Lilac Haze

Organ donation - how many of us actually sits down with our loved ones and has a conversation about what should happen to us if the worst happened and we died before our time?How many of us would become a live donor and offer a kidney to help another person?The loss of a parent is devastating, but when, as an adult, you find yourself with the same condition from which your father died, and you know the only way you can survive is through daily reliance on a kidney machine, your world falls apart; everything you thought you knew and understood before becomes farcical; all that you had built around you is suddenly fragmented, and your mind creates a barrier which stops you from fully comprehending the enormity of what you're about to go through. Your kidneys have given up on you, and all you can do is submit to your fate.But then a solution is offered when your husband offers you his kidney and hesitantly, reluctantly, you go for it.This is one family's journey, with two stories entwined across five decades. It is a true account of the strength of the human spirit when faced with adversity. In this book, from personal experience, she explores the issues of organ donation, generosity, grief, and the human-animal bond. It is a story that readers will find thought-provoking and captivating. This is a true memoir of love, loss, grief and what can happen when you dare to hope. By the author of 'A Dog Like Ralph', 'A Soldier Like Jack' and 'The Diary of a Human and a Dog'. Dumfries and Galloway Life Magazine's 'Book of the Month' for April 2014 (Southwest Scotland)."...an excellent read." National Kidney Federation's Kidney Life Magazine - Summer 2013.Clare Cogbill was born in the mid-1960s and has spent much of her adult life working with animals, and as a lecturer. In June 2002 she received her husband's kidney.
About the Author: Clare Cogbill was born in the mid-1960's and, like many youngsters, from an early age she developed a deep passion for animals and their welfare. She worked for more than fifteen years with domesticated animals in rescue shelters, and then as a veterinary nurse in both welfare and private practice environments. She also has over twenty-six years experience as a lecturer, with much of her teaching being about companion animals and their welfare. She is passionate about reading, preferring biographies to fiction, and where those books contain some reference to the human-animal bond, all the better. She also enjoys reading books which have been made into films, but still can't quite work out whether it's better to read the book or to see the film first! Clare is besotted by dogs and anything four-legged, preferring creatures to have no more than four legs! Most of her adult life has been spent working with, or talking about, animals. She lives in Scotland with her husband and three rescue dogs... aka substitute children, since the real child has now flown the nest and is following his own dreams. She has four books - A Dog Like Ralph, which is very much about the plight of the rescue dog. Lilac Haze is about kidney dialysis and organ donation. It is a book of hope: hope for her family, and hope for others whose lives have been affected by organ failure. In 2002 she had a kidney transplant after having been on peritoneal dialysis because of hereditary kidney failure. The Diary of a Human and a Dog is a sort-of sequel to A Dog Like Ralph. A Soldier Like Jack is a true story about one family's experiences in the First World War.