Lightning Flowers

What if you got hit by lightning? What if the lightning came from inside your body? What if you are such an obsessive writer and researcher that you then had to trace the supply chain of the failed medical device that did that to you?

KS does body writing as a research quest, taking her battered heart back and forth across the Atlantic in pursuit of answers to the question of what, exactly, she’d been carrying around in it. The sense of vulnerability—medical, economic, and otherwise—that she creates within the narrative is so felt that I couldn’t shake it when… show more.

The discovery that she has a rare heart condition known as long QT syndrome upends Katherine Standefer’s outdoorsy Wyoming lifestyle and strains her relationships. After receiving an implanted cardioverter defibrillator, Standefer travels to the mines of Madagascar and Rwanda to discover the human and environmental cost of creating the device.

Her search to understand the injustices that allow her to access top specialists and treatments resonated with me as a fellow patient and recipient of world-class medical care, even while I served a low-income population that was often denied access to the care they needed.  

Having been called an “enigma” by a doctor on more than one occasion, I know well the frustrating battle of rare medical conditions. What I like about this book is the way Standefer finds beauty and wonder in physical ailments. 

Standefer wasn’t struck by lightning; she has a heart defect that could kill her and leads to her being fitted with a defibrillator while she is still in her 20s. Instead of becoming a passive patient, Standefer questions everything about her condition from her treatment to the metal that is now inside of her, traveling as far as Africa to… show more.