A Short Good Life: Her Father Tells Liza's Story of Facing Death

by Philip Lister

Overview

It's unusual to access a child's mind during the magic years of childhood. It's rarer when the child is facing her death. Liza, an ardent child with a deep love of cows and the color purple was diagnosed with leukemia at age four and died two years later in 1996. Liza was an unusually expressive child and her parents, both child psychiatrists, were uniquely oriented to appreciate the richness of a child's mind. Through writing this book, Liza's father strove to reveal the inner world of a child's mind—and a parent's mind—as few other books can. At its center, this is the story of a child's psyche growing and striving to understand all she could of her experience, and of a small family coping with life's biggest challenges. It is a story of love's power to help a family cope and endure despite loss, and to grow, through darkness, back toward a full embrace of life. Through the process, the family emerges transformed, awed by the capacities of this child.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476685571
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	08/20/2021
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.57(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Philip Lister is an adult and child psychiatrist in private practice in New York City. He is affiliated with Weill Cornell, Columbia, and Mount Sinai medical centers and teaches the art of psychotherapy with children and adolescents. In recent years he has worked as a therapist in the Phase 3 research study treating PTSD with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. For more about the book see the author’s website, ashortgoodlife.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Wonderful World of Color 1

Part I All the Way to the Deep End 5

1 Bone Marrow Biopsy 6

2 Day Zero 11

3 Induction 19

4 A Bumpy Road 28

5 Complications 35

6 Living with What Do You Call It 61

Part II Transplantation: From Hither to Yon 85

7 Limbo 86

8 Second Year, Second Medical Center 94

9 Final Preparations 102

10 Transplant 115

11 Home Again, Again 132

12 Fog 140

13 GVHD and PUVA 148

14 New Troubles: Diabetes and Pain 164

Part III Heart to Heart 175

15 Questions 176

16 Did You Get That? 186

17 Supports 193

18 Alert Again 199

19 Speaking of Death 211

20 The Happy Sad Birthday 237

21 The Reader 245

22 Molly's Birthday 251

23 Time 255

Epilogue: Through Loss, Deeper Hues 263

Acknowledgments 272

Index 275

Editorial Reviews

The strength of the heartbreaking memoir rests with the author’s ability to capture, through narration and daily dialogue, the inner turmoil and resilience of each family member (including Liza’s older sister, Molly), as they struggled together through the frustrations, anger, doubts, love, hopes, and fears during this painful ordeal... An emotionally honest, informative, and beautifully composed cancer account; a solid addition to the genre.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2022-04-21
A memoir recalls a fierce, two-year battle against leukemia fought by the author’s young daughter.

Liza was diagnosed in October 1994 at the age of 4. The bone marrow test revealed “acute lymphocytic leukemia.” As devastating as the news was, there was great hope for her survival. “Pre-B cell leukemia is the most successfully treated,” the New York Mount Sinai Hospital doctor told Lister and his wife. “The cure rate is high, now greater than 80 percent.” And Liza had no known risk factors, making her an ideal candidate for the two-year course of treatment. The author and his wife, Elena, both psychiatrists, had faith in the primary members of the oncology team, and Liza was admitted to the hospital, where she remained for a month, receiving the first round of treatment. She was given strong doses of steroids to counteract the effects of the chemotherapy. Then there were medicines to counteract the effects of the steroids. Six weeks after returning home and receiving the good news that she was in remission, Liza returned to the hospital with a major fungal infection. This was followed by her developing severe pancreatitis as a result of one of the chemo drugs. And round and round it went, for two years. Lister describes in detail the many procedures and medications Liza endured, imparting valuable information for families facing similar journeys. Notwithstanding his gratitude for the skill, care, and compassion of the medical professionals, he also issues a warning to readers: Be alert. In a chilling passage, he writes of catching a careless error when Liza was almost given 10 times the correct dose of a powerful medication. But the strength of the heartbreaking memoir rests with the author’s ability to capture, through narration and daily dialogue, the inner turmoil and resilience of each family member (including Liza’s older sister, Molly), as they struggled together through the frustrations, anger, doubts, love, hopes, and fears during this painful ordeal. Liza—so young yet so courageous and articulate, even as she knew she was dying—remains a vibrant presence in these pages.

An emotionally honest, informative, and beautifully composed cancer account; a solid addition to the genre.

Kirkus Reviews