We recently received this announcement of a new book,
and thought our readers might be interested...
The book is entitled "Needles: A Memoir of Growing Up With Diabetes."
Summary of book
"I
know about needles," writes Andie Dominick in this beautifully rendered memoir about growing up with juvenile diabetes. As a little girl, these needles belong to Andie's older sister, Denise, a diabetic since the age of two. Andie worships her older sister -- wants to look like her, act like her, be her. Unfortunately, when she is nine years old, part of her wish comes true. Denise helps diagnose Andie with juvenile diabetes, and from then on the needles belong to her.
Here Andie recounts her transformation from a free-spirited kid who enjoyed giving shots to her stuffed animals with her sister's castaway needles to a lifelong patient who must learn to inject herself twice a day. Immediately, she is thrust into a lifestyle more typical of a senior citizen than a fourth grader: a routine that involves not just denial of the simplest of childhood pleasures, candy, but also rigorous self-care and frequent hospital visits.
Andie's very special relationship with Denise is cemented by a dangerous disease, but in the end, they take diverging paths in coping with it. When she is twenty-one, Andie returns to the house she shares with her sister and finds Denise's lifeless body. Though ever watchful of Andie, Denise had abused her own body with neglect and with drugs. Destroyed by the death of her hero and best friend and facing potential blindness from the diabetes, Andie now understands the full consequences of her disease: a lower life expectancy, greater reliance on an often hostile medical establishment, the serious dangers posed by childbearing, and acute loneliness.
With elegance and honesty, Andie describes the bone-chilling procedures she endures to save her eyesight and tells how she found the courage to embrace love and hope in the face of fear, and to live with a disease that has taken so much from her.
Beautifully written, revelatory, and profoundly affecting, Needles is destined to find a place alongside Autobiograpby of a Face as a classic account of a young life transformed by illness.
Review by Mary Swander, author of Out of This World:
In clean, spare prose, Andie Dominick's Needles details her life with chronic illness within the shifting dynamic of a diabetic family. Through this memoir, we get a glimpse of her family's whole emotional range -- how they love and support each other, how they stand up to oppression, how they handle grief and despair, and how they invite hope and happiness back into their lives. Anyone who has ever been challenged by an illness, anyone who has had an ill relative, or anyone who simply wants a greater insight into the human condition will want to read this book. And read it again.
Review by Brenda and Jeff Hitchcock, parents of a diabetic child, and editors of the
Children with DIABETES website:
Needles: A Memoir of Growing up with Diabetes is an outstanding autobiography of a young woman diagnosed with diabetes at age 9. Andie Dominick recalls her diagnosis, done by her older sister and mentor, Denise, who'd been diagnosed in 1962, and her parents. She details her rebellious teen years, when she skipped her shots to lose weight, and subsequent consequences, how she reacted to the early death of her beloved sister, and her development of retinopathy. Ms. Dominick also describes her agonizing decision about not having children in light of the potential complications childbirth could cause. This very moving story is highly recommended for everyone with diabetes and parents of children with diabetes. This book contains some graphic descriptions of the treatment of diabetic retinopathy and may not be suitable for the squeamish.
-- Brenda Hitchcock
Parents of children with diabetes often wonder how their children view life with diabetes. As parents, we struggle with caring for our children and their diabetes, but we can never experience diabetes as they do. I was quite moved by Needles and am grateful to Andie Dominick for putting into words her experiences and feelings, for in doing so, she has opened the door of wisdom and insight for all parents of children with diabetes. Highly recommended.
-- Jeff Hitchcock
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Andie Dominick grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and received her master's degree in English from Iowa State University. She won the 1995 Writer's Digest Award for Best Essay for a piece that appears in altered form in this book. She lives in Des Moines with her husband and dogs.
You can contact Andie at
CalypsoD@aol.com
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Needles: A Memoir of Growing Up With Diabetes can be ordered from
Amazon.com
More information about
Needles
can be found at
Andie's webpage.
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