The Graceview Patient By Caitlin Starling - 39

First and foremost, this book would not exist without my mother, Betsy. I grew up alongside her eventually fatal illness, and accompanied her to hospitals and HIV clinics. I knew her home nurses and her doctors. Without her, I may still have come to my fascination with medicine, but I suspect the tone would have been very different. She was braver than I hope I ever need to be, and possibly more than I can understand, though I had an inkling one day driving to the NICU to visit my son, and realizing for just a moment what it must have been like for her to raise me knowing she wouldn’t live to see me become an adult.

Fayette-Gehret syndrome is named after her, though it doesn’t have much in common with HIV besides immune system dysfunction, and I owe a thank-you to my aunt Carolyn, who not only okayed the name but checked in at every step in this book’s development to make sure I hadn’t changed it.

I was also fortunate enough to reconnect with one of my mother’s nurses, Michael Chance, while in the process of fact- checking the medical aspects of this book. Michael, thank you so much for walking me through not only your relationship with my mother, but also the work you did helping to develop drug trials for HIV treatment and your expertise on hospital functioning.

To my wonderful friend and nursing consultant, Kathleen—thank you, forever, for the work you did not only correcting medical errors (any remaining are entirely my fault), but for helping me build out the hospital of Graceview as its own character and culture. Thank you for telling me, “Isobel’s a better nurse than that,” when I had her make weaker choices in earlier drafts. And thank you for walking me through exactly how to MacGyver that transfusion rigging in the second to last chapter.

David, Alex, Integra—as always, I’m not sure how I’d get through drafting a book without you three. Your constant support, your willingness to listen to me ramble while I troubleshoot plot issues, your excitement for each new project, all of it keeps me going. Thank you, and here’s to another one for the (hah) books.

Finally, to my publishing family—Caitlin McDonald, Michael Homler, Maddie Alsup, Rivka Holler, and the rest of the SMP team—it has been a joy to build this book alongside you. And Xe Sands, I will never forget that this was the book that made us actually do something about always wanting to work together again.

I want to close out by saying: This is not a book meant to make you fear the science of medicine or the practitioners. The drug trials my mother participated in had their ups and downs; she weathered them to help other people as much as to buy herself more time. My own hospitalization that led to the inspiration for this book was potentially traumatizing, but the guidance and care of my nurses and physicians made all the difference. Medicine, and medical research, are both so, so important, and I hope that if you ever get the chance, you’ll consider participating yourself.

And please, do not try to autotransfuse your blood into your nurse. Nurses deal with more than enough as it is.