Not in Vain A Promise Kept

★★★★★ Absolutely powerful heartbreaking and helpful! - Reader ReviewAn unflinching chronicle of loss that takes a hard look at the state of medical care in the United States. (Kirkus)No diagnosis. No explanation from a doctor. No staging or prognosis. The beginning of eight months of nightmare.____One moment Melissa was in her mothers hospital room with her mother and sister waiting for the results of a biopsy already four days overdue. The next: a nurse walked in with what looked like nuclear fallout gear and multiple IV bags to tell Melissas mother Hello Mrs. Burns. Im here with your chemotherapy to treat your cancer.The tears started. The nightmare began and then unwound over an eight-month period of necessary grief...and totally unnecessary suffering.In a real-world story that is all-too-relevant Not In Vain A Promise Kept chronicles in terrible detail the repeated failures of a broken health care system. Medical mistakes poor communication false hope. The helplessness of a woman watching her mother slowly die-and far worse suffering pain and indignities that did not have to happen and never should have: suffering brought on not by disease but by human error and medical mismanagement. Indignities that carved Melissas mother away one small piece at a time until finally it was just the two of them holding hands late at night in the hospital with her mother suffering yet again another side effect of cancer and a promise asked: Tell them what happened. Tell them how to keep it from happening again.The promise was given. The promise is now being kept.This is a book that you will not regret picking up! OnlineBookClub.orgReaders will cheer... Kirkus ReviewsMullamphy does such a masterful job... Foreword Clarion Reviews