Through vignette-like reflections, David Metzger (a father and pediatric nurse) provides insight into what it’s like to care for devastatingly sick children while trying to raise kids of his own. The often-humorous struggles of his own parenthood offer a balance and a thoughtful lens into his professional life. It’s an important book for parents, medical professionals, and anyone with a heart.
At times devastating. At others, laugh-out-loud funny. This book will tear at your heart strings then help you reload them for the next page.
As the parent of a small child, I had to read this in fits and starts. While I typically prefer to read a book in as few sittings as possible, I found myself slogging emotionally through chapters. Forced to take a break when a particularly apt description caught me somewhere between the ribs like a tire-iron to the torso.
The descriptions of the scenes are equal parts vivid and devastating. If this, the world of pediatric oncology, is not one in which you’re familiar, then I urge you to steel your heart. But, you still must venture in. It is, without a doubt, a reminder of how lucky some of us are. It will make you hug your children a little tighter, it’ll put you on the phone with a parent, and it will, without a doubt, leave you changed.
