You Can Stop Humming Now

‘Gripping, soaring, inspiring . . . Read it’ – Atul Gawande, author of the international bestseller Being Mortal

‘You Can Stop Humming Now is essential reading on what it means to be human in an age of medical technology. I couldn’t put it down’ – Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body

‘In turns anguishing, gripping, and hopeful, You Can Stop Humming Now is a must-read for anyone contemplating what medicine holds in store for us.’ – Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Patients Say, What Doctors Feel

Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?

In You Can Stop Humming Now, Lamas explores the complex answers to this question through intimate accounts of patients and their families. A grandfather whose failing heart has been replaced by a battery-operated pump; a salesman who found himself a kidney donor on social media; a college student who survived a near fatal overdose and returned home, alive but not the same; and a young woman navigating an adulthood she never thought she’d live to see-these moving narratives paint a detailed picture of the fragile border between sickness and health.

Riveting, beautifully told, and deeply personal, You Can Stop Humming Now is a compassionate, uncompromising look at the choices and realities that many of us, and our families, may one day face.