A is for Alex, the Life of a Child

(For the 2013 A to Z Blogging Challenge, I will be featuring one book each day, that begins with that day’s letter, that made an impression on me.  This means that for some reason, I didn’t just read that book and forget about it.  No, I still think about it after some period of time has passed.) 

Title:  Alex, the Life of a Child

Author: Frank Deford

Original Publication Date: 1983

Date I First Read: 1987

Basic Category: Nonfiction / Memoir / Tearjerker

Basic Summary: Alex’s father recounts her life and death.

What I Remember About the Book: I remember most about learning about cystic fibrosis and how it works.  I was just about 12 when I read this, about a year or so after the TV movie aired.  The movie made me sob, and the book was no different.  For some reason, the part of the book that stands out most in my memory now is when the author described his daughter in the hospital when she was very young, when she was being diagnosed.  I was in the living room of the house we lived in, and sitting in my favorite chair while reading that part.   I also remember how the author described his daughter’s clubbed fingers.   At the time, I had no idea what this looked like, and there was no Internet to look it up.  

What I Took Away From the Book:  How genetics generally work. If both parents have the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis for instance, then each one of their biological children have a 25% of having the disease.  This knowledge came in very handy in high school biology a couple of years later.

Rating (1-5 stars):  4.5 stars – I was an impressionable tween.  I also had no idea that my first child would die of complications from his birth defects.  It was not related to genetics (that we know of.)  I also had no idea that I would see what clubbed fingers looked like in real life on my own baby.