When Blood Breaks Down

"[A] fascinating debut…This is a powerful look at a disease that forces patients to make 'decisions that no person should ever have to make.'" —Publishers Weekly "What makes this narrative so compelling is the author's ability to bring readers with him on his rounds as he meets each patient and family member, discusses treatment options, and follows them through weeks of treatment, reviewing lab results and bone marrow biopsies, and, when necessary, discussing next steps such as bone marrow transplants...That three patient narratives should prove so effective a lesson is a tribute to Sekeres as both storyteller and physician." —Kirkus Reviews "With grace and fluency, Sekeres offers more than a scientific portrait of leukemia; he also includes personal stories about the origins of the disease; the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship; and how leukemia treatment, such as chemotherapy, can impact patients along with their families. Sekeres combines literary substance with significant medical information and data. The engaging stories in this book, both personal and scientific, make it a good choice for readers interested in solid literature on medicine, especially cancer research." —Library Journal "A look at leukemia patients' fear, survival and grace while fighting the disease...a quiet chronicle of life with and beyond leukemia, and sometimes life's end." — The Washington Post  "Dr. Sekeres accomplishes something that most authors in this genre fail to do: He wrote a book that will capture the imagination of the scientific and medical audiences, along with the lay public...Readers will be elevated by the grace and humanity on page after page." —The ASCO POST "In this powerful and wonderfully written book that both educates and moves you, Sekeres writes with the authority and compassion that comes with decades of practice." —Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer "Sekeres nimbly unravels the mysteries of leukemia, while gently probing how human beings navigate the shoals of cataclysmic disease.  Fascinating tales of historical and current research are deftly woven into the poignant stories of his patients. Absorbing and moving." —Dr. Danielle Ofri, author, When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error "A remarkably talented physician-author and humanist elegantly tells the stories of his patients." —Eric Topol, author of Deep Medicine; EVP, Professor of Molecular Medicine, Scripps Research "Sekeres is our unflinching and compassionate guide into the heart of a complex and often terrifying disease. There are few physicians who are as accomplished as he is and yet whose sentences pulse with clarity, warmth, and humility." —Jay Baruch, author of What's Left Out and Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients and Other Strangers