My book is When Hope Is Your Only Option — a memoir about surviving three organ transplants and rebuilding my life, including a 38-year business, after being told more than once to give up hope.
It's not really a book about medicine. It's about what happens in the space between being told there's no path forward and finding one anyway the relationship with the donor family who made survival possible, the losses along the way, and the day-to-day work of rebuilding when nothing about your old life is coming back the way it was.
If you've read and loved books like Between Two Kingdoms (Suleika Jaouad), My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (Amy Silverstein), or Hope Heals (Katherine Wolf), I think this one will sit well on that same shelf. And if you're in your own hard chapter right now illness, loss, starting over, whatever that looks like for you I think this book will meet you there. That's who I wrote it for.
It's been recognized as a Montaigne Medal Finalist (Eric Hoffer Award) and reviewed by Kirkus and Foreword Clarion. I'm not sharing this to sell copies I'm sharing it because if you need a reminder that circumstances don't get the final word, this is that reminder.
Happy to answer any questions about the story. And if you read it, I'd love your honest thoughts good, bad, or in between.
My book is When Hope Is Your Only Option — a memoir about surviving three organ transplants and rebuilding my life, including a 38-year business, after being told more than once to give up hope.
It's not really a book about medicine. It's about what happens in the space between being told there's no path forward and finding one anyway the relationship with the donor family who made survival possible, the losses along the way, and the day-to-day work of rebuilding when nothing about your old life is coming back the way it was.
If you've read and loved books like Between Two Kingdoms (Suleika Jaouad), My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (Amy Silverstein), or Hope Heals (Katherine Wolf), I think this one will sit well on that same shelf. And if you're in your own hard chapter right now illness, loss, starting over, whatever that looks like for you I think this book will meet you there. That's who I wrote it for.
It's been recognized as a Montaigne Medal Finalist (Eric Hoffer Award) and reviewed by Kirkus and Foreword Clarion. I'm not sharing this to sell copies I'm sharing it because if you need a reminder that circumstances don't get the final word, this is that reminder.
Happy to answer any questions about the story. And if you read it, I'd love your honest thoughts good, bad, or in between.
Jim Stavis