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Title details for My Glory Was I Had Such Friends by Amy Silverstein - Available

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends

A Memoir

by Amy Silverstein
Erin Moon
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

In this moving memoir about the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit, Amy Silverstein tells the story of the extraordinary group of women who supported her as she waited on the precipice for a life-saving heart transplant.

Nearly twenty-six years after receiving her first heart transplant, Amy Silverstein's donor heart plummeted into failure. If she wanted to live, she had to take on the grueling quest for a new heart—immediately.

A shot at survival meant uprooting her life and moving across the country to California. When her friends heard of her plans, there was only one reaction: "I'm there." Nine remarkable women—Joy, Jill, Leja, Jody, Lauren, Robin, Valerie, Ann, and Jane—put demanding jobs and pressing family obligations on hold to fly across the country and be by Amy's side. Creating a calendar spreadsheet, the women—some of them strangers to one another—passed the baton of friendship, one to the next, and headed straight and strong into the battle to help save Amy's life.

Empowered by the kind of empathy that can only grow with age, these women, each knowing Amy from different stages of her life, banded together to provide her with something that medicine alone could not. Sleeping on a cot beside her bed, they rubbed her back and feet when the pain was unbearable, adorned her room with death-distracting decorations, and engaged in their "best talks ever." They saw the true measure of their friend's strength, and they each responded in kind.

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is a tribute to these women and the intense hours they spent together—hours of heightened emotion and self-awareness, where everything was laid bare. Candid and heartrending, this once-in-a-lifetime story of connection and empathy is a powerful reminder of the ultimate importance of "showing up" for those we love.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 27, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780062681393
      • File size: 355487 KB
      • Duration: 12:20:35

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Amy Silverstein needs a second heart transplant, or she will die. Narrator Erin Moon strikes just the right emotional notes as she delivers Silverstein's account of her incredible journey toward an uncertain third chance at life, and the circle of amazing women who gave her unwavering love and support along the way. Moon moves deftly between straightforward reporting of hospital routines and medical procedures to a softer, contemplative tone for Amy's musings and the intimate aspects of her story. Amy's recordings of each day's highs and lows give immediacy to the wrenching chronicle, and Moon captures all the poignancy, tension, fear, and joy. A beautifully written tribute to the power of hope and friendship is beautifully presented. Add this to your must-listen list. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Kirkus

      May 1, 2017
      Waiting for a new heart, the author was buoyed by nine devoted friends.At the age of 25, Silverstein (Sick Girl, 2007) underwent a heart transplant, a grueling experience that she chronicled in her first memoir. The transplant was followed by other medical challenges: breast cancer, requiring a double mastectomy, and major valve surgery. At the age of 51, she learned that her transplanted heart was failing, and she needed another one. Because of an excessive quantity of antibodies resulting from the first transplant, Silverstein's likelihood of getting a donor match was only 14 percent, and only Cedars-Sinai, in Los Angeles, offered the highly specialized treatment she required. Besides confronting the physical ordeal of surgery, she worried that she would be isolated from her friends and family in New York. When her closest friends learned of her imminent move, though, they banded together in a generous, selfless show of support, creating a spreadsheet that ensured an "unbroken chain of presence." Her candid recounting of five months at Cedars-Sinai tautly conveys her pain, tension, and despair as she waited for a donor heart; and, crucial to her survival, the loyalty and love bestowed by the women who took turns sitting at her bedside, festooning her hospital room with photos and decorations, bearing witness to the frustrating and frightening realities of her profound illness, and easing her pain in whatever way they could. They also frankly chastised her about her irritability toward assorted medical personnel and her ever patient husband. More than once, Silverstein felt like giving up hope: the implantation of a pacemaker seemed more than she could bear. Resisting sedation for any procedure was a way she felt in control, but the pacemaker took over, riddling her with excruciating pain, increasing as her heart failed. The author takes her title from a poem by Yeats, one of many verses that she memorized to keep her spirits up. She amply testifies to the unfailing friends--her husband included--who never lost faith in her recovery. An intimate celebration of the power of compassion.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      May 15, 2017
      Silverstein (Sick Girl, 2007) needs a new heart. She's been here before, 25 years ago, when she received a heart transplant that outlasted its 10-year estimate. A second transplant is trickier, and Silverstein is a match for only a small percentage of hearts. Told that Cedars-Sinai is her best chance, Amy and her husband leave their New York home to live in California while she awaits a new heart. When her friends learn of her situation, they divvy up all the days she will be out there, each agreeing to at least one and sometimes several three- or fournight stays so that she is never alone. Silverstein's skillful writing relates an increasingly brutal array of health issues as her heart starts to fail. Unafraid to show herself warts-and-all, she recounts both missteps caused by her outspoken personality and her own growth throughout the process. A brave, transparent look at the harrowing battle of a heart-transplant patient who, through the support of her friends, conquers unthinkable odds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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