Patient in the Maelstrom

A hospital. A hurricane. An English professor in the throes of chemotherapy, his wife at his side. Carolyn Perry and her husband Bob were that couple, trapped by Katrina and marooned at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans after the levees breached, flooding the city. In "For Better, For Worse: Patient in the Maelstrom," Carolyn Perry tells the gripping story of two people in a loving marriage, fighting a relentless disease and swept up in the chaos of a man-made disaster. What's it like to be a patient with advanced cancer trapped in a hospital with no electricity or running water and no way to escape? Carolyn Perry vividly recounts her husband's ordeal in the flood-ravaged devastation following Katrina.

Page Count: 210
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Publish Date: October 5, 2020
Imprint: Sunbury Press
Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Medical

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

For Better, For Worse: Patient in the Maelstrom breaks new ground as a Katrina chronicle. In this patient-centered page turner, she and her husband struggle to cope with the fear, helplessness, and uncertainty brought on by the destruction of New Orleans and the couple's healthcare lifeline. -- Dr. Richard Deichmann, author of Code Blue: A Katrina Physician's Memoir

With restraint and precision, Carolyn Perry sets the story of a very personal catastrophe--a spouse's struggle with cancer--against the hugely public catastrophe that was Katrina. The story lines intersect at a place called Memorial Hospital, a scene of atrocious suffering that also gave rise to accusations of mercy killing and euthanasia. -- Jed Horne, author of Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of an Great American City

This moving memoir fuses a hair-raising escape narrative with a haunting love story. The broader disaster of Katrina is viewed through the microcosm of a single hospital, where the nightmarish breakdown of civilization is evoked with searing details. This is creative nonfiction at its best, a roller coaster ride of adrenaline, hope, and loss. -- James Nolan, author of Perpetual Care: Stories and Higher Ground