lives. Please do not think that Amy's story is consistent with what it is for everyone post-transplant. I, for one, am happy to live a shorter life with medical ups and downs--it is worth the trade to be here with those I love.

There are many "sick girls" out there--Amy seems to feel as though she is the only one who knows suffering. There are those who suffer physically but choose not to suffer emotionally and spiritually. I hope someday Amy will embrace this concept and find some peace.

Tiffany Christensen, Author of "Sick Girl Speaks!"

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars sick girl, sick reader, February 4, 2008

By 

K. P. "KPB" (Penns. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sick Girl (Hardcover)

This was a difficult book to read. In many ways. Having been a cancer patient and having had chronic pain, i know too well how difficult it is to try and "buck up" be the nice patient. I know too well how much disdain doctors, nurses, medical professionals DO have for patients who don't behave in ways they deem acceptable. I have seen the blatant disregard in their expressions when you behave in bad patient mode, so it is no surprise that Amy Silverstein chose to tell her side of what its like to be a "sick girl".

Unfortunately, that's all Amy does. This book is one long Middle finger to the medical community and to all her acquaintances and friends who didn't understand how difficult its been for her to live day to day. Its astounding that she has been able to spend the better part of her adult years with as little self understanding as she had at 24.

Amy is a smart girl yes, but not an emotionally smart one. She never feels the need to search out other ways of thinking, or philosophies, or metaphysics, or anything that would help her stop blaming everyone else. at the very least she needed therapy. Amy took responsibility to stay alive when she was first diagnosed, she made that pact with herself and that IS commendable, but the end result was that she expected the world to cheer and applaud her daily effort , and because they were human, and couldn't, and didn't, we were subject to her book length rant. Its amazing that she was able to escape therapy, that no one forced her to get some kind of emotional insight and help. Saving this woman's body but not addressing her mind was not to her benefit.

I can well imagine how little grace of life is left after consistent illness such as hers, i can, and i do have tremendous sympathy for that. I just don't understand how Anyone could spend 19 years facing that daily and NOT become someone i was interested in reading or knowing or hearing about ever again. Amy Silverstein accomplished that beautifully.

Perhaps the problem i have with this book is that i expected her to have a message. Maybe her point is, exactly that, that we have no right to expect anything from her,and that just surviving has been a feat in itself and the best that she could do.

I think i will choose to think of her with more grace and hope than she has alluded to in her book.