Codeine Diary: True Confessions of a Reckless Hemophiliac - Softcover

Andrews, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 015600657X ISBN 13: 9780156006576

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1999

Synopsis

In a resonant, haunting, and often hilarious memoir, the author recounts his battle with hemophilia, a battle he was determined to win, pursuing such potentially catastrophic hobbies as playing in a raucous punk rock band and racing motorcycles. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In Codeine Diary, award-winning poet Tom Andrews gives a riveting and often hilarious account of living fully under the shadow of hemophilia. Codeine Diary is a lyrical and haunting memoir of one man's refusal to succumb to the constraints of his disease. Andrews learned early that ordinary life is a perpetual, fragile miracle, which drove him to race motorcycles and play in a punk band as a teenager - pursuits most hemophiliacs would regard as foolhardy at best. But while Andrews was "a poster child for bad insurance risks", he was considered the healthy one in his family: his brother suffered from a devastating and ultimately fatal kidney disorder. In fact, the two diseases were eerily symmetrical: there were days when Andrews would suffer a bleed while his brother's blood would not stop coagulating. Having acquired hemophilia through a "spontaneous mutation" and not hereditarily, having avoided HIV, which nine out of ten severe hemophiliacs contracted in the early 1980s, Andrews is living proof of the strange role chance plays in our lives.

About the Author

Tom Andrews is a professor at Purdue University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 015600657X
• ISBN 13: 9780156006576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238