Blood Brother
Book Feature - Blood Brother by Susan Keller
HBL Note: Susan Keller is one of my sweetest newsletter subscribers, often emailing me back to comment on something she read or to show her appreciation. So I was delighted when in one of those responses she mentioned that she had a book coming out and wondered if I would be interested in featuring it. Um, that is a big YES from me. BLOOD BROTHER is a memoir about curing a supposedly incurable cancer and the search for a brother who disappeared decades earlier in hopes that his bone marrow could save her life. Scroll down to read all about this family saga.
From the publisher:
As a happily married, fifty-five-year-old professional woman, Susan had it all—or thought she did—until the day of her shocking diagnosis with stage 4 Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare and aggressive disease. Within minutes of being admitted to the hospital, her beautifully ordinary life disappeared. How would cancer affect her marriage?
Facing a possible death sentence, Susan experienced visions so lucid and beautiful that she imagined she was looking into the foyer of death or a magnificent afterlife. Her mind and body melded into all that surrounded her. Bliss replaced fear. Cancer and spirituality were one. But during the darkest moments, Susan questioned the nature of mortality. Does death have the same shape, sound, and feeling for everyone? Did the father she yearned for think of her the moment he died? What would she think of? Would there be regret, celebration, or nothingness?
After months of grueling inpatient chemo, she faced another seemingly impossible hurdle. To survive, she needed a bone marrow transplant. But Johnny—her brilliant, off-the-grid brother—was the only possible donor. But he’d vanished decades earlier.