Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Mercies in Disguise
Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them | Gina Kolata
3 posts | 4 read | 4 to read
The phone rings. The doctor from California is on the line. “Are you ready Amanda?” The two people Amanda Baxley loves the most had begged her not to be tested—at least, not now. But she had to find out. If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold a brutal illness and you were offered the chance to find out if you’d inherited it, would you do it? Would you walk toward the problem, bravely accepting whatever answer came your way? Or would you avoid the potential bad news as long as possible? In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times science reporter and bestselling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an almost archetypal family in a small town in South Carolina. A proud and determined clan, many of them doctors, they are struck one by one with an inscrutable illness. They finally discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of events that many saw as providential. Meanwhile, science, progressing for a half a century along a parallel track, had handed the Baxleys a resolution—not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease and who did not. And science would offer another dilemma—fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children through an expensive process. A work of narrative nonfiction in the tradition of the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Mercies in Disguise is the story of a family that took matters into its own hands when the medical world abandoned them. It’s a story of a family that had to deal with unspeakable tragedy and yet did not allow it to tear them apart. And it is the story of a young woman—Amanda Baxley—who faced the future head on, determined to find a way to disrupt her family’s destiny.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
Amiable
post image
Pickpick

The Baxley family has a rare and fatal neurological condition called GSS. All have a 50/50 chance of inheriting it. This book traces the research into the discovery of GSS and how family members used scientific breakthroughs in genetic counseling and fertility treatments to test and screen for it so as to avoid passing it down. Very readable and interesting. But who is the saint? Why, science— of course!

#Nonfiction2022
Prompt: I‘m a Saint

Riveted_Reader_Melissa Great review…stacking!! 2y
41 likes1 stack add1 comment
review
EndlessAdventures101
post image
Pickpick

I was browsing through my local library when I came across this wonderful read. I always like finding a book on an unfamiliar topic and this was one I could no put down. It was informative, heart-wrenching, and inspiring. Defiantly a pick and would recommend to anyone who wants a story that makes them think about science and medicine and how impacts your choices.

blurb
BethFishReads
post image

Listening to this now. Interesting true story of search for cause of an incurable neurological disease that seems to run in families. Audiobook is holding my attention & book itself reads like a medical mystery. Good mix of getting to know the people and the biology/medicine. Hope it holds up

SaraFair I love medical mysteries like this! 8y
37 likes2 stack adds1 comment