Needles: A Memoir Of Growing Up With Diabetes - Softcover

Dominick, Andie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684856549 ISBN 13: 9780684856544

Publisher: Touchstone, 2000

Synopsis

A CLASSIC ACCOUNT OF A YOUNG LIFE IRREVERSIBLY ALTERED BY ILLNESS
"I know about needles."
All her life, Andie Dominick adored her older sister, Denise. She wanted to look like her, talk like her, be her. Unfortunately, she got part of her wish when, at age nine, she was diagnosed with the same disease from which Denise had suffered since age two: juvenile diabetes. In this beautifully written, revelatory, and profoundly affecting memoir, Dominick recounts her transformation from a free-spirited kid who enjoyed giving shots to her stuffed animals with her sister's castaway needles to a life-long patient who must learn to inject herself twice a day. Emotionally charged, tragic, but in the end hopeful, Dominick tells how she found the courage to embrace love and hope in the face of fear, and to live with a disease that has taken so much from her.
Chosen in 1999 by the American Library Association as one of the best books for teenagers

About this title

Review:

As the title suggests, the author is graphically frank about the medical necessities of living with juvenile-onset diabetes, and squeamish readers may find her memoir harrowing. In its essence, however, this is a story of emotional growth and healing. Diagnosed at 9 by her older sister Denise, who is herself a diabetic, Andie Dominick spends her adolescence rebelling against her condition: "dieting" by skipping shots, undergoing a dangerous abortion at 17. When, at 21, Andie discovers 33-year-old Denise dead in the house they share, she begins to reexamine the reckless lifestyle that killed her sister and threatens her as well. The discovery three years later that she has diabetic retinopathy, which could lead to blindness, helps Dominick realize she cannot follow her sister's path: "Denise always told me having the disease didn't have to change my life. But now it has ... because I am finally facing who I am." Love and eventually marriage continue Dominick's process of self-knowledge and acceptance, though there is no facile happy ending. (She has a tubal ligation rather than risk passing diabetes to another generation.) Dominick's deliberately plain prose and gritty candor render her struggle accessible and real. --Wendy Smith

About the Author:

Andie Dominick grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and received her master’s degree in English from Iowa State University. She won the 1995 Writer's Digest Award for Best Essay for a piece that appears in altered form in Needles. She lives in Des Moines with her husband and dogs.

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0684856549
• ISBN 13: 9780684856544
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224