Skip to Content

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars

You know when you get a new car, suddenly every third car you see is the same blue Honda Civic you just bought?

It's been like that with me and HME. Everywhere I go, I spot scooters and wheelchairs and rollators. I guess I never really took notice of these before.

In some ways, learning about what kinds of HME is out there and how it can help people made a really great book mean that much more to me last weekend.

I was reading "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, a young adult book about two 16-year-olds who meet at a cancer support group meeting and eventually go on an adventure looking for an author they love who hasn't written in years.

Hazel, the main character, has thyroid cancer and uses an oxygen tank. Later in the book, she starts sleeping with a BiPap. There's this really great scene where a little kid comes up and asks her what the thing in her nose is. Hazel explains it's a cannula that gives her oxygen to breathe better. She then lets the kid put the cannula in her nose and the kid laughs at the feeling of the air blowing out.

Hazel and her friend Augustus go to Amsterdam and do the tourist thing, visiting Anne Frank's house, including climbing all those stairs to the attic, and she talks matter-of-factly about hauling her POC around and about taking it off to go through the metal detector at the airport� All I could think was: this adventure would not be possible without HME.

So there you have the HME moments... but there is obviously so much more to this book.

Normally, I'm not one to read books that even remotely have to do with cancer or anything sad or serious. But I'd read other books by John Green and liked them, so I gave it a shot.

This book was actually really funny and completely heartbreaking and just amazing.

And, as HME providers, you'll probably get even more out of it than I did.

 

Comments

To comment on this post, please log in to your account or set up an account now.