Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After
Copyright 2017
This is the true story of how one sibling saved another’s life via a stem cell transplant. Heather Harpham’s daughter Gracie was born with a mysterious blood disorder, requiring frequent transfusions. She describes how she and her husband Brian accidentally conceived a second child soon after Gracie’s birth and the long, agonizing, decision-making and transplant process.
At first, I was concerned, not only for Gracie’s welfare, but about what her younger brother Gabriel would need to endure in order for Gracie to have the transplant. Then I learned that since Gabriel’s stem cells were harvested at birth with no pain or discomfort, nothing else needed to be done to him. Maybe the author should have made this more clear from the get-go.
I also didn’t like the way she, at the beginning, switched between scenes with her and Gracie in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after Gracie’s birth and the story of her and Brian becoming a couple and her subsequent pregnancy. Although the back story about Heather and Brian is important, at the time, I couldn’t have cared less. I was more concerned about Gracie. It would have been better to have a prologue with one scene in the NICU and then start the story at the beginning. That’s how I do it in My Ideal Partner; How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds. Otherwise, I love this sweet story with a happy ending.
My Books
My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds
That’s Life: New and Selected Poems
How to Build a better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver
My Other Links
My Corner 
My husband is a stem cell transplant so I am very familiar with the process for receiver and donor. it is a fascinating process and one that the general public should know about. It is not science fiction, but that is what most folks think.
Without this gift of live from a man in Spain, my husband would not be alive 5 years after his diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. So, this story interests me.
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Lynda, thank you so much for sharing this information about your husband. Please feel free to re-blog this post on your own site in order to help spread the word about stem cell transplant so people will believe it’s something real.
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