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Product Description It is a situation we all fear and none of us can imagine: a life-threatening diagnosis. But what if the person receiving the diagnosis--young, physically fit, poised for a bright future--is himself a doctor? At thirty-one David biro has just completed his residency and joined his father's successful dermatology practice. Struck with a rare blood disease that eventually necessitates a bone marrow transplant, Biro relates with honesty and courage the story of his most transforming journey. He is forthright about the advantages that his status as a physician may have afforded him; and yet no such advantage can protect him from the anxiety and doubt brought on by his debilitating therapies. The pressures that Biro's wild "one hundred days" brings to bear on his heretofore well-established identity as a caregiver are enormous--as is the power of this riveting story of survival. Review * New York Times Book Review "Canty's forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of a Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative. Once he's got you in his thrall, you're as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate." --Newsday on Nine Below Zero"This is first love in all its swift and overwhelming intensity. Both poignant and honest." --Detroit News/Free Press on Into the Great Wide Open"A darkly nuanced, exquisite first collection of stories. Canty navigates the many gulfs and eddies of skewed relationships with unflinching concentration." --Entertainment Weekly on A Stranger in this World "Gripping Canty possesses an instinctive ability to create old-fashioned, highly-plotted stories, rich with incident and narrative tension." --New York Times"Kevin Canty is a storm of talent His imagination is a dark wood with wildlife in it." --Harry Crews "These are lean, powerful stories, which is not to say they are lacking in tenderness. Canty knows how to hurts us the way Flannery O'Connor did." --Los Angeles Times"Kevin Canty's stories are direct portrayals of indistinct moments. As with Didion and Carver, the white space is as important as what's filled in. Canty charts a landscape all his own." --Ann Beattie From the Inside Flap It is a situation we all fear and none of us can imagine: a life-threatening diagnosis. But what if the person receiving the diagnosis--young, physically fit, poised for a bright future--is himself a doctor? At thirty-one David biro has just completed his residency and joined his father's successful dermatology practice. Struck with a rare blood disease that eventually necessitates a bone marrow transplant, Biro relates with honesty and courage the story of his most transforming journey. He is forthright about the advantages that his status as a physician may have afforded him; and yet no such advantage can protect him from the anxiety and doubt brought on by his debilitating therapies. The pressures that Biro's wild "one hundred days" brings to bear on his heretofore well-established identity as a caregiver are enormous--as is the power of this riveting story of survival. From the Back Cover "[A] vivid memoir…lucid and gentle. It is the story of a doctor with the heart of a poet."– The New York Times Book Review About the Author David Biro was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia and Oxford Universities. He teaches dermatology at the State University of New York's Downstate Medical Center and practices in Brooklyn. He has written previously about his illness in the New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One Wednesday morning in September. A brisk fall morning sends sunlight flickering through the blinds. I wake to the sweet stirrings of an old alarm clock. I am a doctor, thirty-one years old, just graduated from residency and the newest employee in my father's dermatology practice in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I awake, I'm not ashamed to s