Gerald Keep

Today's Stoic, Tomorrow's Hero? Gerald Keep

A wrenching account of one family's five-year battle with what proved to be terminal liver disease, this story explores all aspects of the difficulty in raising a family under such conditions. Written from the point of view of the primary caregiver, the story reveals much about the possible challenges facing the 17,000 families now waiting for a liver transplant in the USA. Many more face other debilitating diseases or the ravages of age. Despite his scientific training to try to understand what is happening, the author is crushed by the medical bureaucracy, and the wild ups and downs of the course of the disease. Having adopted their children, the author struggles with his fundamental values and his conflicting responsibilities to the children and to his ailing wife. This book should help friends and family better understand what a stoic experience the caregiver of one seriously ill may be going through. More importantly, it can show such a lonely individual that what they are going through is not unique, and that they need not be alone. As events proceed through hospice, funeral, and grief, the author looks back on their time together and reflects on the nature of life and love.