You Can Stop Humming Now

About this book

A critical care doctors breathtaking stories about what it means to be saved by modern medicine Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days months or years as a result of our treatments and technologies? In You Can Stop Humming Now Lamas explores the complex answers to this question through intimate accounts of patients and their families. A grandfather whose failing heart has been replaced by a battery-operated pump; a salesman who found himself a kidney donor on social media; a college student who survived a near fatal overdose and returned home alive but not the same; and a young woman navigating an adulthood she never thought shed live to see -- these moving narratives paint a detailed picture of the fragile border between sickness and health. Riveting gorgeously told and deeply personal You Can Stop Humming Now is a compassionate uncompromising look at the choices and realities that many of us and our families may one day face.