Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Sick Girl
    Unavailable
    Sick Girl
    Unavailable
    Sick Girl
    Ebook365 pages5 hours

    Sick Girl

    By Amy Silverstein

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    This shockingly frank and irreverent memoir of a young woman’s life with a heart transplant “will inspire and choke you up with tears and laughter” (Larry King).
     
    At twenty-four, Amy Silverstein was your typical type-A law student: smart, driven, and highly competitive. With a full course load and a budding romance, it seemed nothing could slow her down. Until her heart began to fail. With a grace and force reminiscent of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face or Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Amy chronicles her medical saga from the first misdiagnosis to her astonishing and ongoing recovery. Her memoir is made all the more dramatic by the deliriously romantic bedside courtship with her future husband, and her uncompromising desire to become a mother.
     
    Distrustful of her doctors and insistent in her refusal to be the “grateful heart patient” she is expected to be, Amy presents a patient’s perspective that is truly eye-opening and even controversial. Amy’s shocking honesty and irreverent humor allow the reader to live her nightmare from the inside—an unforgettable experience that is both painfully disturbing and utterly compelling.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 13, 2008
    ISBN9781555848767
    Unavailable
    Sick Girl
    Author

    Amy Silverstein

    Amy Silverstein is the author of Sick Girl, which won a “Books for a Better Life Award” and was a finalist for the Border’s Original Voices Award. She earned her Juris Doctor at New York University School of Law, has served on the Board of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS), and is an active speaker and writer on women’s health issues and patient advocacy. She lives in New York.

    Related to Sick Girl

    Related ebooks

    Wellness For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Murder Of James Bulger 30 Years On

      Feb 7, 2023

      This week marks 30 years since two-year-old James Bulger was abducted and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. James would be in his 30s now. Would he be married? A father? With a career? All that was snatched away from

      4 min read

    • Article

      My girl was SAVED BY A BRUISE

      Sep 1, 2021

      Christine Wheeler, 26, Weipa, Qld As the text flashed up on my phone, I saw it was from my daughter’s day care. Charlie’s fallen over but she’s okay, it read. Because of that last part, I wasn’t too worried about my lively two-year-old. And when

      3 min read

    • Article

      Let Him Rot!

      Dec 20, 2022

      Let Him Rot!
      4 min read

    • Article

      Under The Knife

      Dec 3, 2020

      Under The Knife
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mummy’s Dark Side

      Sep 1, 2022

      Mummy’s Dark Side
      4 min read

    • Article

      The REAL me

      Sep 9, 2021

      The REAL me
      4 min read

    • Article

      Never Let You Go

      May 20, 2021

      Never Let You Go
      4 min read

    • Article

      Killer Addiction

      Aug 12, 2021

      Killer Addiction
      5 min read

    • Article

      She Chose

      Oct 30, 2019

      She Chose
      4 min read

    • Article

      Horror In Paradise

      Sep 22, 2022

      Horror In Paradise
      3 min read

    • Article

      Monsters at Christmas

      Dec 15, 2020

      Monsters at Christmas
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Journey

      Oct 1, 2020

      Ellie Coneley, 18, Leeds When I was born, I was diagnosed with a bilateral Tessier cleft. It meant that not only did I have facial deformities from my lip up, but I was blind in my left eye as it hadn’t developed properly. My mum, Levi, now 38, had

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Deadly Affair

      Aug 6, 2020

      A Deadly Affair
      4 min read

    • Article

      BESTIE’S BETRAYAL CONNED out of ﹩200,000

      Oct 19, 2022

      For years, Susan Hughes and Anna Bonner were inseparable. The pair first became friends in 1999, when they worked as carers at the same assisted living complex. Seeing Anna’s long blonde hair getting in her way as she served food to the residents, Su

      3 min read

    • Article

      “My Baby Was Stolen From Me”

      May 18, 2022

      “My Baby Was Stolen From Me”
      9 min read

    • Article

      SHE SIMPLY vanished

      Jun 19, 2019

      SHE SIMPLY vanished
      11 min read

    • Article

      On The Case

      Jan 24, 2021

      On The Case
      5 min read

    • Article

      She Had A ‘Cool’ Childhood Babysitter. Four Decades Later, She Learnt He Was A Serial Killer

      Mar 23, 2021

      The first time Liza Rodman’s babysitter, Tony Costa, took her to his “secret garden”, she was puzzled. At the age of nine, she considered herself a garden connoisseur. Her farmer grandfather had taught her how to grow tomatoes and lettuce, among othe

      5 min read

    • Article

      I Am A Mother

      Mar 5, 2018

      I Am A Mother
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sick Girl

    3.5/5

    42 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      "Sick Girl" is an honest look at what it's like to be a very young woman with a very serious, life-threatening illness. This is the story of Amy Silverstein, who discovers at age 24 that she is very sick. Her heart is giving out....quickly. Going from a diagnosis of a "virus in the heart" that will probably only take some medication and rest to recover, to the gut wrenching realization that the problem is much more urgent, and that Amy has suddenly found herself at the top of the heart-transplant list in New York.She waits for two months, going from minute to minute, becoming more and more bedfast as her heart is rapidly deteriorating....Amy is trying to hold it together, enduring test after test, including heart biopsies, angiograms, etc.Finally a heart is found and ready. Amy is whisked into surgery, knowing full well that this could be it for her....either a brand new lease on life or death on the table. The heart works perfectly and Amy begins life as a transplant recipient....only to realize that this is not a cure, but a whole new way of life. She will endure daily medications that will nauseate her, cause her fatigue and make her miserable, having many routine tests, ER visits and hospitalizations....all for the privilege of living with a new heart.Over time, she adjusts to the routine, trying hard to live her life with her new husband (who adores her) and her friends, going on trips and keeping up a brave front, all the while feeling ill almost all the time and struggling beneath her strong facade. Husband Scott and Amy decide that since she has been urged not to become pregnant, to adopt a baby boy. Casey becomes the light of their lives and Amy has found a way to get "out of herself", now having a reason to keep fighting and keep living in spite of all the difficult times.The book takes you with Amy through all the inner turmoil of a young woman with a very rare condition....how well-meaning friends and doctors infuriate her with platitudes and patronizing words, when she wants to it to be understood that this is not a "garden variety" illness....this is a Heart Transplant she is dealing with. Of course, none of them can truly understand what it's like, and this makes Amy feel even more isolated and alone emotionally, even though her wonderful husband is a strong support in her life.Eventually, after outliving her life expectancy by many years, Amy discovers lumps in her lymph nodes and fears the worst.....a common and expected lymphoma caused by the immunosuppressive drugs she must take to keep rejection of her heart at bay. She faces yet another surgery, that turns out to have complications and causes Amy to stop and question whether she has enough endurance left to face yet another obstacle in her young life. She has fought so hard to this point, endured so much....can she possibly go through one more thing?This memoir was highly readable....I could not put it down. Her honesty and realism was refreshing and heartbreaking. I could feel her frustration, her fear, her isolation, her hope. I admired her bravery and her strong spirit in the face of death. This woman is a true hero. I would recommend this book!
    • 3/5
      An interesting -- and yet, at times, self-serving -- memoir of living with a heart problem and then a heart transplant.
    • 3/5
      Written by a courageous woman who is not afraid to complain to her doctors about her heart transplant. I admire her as much as I despair of her attitude.
    • 3/5
      The writing was good. What a whiner. She was not an easy patient. Her husband was depicted as a saint. All couples fight. I think it would have been a little more realistic to see another side to their relationship.