Patient: the True Story of a Rare Illness

Ben Watt Viking, £12.50, pp 178 ISBN 0 670 87041 2

There is a growing trend to bare one's soul to the media, to discuss one's tragedies and, particularly, to recount a tale of overcoming major illness or disaster. While I find it difficult to watch these stories unfold on television, a well written account does help me to understand more about the human experience—knowledge that is useful for a general practitioner. The BMJ's Personal View offers moving accounts of this nature, but I have rarely read a piece as gripping, moving, and interesting as this book.

This is the author's first book; he is a musician and songwriter by profession and writes unselfconsciously with style. A few year's ago what seemed to be a worsening of his asthma turned out to be a symptom of a rare autoimmune disorder called Churg-Strauss syndrome. The nature of the disease and autoimmunity is explained in simple language, but the diagnosis is only part of the story. Ben Watt's tale unfolds with the drama of a detective novel. The diagnosis is made only by resorting to laparoscopy: ironic that the surgical team make the breakthrough after ultrasound scans and computed tomography have failed to establish the cause of his eosinophilia, abdominal pain, and fever. The surgeons have to remove most of his gangrenous small bowel. No one knows what advice to give about diet after such a drastic procedure.

Through all the investigations, errant diagnoses, and setbacks Ben has no complaints about the NHS staff who are looking after him, but he paints a vivid picture of a run down, central London hospital and the stresses and strains under which the staff work. The anguish of his family and friends is described through his day to day life on an intensive care unit and then a surgical ward. Ben is sometimes detached from his surroundings and allows the reader a glimpse of that world into which the seriously ill retreat. There are comic moments—the visit of the hospital library service and the nightmare that is the day room, where other people's relatives are unable to cope with visiting their own family let alone empathising with a thin young man with an assortment of drips and feeding tubes.

The name of the disease is almost irrelevant. I doubt I will ever stand up in triumph and diagnose a case in practice. But the insight into one man's suffering and the sense of achievement when he finally goes home make this a memorable book. A year after his near death experience Ben and his partner, Tracey, who have made music together for over 10 years, become world famous pop stars. Ben has said that his experience helped him move on both artistically and emotionally.—LILL E THISTLETHWAITE, senior lecturer in community based teaching, Medical Education Unit, University of Leeds