Shireen Jeejeebhoy, Author » Lifeliner

Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale of “Lifeliner” and “She” Now On!

Shireen — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:14:15 +0000

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and winter for friends in the Southern Hemisphere. In honour of that, Smashwords is kicking off their third annual Summer/Winter Sale, and they invited authors to participate. I answered their invitation with a resounding “Yes!”

Lifeliner and She will both be fifty percent off their regular price. And as always, all ebook formats will be available for download. So whether you have a Kindle, Sony Reader, kobo, Nook, iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, smartphone, or a computer, you will be able to read all my ebooks. And for July only, at a special price too! Just click the images below to be taken directly to the respective book pages.

If you need instructions on how to download and read ebooks from Smashwords, please check out my 2010 post on Reading Any DRM-Free ePub on iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone. To read an ePub ebook on your computer, download the free Adobe Digital Editions, then download the ebooks from Smashwords. And when you’ve finished reading, please don’t forget to leave a review on the Smashwords book pages! Enjoy!!

My Ebooks Are Going Out Into The World

Shireen — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:17:14 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that my newest title She is now available at the awesome price of $2.99 in the Amazon Kindle store, along with my first book Lifeliner. Purchasing a Kindle ebook on Amazon is fast and easy with the 1-Click Buy button. You can also give She or Lifeliner or both as a gift. And as in any ebook store, you may download a generous sample to check out either book before you buy.

But that’s not the only place you can find She in. So far, Apple’s iBooks and iTunes now lists all four of my ebooks in ePub version in its store: She, Lifeliner, The Job Sessions, and A Nibble of Chocolate. The latter two are available for only 99¢. And in a bizarre twist, the Canadian ebook retailer kobo, hasn’t listed Lifeliner, a biography on a remarkable Canadian woman who made medical, world-changing Canadian history, yet they have listed A Nibble of Chocolate, a nice bite-sized look at the nutrition of chocolate with a recipe included because nutritious food should always taste yummy.

If you’re a Goodreads member, you can now purchase and/or read both Lifeliner and She right on the site, as well as fan my author profile.

And as always, all four of my ebooks are listed and available on Smashwords (and through the ebook app Stanza) for instant download in your preferred format to your favourite device.

I hope you will enjoy my ebooks and be inspired to make a donation towards the substantial cost of She’s editing, by clicking the button in the right sidebar. No good novel appears in public without first going under the critical eyes of an editor. And you can be assured that mine have and always will. I hugely appreciate all those who have already donated and helped me afford this necessary step. Will you not join their number? Regardless, as always, I wish you happy reading!

Lifeliner: Podcast 29, 30, And Epilogue

Shireen — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:00:42 +0000

Jeej leaves the country on business, and Judy fades. She’s had a longer life than she’d ever thought possible back in 1970, and she decides it’s time to say good-bye. Yet death is not the end. And her life is not the beginning and end of TPN. Her example, her courage, her life inspired others to live longer, fruitful lives and restored quality of life to tens of thousands of very sick-but-not-dying people around the world.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Battle Is Done and Chapter Thirty: Resurrection

Lifeliner: Podcast 28, Despair

Shireen — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:00:57 +0000

Cliff finds Judy dying in Toronto General Hospital. Panicked, he phones Jeej at his home. Jeej is astounded, but advises Cliff to transfer her to St. Michael’s Hospital if he wants him to look after her. Within hours, Judy is at the Queen Street hospital, and Jeej is there with his residents and the nurses. Shock at her condition stuns him for a moment, but he recovers quickly and mobilizes his team to save Judy’s life. Once again.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Despair

Lifeliner: Podcast 27, Dr. Cowboy, Where Are You?

Shireen — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:44:16 +0000

Some change is not good. Judy’s doctor, the man who saved her life and kept her alive for almost two decades, has moved to a new hospital. Worse, the TPN program did not move with him because Toronto General Hospital fought for and won the battle to keep it. While Jeej works to train people at St. Michael’s Hospital and to create a new TPN program there, Judy’s health deteriorates.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dr. Cowboy, Where Are You?

Lifeliner: Podcast 26, LifelineLetter Award

Shireen — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:02:53 +0000

“It was like travelling with a celebrity,” Marlene told me when I was interviewing her about Judy Taylor. Nowhere was that more true than on their road trips down to New York state for the annual Oley conferences. Judy loved those conferences, meeting fellow patients, being able to travel with her friends from Toronto General Hospital, talking to doctors and nurses involved in TPN care. For being the first to live on Home TPN and for inspiring so many to live good lives on this artificial form of feeding, Judy won the inaugural LifelineLetter Award from Oley.

Chapter Twenty-Six: LifelineLetter Award

Lifeliner: Chapter 24 Podcast, Sweden

Shireen — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:16:04 +0000

Judy cannot believe it. For the first time in her life, she’s travelling in a plane over the clouds and over the seas. To Sweden. To be a star guest of Prof Arvid Wretlind at an international medical conference. She’s so thrilled, she’s not going to let a little thing like a skin abscess stop her.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Sweden

Lifeliner: Chapter 23 Podcast

Shireen — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:00:30 +0000

Judy fears bugs, the viral or bacterial kind, even a cold. For bugs can kill her. She takes pains to avoid them. Somehow though, she catches one. She quickly spirals down, and Cliff races her down the highways to Toronto General Hospital and Jeej. It’s touch and go. The entire hospital hears about it and worries. Will Judy make it?

Chapter Twenty-Three: Death Creeps Close

Lifeliner: Chapter 22 Podcast, More Family Trouble

Shireen — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:22:13 +0000

The fall out from Judy being absent for so long and then her life being one where death was ever present, continues. First Miriam leaves home, then Julie springs a surprise on her parents. Judy goes through a raft of emotions, but she never loses contact with her girls.

Chapter Twenty-Two: More Family Trouble

Holding Over the Lifeliner Amazon Kindle Sale. Today Only!

Shireen — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:49:35 +0000

Read an Ebook Week has ended. But I’m holding over the special Kindle price of my book Lifeliner for one more day! Today!

Inspiring, haunting, dramatic, this biography of the woman who could not eat, has it all.

“Lifeliner is the amazing, unforgettable story of a young woman who becomes seriously ill at a young age and with the devoted care of her gastroenterologist survives for over twenty years.” Gloria Oren, giving 5 stars on Amazon.

Check it out today, at the special price of only $2.99!

Lifeliner: Chapter 21 Podcast

Shireen — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:45:34 +0000

Sometimes the price people pay for being the first, being a pioneer, appears in their children. And so it was for Judy. It began in her eldest, first with minor rebellion then with running away and finally with an arrest. Judy didn’t know what to do. In the end, she had to send her daughter to Toronto.

Chapter Twenty-One: At the Police Station

Lifeliner: Chapter 20 Podcast, Chromium Deficiency and the Swedish Professor

Shireen — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:40:23 +0000

This chapter is a story about diabetes, about how a remarkable discovery was made because of Judy, because of Jeej’s work with her. They discovered that chromium plays a vital role in diabetes. It was decades before the wider scientific and research audience started to understand the full ramifications of this discovery, but at the time it made the news. And Jeej enjoyed hugely both curing Judy’s diabetes, including her fuzzy feet, and making this ground-breaking connection between chromium and diabetes. She could eat cake again — if she still ate! In this chapter, he tells the tale to a receptive audience: the Swedish professor who conducted the first pioneering work in artificial feeding and who developed intravenous fat, the very fat Judy uses.

Chapter Twenty: Chromium Deficiency and the Swedish Professor

Lifeliner: Chapter 19 Podcast, JJ, the Guinea Pig

Shireen — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:14:15 +0000

Judy becomes famous. A reporter for Weekend Magazine in The Globe & Mail drives up to spend a day following her, talking to her, learning her remarkable story. Meanwhile, she complains about fuzzy feet to Jeej. He scratches his head over this unexpected development and after a few tests, discovers that she has diabetes. But that’s impossible! For 2 years he puzzles over this conundrum, and Judy grows tired of being a guinea pig. Time to give him a real one!

Chapter Nineteen: JJ, the Guinea Pig

Lifeliner: Chapter 18 Podcast, The Bliss of Life

Shireen — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:09:33 +0000

Judy feels good. She dives into community and family life after learning a skill she never needed in Toronto: driving. She becomes active in the local church, joining the choir, volunteering in the office, being the first to offer to cook the main meal for an event. And she joins the pastoral team to visit people in the local hospital. But she doesn’t stop visiting and thinking about her fellow lifeliners at Toronto General Hospital. Only the last chore of the day continues to cause her pain.

Chapter Eighteen: The Bliss of Life

Lifeliner: Chapter 17 Podcast, Barbecue Season

Shireen — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:47:22 +0000

Time to celebrate! Judy had told Jeej that she wanted to thank him by throwing a barbecue, and she’s true to her word. She invites all of us too, Jeej’s family. I’m almost ten years old at the time, and I’m excited about meeting this amazing woman. I not only meet her, but also the nurses, other lifeliners, and Judy’s youngest daughter Miriam, who is my age. I get to try cookies, Judy’s own, and waterskiing for the first time too. It’s a long, bountiful day.

Chapter Seventeen: Barbecue Season

Lifeliner: Chapter 16 Podcast, Essential Fat

Shireen — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:33:40 +0000

They said fat was bad. They said fat will lead to a fatty liver. They said fat, intravenous fat, was toxic. But when Judy came to Jeej with flaky skin after he took her off intravenous fat, he finally had the proof he needed. Fat was good. The experts were wrong. At last, a Canadian resolved the fat controversy between Europeans and Americans. Meanwhile, six months after being discharged from hospital, Judy relishes in seeing her children and being able to look out on her lake and the snow. “You’re a lucky girl,” she says to herself.

Chapter Sixteen: Essential Fat

Lifeliner: Chapter 15 Podcast, Supply Run

Shireen — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:55:47 +0000

The hospital pharmacy provides Judy with only 2 weeks worth of food at a time. So twice a month, Judy bakes cookies, Cliff hitches up his homemade trailer, and they drive down to the city, down the Parkway, down to Toronto General Hospital to pick up her solutions and vitamins, her cold stuff and room temperature stuff. She takes this opportunity to hand out her cookies and to visit patients struggling with adapting to this new kind of lifeline while he does all the heavy lifting.

Chapter Fifteen: Supply Run

Lifeliner: Chapter 14 Podcast, A Different Kind of Dinnertime

Shireen — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:50:36 +0000

Judy mayn’t be able to eat, but she lives to cook. Having at last returned home from spending 10 months in the hospital, she eagerly resumes her purpose: to nurture and care for her family, especially at dinnertime. And Sunday dinners are the most special of them all.

Chapter Fourteen: A Different Kind of Dinnertime

Last Day Lifeliner eBook on Sale!

Shireen — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:48:12 +0000

To finish the old year with a flourish, I have put Lifeliner on sale. Only $2.99! An inspirational story about a woman who suffered the catastrophic loss of all her bowels but whooped it up for another 20 years without eating a morsel, it is gripping readers all around the world. It will light up your New Year with Judy’s zest for life.

Click on the link, choose your preferred eBook format of choice, enter coupon code MS55X, and you’ll be immersed in this true life story in no time! http://bit.ly/aNroTb

Or if you’re an Amazon buff, check out Lifeliner on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions. Bonus: now you can lend your copy of Lifeliner to anyone with an eReader or iPad.

If you need help putting the eBook on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, see my previous posts at http://jeejeebhoy.ca.

Reading Any DRM-Free ePub on iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone

Shireen — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:04:28 +0000

In honour of all the lucky ducks who got a new iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Kindle, or Sony or Kobo or Nook Reader, I’m offering Lifeliner at an amazing 99¢ through Smashwords. But how do you get the eBook onto your device, you’re probably wondering. Easy — because Lifeliner is DRM-free, meaning there’s no digital lock on it so any eReader or app can read it. Here’s how.

Go to Lifeliner‘s page on Smashwords. Scroll down till you see the eBook formats available (mobi for Kindle; ePub for everyone else). Click on Buy, check out using coupon code CW95G, pay, and you’ll be returned to the Lifeliner page. At that point, you’ll be able to download your eBook format of choice.

I recommend setting up a folder for all your purchased eBooks. Whatever you name the folder, make it so you’ll remember it. (I’ve actually ended up with two or three folders — very confusing!) Through your eReader or iTunes, access your eBooks from that folder. For the Sony Reader, use either Adobe Digital Editions or the Sony Reader software to add the file to your library. I don’t know how one does it for the Kindle, but here’s how you do it for the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. (For those with the Stanza app, scroll to the bottom for brief instructions.)

Open iTunes and connect your device.

I find that with my iPod Touch, it has to be on when I connect it to iTunes so that iTunes will see it.

Click on File.

In the dropdown menu, click on Add File to Library. Alternatively, use the the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-O.

Now browse to where you downloaded your ePub file. Choose that one and click OK.

iTunes will automatically put it in the Books section under Library, which you can check by clicking on that menu item in the left sidebar under Library.

You still need to sync your Books to your iPod or iPad. To do that, click on your device in the lefthand column. And then click on the Books tab at the top of the iTunes window. You will see the books that you’ve added. Now check the box next to Sync Books. And either keep the default All Books or check Select Books then check the books you want to sync.

The first time I did that, iTunes told me it would delete all my other media if I did that. Why, I have absolutely no idea. Seems totally nutty to me that if you sync books, iTunes will delete your music, which you then have to reinstall but won’t be deleted again next time you sync your books (I think). This was not an issue for me with my iPad as I had no music on it as books were the first thing I synced. And I don’t actually remember it deleting all my music off my iPod Touch when I synced a book. It seems to be one of these weird Apple things that may or may not happen. Go ahead and click the Apply button at the bottom right if you’re feeling experimental. It will sync your eBooks to all your eReader apps on your device.

Alternatively, try the File Sharing option. This is one I’ve just learnt about. It is a bit of a pain if you have several eReader apps like I do as you can only add the ePub one at a time to each app. But if you are only using one or two, then it’s not so bad.

After you select your device in the lefthand column, instead of clicking on the Books tab at the top of the iTunes window, click on Apps.

Scroll down, way down to the bottom until you see File Sharing. You will then see a box with the apps listed on the left side that allow file sharing. All your eReader apps will be listed there. Click on the eReader app you want to add Lifeliner to. At the bottom of the box, on the right side, is the Add button. Click that; browse to where you downloaded the ePub file; choose that; and it will be immediately added to the Documents list and synced to your device.

For those who have the Stanza app on their iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, there is one last method: buy Lifeliner through the Smashwords store in your Stanza app. It’s as easy as launching the app on your device and going to the Smashwords store under Get Books — it’s under Bookstores on that page. I believe you’ll be able to use the coupon code CW95G that way too.

Enjoy!

Lifeliner: Chapter 13 Podcast, Going Home with Lester

Shireen — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 18:31:54 +0000

Jeej, still riding high on the good news that Judy will be able to live at home, ponders how to disconnect her from her artificial feeding so that she can go out and about. He and his residents solve that problem, only to see Judy have an unexpected setback in her test results. It puzzles him, and it threatens Judy’s pending discharge. But Judy has faith that he will solve that problem too and that she will go home to her family.

Chapter Thirteen: Going Home with Lester

Lifeliner: Chapter 12 Podcast, Easter Tidings

Shireen — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 19:16:37 +0000

It’s a drizzly Easter Monday as Jeej walks to the hospital. But the weather is no match for his mood. He has good news for Judy, but she doesn’t know it yet. When she hears, and later shares with Cliff, they can hardly believe it. The miracle that they had all been working towards — she, Jeej, the nurses, residents, and pharmacists — has arrived. Now they can plan for the future.

Chapter Twelve: Easter Tidings

Lifeliner: Chapter 11 Podcast, Tests and More Tests

Shireen — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 19:42:22 +0000

Christmas is over. The staff are back. It’s time for more and different kinds of tests to see how Judy is doing, how this new artificial feeding is working. But Judy isn’t thrilled about the biopsies of liver and bone. To make matters worse, she doesn’t understand Jeej. He talks so fast. With the encouragement of one of her therapists, she has it out with him.

Chapter Eleven: Tests and More Tests

Lifeliner: Chapter 10 Podcast, Christmas

Shireen — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 19:21:31 +0000

Christmas Day dawns. Both Jeej and Judy’s children cannot contain their excitement. But there’s a person missing in Judy’s place: Judy. She cannot come home for Christmas as she is still too sick. And so while Jeej’s family enjoys the day together at home, Judy’s goes to the hospital.

Chapter Ten: Christmas

Lifeliner: Chapter 9 Podcast, The Langer Line

Shireen — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:45:23 +0000

The Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) seems to be working, but the ultimate goal of sending Judy home on this artificial form of feeding cannot be realised until they figure out a permanent way of feeding the TPN solutions into her vein. Tubes falling out her vein regularly just will not work. Dr. Bernie Langer, Jeej’s surgical colleague, observes neurosurgeons working with long Silastic catheters and has an idea.

Chapter Nine: The Langer Line

Lifeliner: Chapter 8 Podcast, Judy’s Inspiration

Shireen — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:19:53 +0000

As Judy heals, she becomes more conscious of her situation, of the extent of her illness, of the odds against her, and Jeej feels that she may fall into despair as a result. He talks to Cliff. Contrary to the ethos of the day, Jeej tells Cliff to bring the children in to see Judy. She must see them, for they are her inspiration, her reason to fight.

Chapter 8: Judy’s Inspiration

Lifeliner: Chapter 7 Podcast, “I Could Be Pushing Up Daisies”

Shireen — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:21:53 +0000

Judy liked to joke about being a pincushion for Jeej, about it being easier to put a zipper into her abdomen, about her dates with the knife. And one of her favourite expressions was “I could be pushing up daisies.” She could’ve. For on her third date in the operating room, she died.

Chapter Seven: “I Could Be Pushing Up Daisies”

Lifeliner: Chapter 6 Podcast, Let Judy Die

Shireen — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 19:39:18 +0000

Let Judy die, let her die with dignity, Judy’s mother pleads with Jeej. Let Judy die, this is madness, assert Jeej’s senior colleagues, insisting he not waste hospital resources. Under mounting pressure, Jeej agrees to withdraw antibiotic therapy from Judy for four days, but he refuses to stop feeding her artificially. If the bacteria doing the happy dance in her abdomen don’t kill her, then he will restart the antibiotics — in massive doses.

Chapter Six: Let Judy Die

Lifeliner: Chapter 5 Podcast, Garbage-Bag Dressings

Shireen — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:49:03 +0000

Judy’s skin has been starving, like the rest of her body, and cannot hold the stitches anymore. Her surgical wound has opened up, creating a maw through which they can see her insides — and smell them too. The nurses have to come up with a unique way to dress this hole, keep the sheets off it, and allow it to heal while Judy’s doctor Jeej works on her artificial feeding so that her broken skin can once again come together.

Chapter Five: Garbage-Bag Dressings

Lifeliner: Chapter 4 Podcast, Dr. Cowboy

Shireen — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 17:49:21 +0000

Judy protests as she’s slid into the ambulance, standing in the dark, waiting to move her from the suburban hospital to the big downtown teaching hospital Toronto General Hospital. This is all too much drama for her, but Dr. Jeejeebhoy awaits her, with his promise of life. She wants to live so much. Yet she’s a mess of morphine-induced hallucinations, raging infections, and starved muscles and skin. How will she survive all that? Her husband Cliff watches the big hospital’s machinery go into action and worries.

Chapter Four: Dr. Cowboy