I find this book very inspiring. She's a very strong woman

If you are a little suspicious of the medical profession and if you fear the day when you have to take a loved one to a hospital please read this. Or better yet, give it to whomever might be taking you. This is not only alarming but it is a wonderful personal love story. It puts it all in perspective. If you want to read a great book that nobody seems to know about, this is a great discovery.

When we're sick, we need to think the doctor knows enough, and cares. But something went horribly wrong in the medical treatment of Monroe Hirsch. The change in his personality was sudden, unexplained, even denied by the health professionals who did know the reason.

This is a love story and true, told by Monroe's wife. Seeing the man who'd loved her replaced by a beligerent and distrusful stranger, she tells how she sought to find answers, and any way at all to help him.

Winnie had every reason to expect competence and honesty from doctors, having seen it at work for so long. Monroe was an eminent optometrist, Dean of the School of Optometry at the University of California at Berkeley. Winnie had worked with him in his practice and knew the demanding standards he set for himself. But professionalism is like every other form of goodness -- an ideal to build again every day. The best of us admit to falling short somehow, daily. This story reminds us that some don't admit to falling short.

Deliberate lies and false hopes make dirty wounds. The cruelest aspect of the deceit Winnie faced was that it turned her own strengths against her. In situations of alienation, fair-minded people look first to themselves. In the face of difficulty, responsible people try harder. With intelligence and courage, Winnie battled alone and lonely, often against herself, for something already lost.

There's redemption here too. Winnie did find answers, and did have some last months of better knowledge and a kind of peace before her husband died. And now her story carries a powerful message. Even in a medical crisis, we must trust our own persistent convictions. And we're entitled to stay in control.

I was moved by this book -- angered, inspired, saddened and empowered. I wish everyone, particularly every woman could read it.

Amazing story of a woman who was raised in tent, home schooled until 13, went to grade school where she was put into the senior class, entered college graduating at 16, was not allowed to enter medical school unless she married. She married a cold fish but had three children by him because she wanted children. She sold religious tracts to "buy her way into medical school". She was subjected to immense prejudice from the teachers and the students in medical school, but was one of two out of nine female students to graduate. When she began her practice, the school sent her entire salary to her husband who promptly used it to further his own ends. She became a legend in her area of practice and eventually became renowned in a large region of the USA for her diagnostic abilities and her humanitarian practice of medicine. She eventually divorced her husband and married a man who appreciated and dearly loved her. At her death one of her young patients had achieved fame and a high post in the United Nations and flew from Rome to attend her funeral. A great read, will hold you in its grip from cover to cover.