About the Book
Book Series
A Life of Breath
The A Life of Breath Series represents a fictional life story, based loosely on the skeleton of the authors real life career, brought to a shuddering (and purely fictional) climax, by the impact of getting Covid Pneumonia, towards the latter period of the pandemic.
All 3 books follow 2 sequential timelines. One is historic and follows the career of what was a shy, naïve and gauche junior doctor, through experiences and patient events, which lead him to become a highly successful, though undoubtedly and unapologetically unconventional, medical consultant. The parallel story is essentially fiction and explores the feelings and events that might befall a specialist respiratory doctor, getting life threatening Covid Pneumonia and interactions he has with colleagues who have the thankless task of looking after one of their own whilst his mortality appears inevitable.
All the characters in the book are fictional, but events and individuals, are in part, created based from a potpourri of events, experiences involving colleagues and patients alike, blended in to a minestrone and regurgitated in dyslexic prose.
The aim is to make the reader life, cry and cringe in roughly equal proportions, whilst observing the changes in the NHS, which have coloured the cynicism in a retiring consultant who loved (almost) every moment of his 38 year career.
New Release
Book 1
A Life of Breath
The House Dog’s Tail
This is the story of Dr Jamie Carmichael. In book 1; you meet the young Jamie Carmichael on his first day of life as a junior doctor. We follow his story for the first four years of working a junior doctor in the 1980’s, sharing the hilarious, tragic and emotional events of life in hospital at this time. The ridiculous hours of work, that lead to personal sacrifices are highlighted and the personal events and professional experiences that moulded the later career in respiratory medicine are told with sometimes brutal honesty.
In parallel, we meet the senior consultant, who still loves the patient management role, but is embittered by some of the negative changes within the NHS. He was preparing for retirement when the Covid-pandemic hit. We hear briefly, some of the experiences of working professionally on the Covid front-line and specifically
the challenges of providing continuing care of the specialist respiratory patients, he had dedicated his life to save, with the particular fear of getting a new lung illness on top of long-term chronic breathlessness. Jamie acquires Covid himself and for the first time, knows what it is like to experience extreme breathlessness and fear for his own mortality, that has been the day-to-day life experience for his patients.
The reader, should laugh and cry in equal measure, whilst experiencing the occasional cringe at the raw truth of Jamie’s story of a career in hospital medicine.
In presenting this work for the reader, the author is painfully aware that the public had perhaps fallen out of love, with hospital doctors over the last twenty years or more and the hope is to redress some of this, by showing you the heart and soul (warts and all) of a doctor dedicated to patient care.
Book 2
A Life of Breath
The Greatest Breakthrough Since Breakfast
Book 2 in the ‘A Life of Breath’ series, picks up the current timeline with the Covid afflicted Dr Carmichael (Jamie), admitted to the hospital he worked at for the first 15 months of the pandemic and the majority of his working life. Alice, one of his trainees, takes it on herself to manage his case, whilst draining every ounce of knowledge, from her mentor, whilst she can.
We follow the progress as it becomes increasingly apparent, that he may end up ventilated and on a life-support machine, knowing his chances of surviving are less than 30%. He experiences life on the receiving end of the incapacitating breathlessness, that he dedicated his career to ameliorate for others. A bond develops between the senior consultant and Alice, who he belatedly realises is a female version of himself, thirty years on.
In the parallel story, we pick up ‘Young Jamie’ at the trainee phase of his career and follow more tales of clinical success and disaster, whilst living a rollercoaster ride of emotional entanglements along the way. With a mix of lives saved and lost and a love-hate relationship with medical research, a growing passion and confidence takes over, from the previous gauche and fragile character of the junior version. The remaining flaw of saying his thoughts out loud, long before he knew they should never be heard, continues to provoke its’ own disasters.
The author hopes to make you laugh and cry in equal measure, in telling the ups and downs and sacrifices of a life in medicine, whilst enlightening you with some of the truths and myths about the changing NHS and how both senior and junior doctors perceive its current decline.
The book closes, as the younger Jamie, prepares to embark on his consultant career, but the senior version, faces the fear and uncertainty of being anaesthetised as Covid pneumonia leaves his lungs destroyed.
Book 3
A Life of Breath
All That Wheezes …
This is the final book in the life story of Dr Jamie Carmichael.
In book 1; you met the young doctor from his first day of life as a junior doctor and the senior consultant at the end of his career, struck down with Covid.
Heart-warming stories, pathos and tragedy have followed during his career amidst a crumbling NHS. In book 2 we followed both his middle years and his period of hospitalisation with Covid Pneumonia, culminating in him being taken to ICU and put on a life support machine.
This final story-line commences on a long and winding, white road, where Jamie eventually meets a giant snowy owl called Peter, in front of the Pearly Gates. Is this his real end, or anaesthetic fuelled flash-back dreams? The reader must decide, for themselves.
In the parallel timeline, you follow snapshots of events that coloured his consultant career as he progressed from a ‘junior consultant’ to leading one of the largest and most successful Severe Asthma Services in Europe. Will he retire in time to avoid getting himself in to political trouble, that might see him disciplined for his outspoken attacks on the modern financially-motivated management of the Health Service in the 21st century?
The reader, should laugh and cry in equal measure, whilst experiencing the occasional cringe at the raw truth of Jamie’s story of a career in hospital medicine. In presenting this work for the reader, the author is painfully aware that the public has perhaps fallen out of love, with hospital doctors over the last twenty years or more and the hope is to redress some of this, by showing you the heart and soul (warts and all) perspective, from a doctor dedicated to patient care.
Although a novel and written as fiction, the personal events that form this book are based loosely on the skeleton of the author’s medical career. Characters and specific events are fictionalised and do not represent any individual living or deceased.
Publications to Date:
1. The House dog’s Tail ISBN 978-1-5289968-8-4
a.This book is currently remaindered. A limited number of copies of paperback version are available by emailing the author
2. The Greatest Breakthrough Since Breakfast ISBN 978-1-83538-350-6
3. All That Wheezes ISBN tbc
Future Publications:
Dead Diamond. A fictional thriller, set on the Isle of Arran. Dr Jamie Carter a retired doctor is walking on the beach following a storm and finds human remains, leading him into a terrifying ordeal with both paid assassins and rogue national security agents on his tail. Will he be able to unearth, who is behind the attempts to cover up the origin of the presumably deceased donor.
Of the individuals he meets along the way, which can he trust and do they have the skills and sufficient senior status to overcome those out to silence him?