You Can Stop Humming Now Audiobook By Daniela Lamas cover art

You Can Stop Humming Now

A Doctor's Stories of Life, Death, and in Between

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You Can Stop Humming Now

By: Daniela Lamas
Narrated by: Daniela Lamas, Susannah Jones
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For readers of Atul Gawande and Jerome Groopman, a book of beautifully crafted stories about what life is like for patients kept alive by modern medical technology.

Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?

You Can Stop Humming Now, Lamas explores the complex answers to this question through intimate accounts of patients and their families. A grandfather whose failing heart has been replaced by a battery-operated pump; a salesman who found himself a kidney donor on social media; a college student who survived a near fatal overdose and returned home, alive but not the same; and a young woman navigating an adulthood she never thought she'd live to see -- these moving narratives paint a detailed picture of the fragile border between sickness and health.

Riveting, gorgeously told, and deeply personal, You Can Stop Humming Now is a compassionate, uncompromising look at the choices and realities that many of us, and our families, may one day face.

"Gripping, soaring, inspiring."-Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal Biographies & Memoirs Medical Medicine & Health Care Industry Professionals & Academics Emergency & Critical Care Medical Ethics Policy & Administration

Critic reviews

"Daniela Lamas is the real thing. Her voice is wry, compassionate, sometimes doctorly, and sometimes not. And she's written a gripping, soaring, inspiring book about the sickest people on the planet. It's an important story too -- about not only death, but also survival. Read it. You'll see things you've never seen. You'll be moved. And you'll discover a voice you want to hear more from."—Atul Gawande, author of the international bestseller Being Mortal
"Critical illness is a matter life and death. Or is it? This is a book about medicine at the margins. Daniela Lamas explores liminal conditions of life hanging in the balance between life worth living and fates worse than death. You Can Stop Humming Now is participatory journalism at its best, a compelling investigation of chronic critical illness that will spark a national conversation about the plight of ICU survivors."—Ira Byock, MD, author of Dying Well and The Best Care Possible
"Dazzling... [Lamas] effortlessly captures the rhythm and mayhem of modern medicine... Warmth and humanity radiate from every page.....The patients in this book have something important to say, and so does the author. We should all be listening."—USA Today
"Exceptionally humane and well-crafted essays."—Harvard Magazine
"In the early years of her practice, Lamas learns the hard way that medicine requires as much heart as science. Her empathetic, beautifully crafted accounts from inside the ICU recall the work of Atul Gawande."—Hamilton Cain, Oprah.com
"Heart-rending and inspiring"
—Kirkus (Starred Review)
"This thoughtful, reflective, and beautifully rendered book examines the costs of modern medicine. Readers who enjoy books by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, or Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air will find this volume moving and provocative."—Library Journal (Starred Review)
"Medicine's miracles are everywhere to behold. But what about the day after? Lamas explores a world that few have ever contemplated -- how we live after the dramatic save by the technological prowess of modern medicine. This eye-opening book reveals the gains and the costs -- both to the body and to the spirit -- of altering nature's predestined course. In turns anguishing, gripping, and hopeful, You Can Stop Humming Now is a must-read for anyone contemplating what medicine holds in store for us."—Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Feel
"This is a rare and wonderful book, filled with insight, warmth, and a deep humanity that hits us with real emotion rather than sentimentality. If Daniela Lamas is as good a doctor as she is a writer, her patients are very lucky indeed."—Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter series
Insightful Patient Stories • Respectful Tone • Realistic Portrayal • Human Perspective • Thought-provoking Content

Highly rated for:

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This is a very good listen. Author did a wonderful job all the way around....words, sentiment, respect, tone, narration. She should keep writing stories this exact way.
Excellent .

Super excellent

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This book was somewhat difficult for me to read. It is well written but really does show the reality of people’s lives, living in what the author calls purgatory at times. The fact that there are many people living there lives do to medical advances, in such a state between life and death. Every life has value and a purpose, and it’s difficult to read about their life after they have received a transplant. Also to know the reality of the caregivers life watching their love one go through such struggles just to breath and live. The will to live is so strong and you can see how strong it is through the authors eyes. It’s a good book but hard to read.

“Reality”

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Invaluable insight to the very human problems that advances in medicine have created. Thank you Daniela!

must read for patients and families!

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I appreciated hearing stories of critically ill patients and their choices and decisions about living in a state of prolonged hospitalization or recurring hospitalizations. I gained more perspective on the complexity of life in ICU and acute care floors. The doctor contemplated her patient's lives and their futures. It caused me to think more deeply on the subject of what I might face if was very ill or living with a serious, perhaps terminal diagnosis.
I felt something was missing though. I would have liked more discussion about how our health care system might provide a look at not doing so much to extend life. Western medicine tends to aim to prolong life and I would like to see more thought about if that is really in one's best interest.
Would rather have had the author read the whole thing.

Explores critical illness with multiple patients

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i enjoyed this book, however, i thought it would be more about the ethics of long term care of those patients who are very ill. it was still interesting, but i'd like to see more about the long term effects of being in the ICU as related to ethics. i feel that providers don't give patients a clear view of the long term effects of certain actions. the author touched on it briefly, but i'd like to see ut more fully developed.

good book book

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