BOOK REVIEW: BORROWING LIFE—How Scientists, Surgeons, and a War Hero Made the First Successful Organ Transplant a Reality

THE BRILLIANCE EMANATING FROM THE PAGES OF BORROWING LIFE NECESSITATED MY PROTECTIVE READING ATTIRE

I’ll never be or pee the same again after reading Shelley Fraser Mickle’s book tracking the first successful organ transplant—a kidney. That famous kidney flooded the surgical room floor with the transplant patient’s pee before Dr. Joseph Murray had even finished rerouting it to the bladder.

Not interested in scientific minutia you say? Me neither, until BORROWING LIFE—How Scientists, Surgeons, and a War Hero Made the First Successful Organ Transplant a Reality. Shelley treats the medical science share of the equation like pieces of the humanity puzzle, exquisitely snapping those pieces into place for us—and presto—medical science springs to life.

The people in Borrowing Life are akin to characters in a novel. Brought together by individual scientific and medical pursuits and motivated by their obsessive curiosity and exceptional intellect, men and women crossed borders and boundaries to cure, hope and love. Rather than fame or money, their ambitions were driven by their empathy for the awful human condition, whether caused by war, accident or disease.

You could write books on every person in Borrowing Life, which spans decades. In the face of overwhelming failures, the doctors, nurses, patients and scientists bonded to create the magic of saving human lives. I want to know more about Joe, Franny, Peter, Charles, Jean, Miriam and Bobby and meet these exceptional folks for lunch. Shelley also highlights the relationship factor too, introducing us to the wives supporting those on the front lines while rearing their families.

Flames consuming his comrades inside their engulfed plane, how does WWII pilot Charles Woods escape a burning cockpit, sit nearby and converse with onlookers after his face and hands had just been burned off? How does a burn victim, on the precipice of death, survive dozens of cadaver skin grafts not expected to work, but they did work? Those initial successes ignited the imaginations of treating physicians Francis Moore and Joseph Murray and they were hellbent on transplanting internal organs without rejection, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Manipulating the immune system was the key, and British scientist Peter Medawar experimented on cows, mice, chickens and dogs to fashion the key.

Turning the last pages of Borrowing Life my eyes popped and my jaw dropped to the floor like a cartoon character when I learned the fates of those involved.

Borrowing Life is a diary of urgency told via the vanguards who sacrificed their time, talent and energy to both alleviate the inevitable pain associated with physical and emotional mutilations, and to extend the lives of individuals suffering the effects of late stage kidney disease. Kidney transplant surgery laid the foundation for all other organ transplants we now take for granted.

I’ve read Shelley’s heartwarming memoir, The Polio Hole, as well as her thrilling account of a triple crown winner in American Pharoah, including why the horse’s name was misspelled. I was enchanted by her award-winning novels, Queen of October and Replacing Dad. Shelly has mastered the brilliance of elegant simplicity in both fiction and non-fiction.

Considering America’s current landscape of both racial/social and viral pandemics, we are living our “time of war.” Borrowing Life is a startling reminder that every generation confronts horrors with either grace and dignity or anger and fear. It’s a choice of morality and courage.

Thank you, Shelley Fraser Mickle, for showing us the power of dedicated, relentless team work and individual integrity through a fascinating real-life heroes’ tale of the miraculous.