National Nurses United

The memoir recounts the last few years since his diagnosis, as he became one of the most well-known activists in America. The book begins in 2016, a time when Barkan described feeling "on top of the world." He had an emerging career as a social justice lawyer at the Center for Popular Democracy, and he and his wife Rachael had a brand-new baby boy named Carl. But in the fall of that year, he started to show symptoms of weak- ness in one of his hands. After a few doctor visits and MRIs, he was horrified to learn that his illness was among the worst-case scenar- ios: He was being diagnosed with ALS. As he describes in the book, his entire world was completely turned upside down. Only 20 percent of ALS patients live longer than five years. Only 5 percent live longer than 10 years. The average ALS patient is diagnosed between the ages of 50 and 70. Barkan was 32. The next few chapters vividly depict Barkan's point of view for the reader, recounting his intense experience of adapting to life with ALS. In the last few years, he has slowly lost nearly all of his motor functions. First it was losing the ability to pick up his son, Carl. Soon after, he lost the ability to walk on his own. By 2017, he was in a wheelchair and his wife Rachael also became his caretaker. The memoir reaches a profound turning point a few chapters in. After a few months of depression and at moments, despair, Barkan begins to feel compelled to use his remaining days to the fullest. The severity of the current political system—the rising threat of fascism around the globe, the climate crisis, unprecedented wealth inequal- ity, and a broken health care system off the rails—began to sink in for him as it hadn't before. A drastically shortened timeline to help solve these problems prompted Barkan to realize that he couldn't just sit on the sidelines, even without the use of his basic body functions. In fact, he realized that perhaps his illness would help draw the atten- tion and provide the dramatic effect that these issues so deserve. As chronicled in the memoir, Barkan most rose to prominence through his participation in the efforts to protect Medicare by defeating the GOP tax bill in the fall of 2017. He and other activists knew that among the many consequences of the bill, severe cuts to Medicare would be among the worst. Realizing he needed to fight back however he could, he booked a flight and with the help of friends and caretakers made his first of many journeys across the country to Washington, D.C. Images of Barkan chanting and rolling in his wheelchair through the halls of Congress that fall, along with other patients whose own survival relied on Medicare, went viral at the time and rocked public consciousness. We were reminded of just how personal these fights are for millions of Americans. While members of Congress talked abstractly about budget cuts in order to give handouts to billionaires, activists like Barkan reminded them that real lives were at stake. With the story of a dying man risking his few days of remaining life, news cameras quickly appeared and suddenly covered the tax bill fight in a way they hadn't before. Barkan's instinct was right: Maybe he was dying, but in the meantime he could use his illness to shed light on the issues that get so little attention in the mainstream media. The memoir recounts his continued fights since then—like his famous encounter with Sen. Jeff Flake on an airplane, begging him to vote against the tax bill, and his cross-country tour in 2018 to help elect candidates who would protect programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Although the book's timeline ends in December 2018, Barkan's activism has only grown. Over the last few years, he has become a fierce advocate for Medicare for All and a close ally of National Nurses United. Through both his activism and his own struggle with ever-increasing medical bills, Barkan describes that he became increasingly aware over the last few years of the urgency to win guaranteed health care for all Americans. The most notable moment in that fight may be from earlier this year, when Barkan was invited to testify before Congress in the first- ever hearing on Medicare for All in the House Rules Committee. Despite having lost the use of his voice by this point, Barkan gave profound and moving testimony through a computerized voice that he controls with his eye movements. His testimony is considered a turning point in the movement for Medicare for All and can be easily found online through a search. Barkan most recently completed a project with NNU to interview the major presidential candidates in the Democratic primary about their stances on health care. The interviews are moving, in depth, and informative. They can be found at www.uncovered.beaherofund.com. Today, Barkan remains steadfast as ever in his activism, as the fight for Medicare for All continues. In early November of this year, he and his wife Rachael welcomed a baby girl, Willow. If you need encouragement to stay in the fight for the issues you care deeply about, this memoir by a leader who will be remembered as one of the greatest advocates for health care justice in our life- times is well worth a read. Throughout his memoir, Barkan reminds us that sometimes it is in the face of death that one can feel a true sense of clarity and resolve. He reminds us to be brave and courageous. If he can take on terminal illness, medical procedures, medical debt, and still make time and energy to fight for our democracy, so can we all. —Jasmine Ruddy How to Treat People: A nurse's notes By Molly Case; Norton In this beautiful book by British nurse and spoken word writer Molly Case, Case draws readers into her reflections on her work as a nurse, stories of significant patients, and on nursing as applied to life in general, her own life, and family relationships. Early in the book, we learn that Case as a teenager had surgery to correct achalasia, a rare gastrointestinal disorder where Case's lower oesophageal sphincter doesn't work properly and won't allow food to enter her stomach. Surely the nurses caring for her had a great deal to do with her eventual decision to become a nurse: "I thought of the nurse who had stayed with me when my mum left the anesthetic room. Her name was Star. She held my hand and didn't take her eyes from mine. She told me she would stay with me for the whole operation. I knew I would never forget her." Caring runs in the family; her older sister Daisy is a nurse midwife. After school and clinical rota- tions, Case ultimately decided to work in a high dependency unit for patients recovering from open heart surgery because she had "become passionate about the life-giving, life-changing impact of cardiac surgery." She organizes the book into five sections that match the assess- ment process that she is taught in school to conduct on every patient: ABCDE, which stands for airway, breathing, circulation, disability, and exposure. In each section, she tells stories about memorable patients who exhibited some challenge in that area as well as sometimes going into biological detail about the body, whether it's the lungs, the heart, or the brain. She often provides O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . 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