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. ( )

A fascinating account of what its like to live with a heart transplant. I never really thought much about what life is like after a person receives an organ transplant but after reading this memoir I realize that is a very difficult life yet people think the organ recipient is cured. Although some critics have pegged the author as ungrateful she was just being honest about how difficult it is. For anyone who likes memoirs this one was worth reading. ( )

I love a good medical memoir. Bring me your pain and your gore, oh writer! However, while I delighted in the many interesting facts about the heart transplant process and the patient experience, I was disturbed by Silverstein's attitude. I can sympathize with "difficult" patients and with moments of self-pity triggered by medical diagnoses and treatment, but Silverstein is unbelievably negative, ungrateful, and even hateful.

It is a miracle that this woman has survived for over 17 years with a transplanted heart. Despite a saint of a husband, a child, supportive parents, and understanding friends, Silverstein alienates herself in her selfish, small world. She has adopted the identify of a victim and is unable to move past that identity.

Most people die while waiting for a transplanted heart that never arrives. Of the few lucky patients who receive that coveted healthy heart, the vast majority die of complications within five years. This book is void of any insight or of any information that will help other patients in a similar situation. Silverstein is appalling ungrateful for the medical technology, not to mention the physicians, that extended her life. Silverstein's seventeen years of life after her procedure are unheard of, but I do not hesitate to say that these extra years were wasted on her. ( )

This book is a real page-turner and a fast read. I am not sure why it should be so compelling as the entire book is one long whine about having to have a heart transplant at 24 and the unremittingly dreadful ill-health for the next almost two decades.

Nevertheless, it provides much information on what it is really like to have a transplant. No, the transplantee is not as good-as-new after one and they never will be again. Silverstein makes a good point in saying that the older folks who have a transplant have had a long life and then a long sickness and are grateful for the extra years of better health, but that her heart disease struck her so young she never had a chance to build herself a life first. I don't think her book-length whinge is unjustified and I think a lot of the bad reviews on Amazon are because that is more or less all we know of her: that her suffering has no end. She might have garnered more sympathy if her characterisation of the other people in the book, especially her husband, wasn't quite so one-dimensional. Reading it how she tells it, her husband is a saint and the appearance of halo and wings are expected momentarily.

Also he must be very well-off indeed as they live just around the corner from the Clintons in Westchester, NY. This kind of wealth, which I read about in an interview with her as she herself doesn't mention it, might be at the root of something that mystified me in the book.

It is well-known that adopting a baby is extremely difficult and time-consuming and there are many social security hoops to jump through including proving the suitability to be a parent in every way, personally, materially and emotionally. This is why so many people adopt from abroad and even that is a path fraught with bureaucracy and endless delays. So how come she decides to adopt and despite having only a life-expectancy of two years and being, as the book details, very sick indeed, manage to get a newborn white American baby in what seems to be a year or less (it isn't detailed). Money? Is this germane to the story? I think so, being a mother is part of the reason she just doesn't give up and let herself die.

Altogether an interesting book, but perhaps the author wouldn't endear herself to enough people to make her next book (in the works) one anyone would put on their pre-order list.

( )

"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! ( )