"Let Me Go When the Banter Stops" is Coming in May!

We're getting closer to the first anniversary of Steve's death. I do not miss dialysis, but I sure miss him.

I wrote throughout Steve's illness - his fall into acute-on-chronic renal failure, his heart events and heart surgery, his critical illness myopathy, his leg amputation, and finally, his death on April 13, 2011. Through chapters written in real time, through correspondence, through this blog and medical records, Steve's story is carefully chronicled.

"Let Me Go When the Banter Stops: A Doctor's Fight for the Love of her Life" will be released in May 2012.

As I gathered consent signatures from over one-hundred individuals, i.e. consent to be named in the story, it became apparent to me that Let Me Go When the Banter Stops represents a true community effort. And a tribute to Steve and the people who worked so hard to try to get him to the point of having a second kidney transplant.

I worked for hours to prepare the manuscript and photos for submission. I got them all in...and within two hours, my computer simply crashed. It was as though the little laptop limped along just far enough to get this project off the ground! And then, time for a break.

This unusual photo captures Steve all velcro'd into the standing table: a device used
to help him learn to adjust to standing after months of being bed-ridden. He
managed to stand for a total of two minutes, but the dream of walking was out of reach.


There's a lot of medicine in the book. I sincerely wanted to educate people about metabolic syndrome, diabetes, renal failure - and the prevention of these maladies. But at its core, the book is always a true love story.

Let Me Go When the Banter Stops will be available through my website (http://www.lindagromkomd.com/) and through Amazon.com. A Kindle edition will also be available.

Take care,
Linda Gromko, MD