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Ready to dive into Miracles and Meltdowns? Ready to dive into Miracles and Meltdowns? Special order your copy today and receive a free e-book copy! !
NOW ON AMAZON! The most important healthcare story you will read. Not just because this is Deb's story, but because it can so easily become your story!
The Advanced Review of Miracles and Meltdowns was made available in March 2020 in print and e-Book in a limited release.
Many THANKS to all those who became an advanced review reader and for taking the time to share your reviews and thoughts!
"I wanted to tell you how much I was moved by your book. I finished it weeks ago. Once I started it I found it difficult to put it down. To say that I enjoyed it sounds like a very macabre statement.
But I was drawn in by your ability to tell a story where the “characters” came alive for me right off the pages. Your pain was palpable and I was incredulous as a physician over all that you and Deb had to endure.
I was honored and excited to have the opportunity to read my advanced copy. I know given the chance your book will move people and educate them to the pitfalls of American healthcare.
I wish you success in this endeavor and would be happy to help make this effort come to fruition in any way I can! Thank you again for sharing."
"After reading this book I wanted to run from our Healthcare. I’m so sorry Deb had to go through this but Walt was always right by her side. Thanks Walt. You are the hero in my mind.
I laughed and I cried while reading through the book. It’s sure to tug on the heart but the love you feel will warm your soul. This is a riveting true life story that captures the struggle between those with serious illnesses and the vast bureaucracy that is the US health care system. Every page exposes comedy and tragedy, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and both heroes and villains. And yet, this is a very personal story of people struggling to get well if they can and cope with the inevitable when they cannot. Life doesn't stop because of a diagnosis. There are still good moments, dinners with friends, and funny stories to be told.
This is more than a "good read." This book is a cautionary tale of what to expect when you or someone you love gets caught in the machinery of insurance companies, hospital staff, big "Pharma", and the government. Your chances of having to deal with a serious illness are all too high. Read this to prepare for what may literally be the fight of your life.
Once I started reading, I couldn't put the book down. The excellent writing draws you in with its mix of light and dark moments. Get the book, settle into your favorite chair and enjoy. My highest recommendation!"
"I want to thank you for allowing me to be one of the first of what I’m sure will be many to read this incredible life experience.
The first 2 chapters alone had me in tears (thanks a lot) lol. Having dealt with my own emotions and pains with insurance companies and trying to get care for my Mom, I can only imagine the road you and your family traveled through all of this.
This book could really help open the world’s eyes to this MAJOR issue in our healthcare system and I wish you so much success!"
“While Deb’s story is at times not an easy read, it is a necessary read. I learned so much about how healthcare, especially health insurance, really works. Even though I have seen this many times in my healthcare travels, I did not fully understand the mechanics behind it all.
As powerful as your healthcare story is, I found the Learning Opportunities through the book to be invaluable. Deb was so right. Americans need to read her story before they learn the hard way as most in our nation often do, and as you say, “too late!” Including me. THANK YOU so much for sharing one amazing story.
It was very well written and told!”
"THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT BOOK that should move the healthcare debate pendulum more than a little bit. It outlines and explains in depth the ‘good, the bad, and the ugly’ of both catastrophic medical treatment and payment for such medical treatment.
Miracles and Meltdowns the epic love story of my friends Deb and Walt Culbertson as they fought Deb’s lung and brain cancers through many highs and lows while raising two wonderful, strong, capable sons. This is the extraordinary courageous tale of two people, their sons and extended families, plus multitudinous friends as they fought both the medical professions though Deb’s many and varied treatments, and the insurance companies about payment, or not, at the same time. Walt is right that American Healthcare is a vicious roulette game.
We have a bifurcated system with the medical providers on one-side of a deep and wide divide and the insurance companies and health plans on the other side of the divide and they often don’t meet at any place along the payment curve.
Patients want medical care plain and simple. Insurance companies and health plans are responsible, if not beholden, to their shareholders. As Walt has said “Many powerful and money interests control both the [payment] process and the propaganda”.
And the people who make or condone many of the payment rules, the American Houses of Congress have the best, free medical care in the country. In other words, they do not understand what the middle class and the poor confront in the United States when they place themselves on either the treatment or payment roulette wheel. In every way the rest of the United States citizens are really playing Jeopardy and do not know when the wheel will stop or where it will stop.
Ultimately Deb and Walt lost both battles, but not the will to keep on fighting.
Despite the fact that I was along for the ride during Deb’s and Walt’s five and a half year fight as part of the friends crowd and had read previous editions of the book, I could not put this book down as I read it. It made me angry … again, and I cried many tears along the way.
This book is very easy to read … it is not written in medical jargon, tech speak, nor legalese. It is written in anguish, and in pain, and in joy, and in exhaustion and with much love."
"You don’t know me so let me introduce myself. My name is Cathy. I am a dear friend to Jeanne and Shirley is one of my best friends. I read your book and I laughed cried and got angry. Y’all have been through so much in five years than one person has in a lifetime.
You are a very strong person. And for what it’s worth, I’m very proud of you for all you’ve done for your wife and most of all for keeping your promise to her to write y’all’s story.
Yours truly your number 2 fan we all know we are number one fan is. Stay strong and keep pushing forward."
"I could not recommend Miracles and Meltdowns
anymore enthusiastically.
I loved it and I’m sure you will too. It was originally intended to document the difficulties in navigating our complicated and frustrating American Healthcare system.
However, throughout the Healthcare tragedy is a wonderful romantic story of Walt and Deb! You will experience a wide range of emotions as you follow Deb and Walt’s 'Magical Mystery Tour'!"
Dr. William, M.D., Jacksonville Florida
"Many thanks for the chance to read the book. It is an important and sensitive personal account of a recent period in the transition of healthcare. Over my career I've seen a once noble profession sharing services to humanity, gradually deteriorate to what it is today!
Often insensitive self-serving profit-driven silos controlled by huge powerful impersonal bureaucracies that manipulate regulations and inhibit transparency resulting in as much as 50% of the $ wasted on comparatively overall inadequate care for our country.
Your book sends a valuable message and I hope it contributes to the transition of healthcare back to its unique purpose and responsibilities to serve Humanity. Profits should come from our meeting our responsibilities, not our objective. Your book clearly sends that message.
I think you are in a position to make a difference!"
"Reading your book reminds me of patients who become “frequent flyers” to the ER. Wound infections are a common and serious complication. Some patients lose the battle. Patients become resistant to antibiotics because of overprescribing from physicians. Reading Deb’s story of her bedside debridement is horrifying! Many of the physicians have no sympathy for patients, unless “they” had a close family member who had suffered and learned from the other side how bad getting care can be.
Today, young nurses are not prepared for taking care of patients once they graduate. The nursing programs take their $90,000 and then send them out to the workforce. The younger generation seems to be going into nursing because they make good money. Only a few seem to have the compassion to really help others.
Your book is very well-written. I hope it will help families understand the healthcare disaster we face here in the US. People think it won’t happen to them because they have insurance but it does.
Every patient needs to have an advocate with them for a hospital stay. I myself was given the wrong medication after surgery due to neglect and overworked nurses.
The cost of healthcare is figured on those who do not pay. This is a known fact within hospital workers. There are so many self-pays who can’t afford or won't pay so they take from those with health insurance. All the bad mistakes they made in Deb's care are the reason I will not go to a training facility. It really is a “medical practice” because they are practicing on the patient.
Many thanks for sharing your book with me. I know it will help others!"
"This memoir is a love story wrapped around the heartbreak of cancer. A young mother battles cancer with courage, persistent optimism and determination while her intrepid husband works non-stop to support his wife and protect his children. The torment of cancer on patient and caretaker is meticulously described in this account. Deb suffers directly from both the disease and the treatments. Walt struggles incessantly with the health care system as the love of his life suffers. Pre-teens Thomas and Steven grow up too soon. Deb’s Mom Jeanne helplessly watches her daughter’s health deteriorate. Underneath their suffering runs a strong current of love that sustains each of their lives, a tribute to this family.
The haphazard health delivery system and the heartless bureaucracy of health insurance are too often hidden. Miracles and Meltdowns fuses these two sides of health care in a thoughtful, painful story of love and loss. The book opens a window on the vagaries of health insurance coverage and the endless wrangling required to obtain health care from an arbitrary delivery system. It documents the financial effects of getting caught in out-of-network charges; the cost of medical mistakes that intensify the calamity of the situation; the unending pressure of finding health insurance and paying the bills in pursuit of health care.
The gift of Miracles and Meltdowns lies in its intimate account of dealing with the painful, physical consequences of cancer made worse by the emotional stress caused by the hidden costs of treatment. The narrative lays bare the concealed pain of insurance denial and medical indifference. In fusing these two sides of health care delivery, cure versus cost, this chronicle provides a clear depiction of the health care emergency facing all Americans. This book does all of us a favor: it offers hard-earned knowledge with deep-seated compassion."
"I could not put "Deb's Journey" down. I even had to complete it during my first meeting this morning. The way you tell of her life and journey with her cancer and the problems your family faced is gripping. You must speak before Congress as well and tell them her story. Don't just leave it at sending another letter to the President.
Not only that, you need to find someone to produce her journey on the screen -whether it be a Hallmark production, or anyone else who will support this for one of the shows for Sunday night, such as the two-hour presentation. You are an excellent writer.
We all relate to this. Most of us have experienced similar problems with loved ones in hospitals. Everyone has to fight for not only proper treatment, but correct treatment. You physically have to be at the hospital 24 hours a day to make sure nothing happens to your family member while they are hospitalized.
Thank you for sharing your journal and your lives. You have enriched mine over the years we have worked together and it is an honor to know you and Deb. Sharing your lives is the richest reward another can obtain, as it inspires and compels us to do more, to make things better for others.
Thank you, thank you."
"Your book. Walt, it's a masterpiece. Beyond belief. You are putting into writing what many people feel and experience every day. You're right....if someone like yourself (whose well-versed in the field of healthcare and insurance details) can be taken advantage of, misinformed, inconsistently treated...etc. what can anyone else whose not at vigilant possibly hope for? It's not even a crap-shoot. At least you'd have a chance with a crap-shoot.
Walt, what you are doing is remarkable. I am always in awe. You are not the first person to have to address the ins and outs of the healthcare system because you have a spouse with an illness. But I'm guessing you're probably one of the first to actively seek to do something about improving/overhauling an entire healthcare system. Your book will be an eye opener for many...and ideally the catapult of many more things to come.
I am impressed with your writing....anyone can clearly see it comes from the heart....and your call to action. I am also impressed that you would share your book with me. Humbled is more like it."
"I have been accomplishing many tasks while staying at home. Many that I have been wanting to do for a while. My latest endeavor was your story.
It was an amazing love story and an eye-opening adventure into the healthcare system. I hope it will be a book that everyone will read. Your attention to detail was impressive, and the never-ending love you both had through the good and the bad was just unreal.
I laughed, and I cried, all signs of a great writer.
I am very proud of you and your whole family. The way you all endured the sorrow, and have come through it being some of the most gracious people I have ever met. I only wish I had the opportunity to know Deb a little more. I also got to learn a lot more about you, and what a great soul you have.
It’s not surprising that Jeanne loves you as her son. I know Deb would be so very proud of you. Such determination you had to accomplish this after so many years. I know your boys will take after both you and Deb. God Bless you and your family!"
“May I say with all my heart that I am quite certain your courageous wife would say your courage has matched hers in writing this book. Yours and her story tell me both of you and your children have walked through the valley of the shadow of death armed with the most powerful weapon one can have on such a journey ... love.
I will eagerly await the publication of this book. My prayer is it will have an impact on the heartless and formidable Goliath that is our healthcare system. Thank you for keeping your promise to your “Baby” by writing it.”
"I am not much of a novelist anyway so probably not the best critic but for someone who does not read non-fictional based stories a lot, I thought it was an extremely well-written mix of personal relationships, devotion and an expert in the field going through what Walt has worked so many years to improve being beaten down again and again.
I have worked the last 22-years of my life trying to build tools and implement processes to prevent some of the “meltdowns” this book highlights and I see how far we still have to go."
Ready to dive into Miracles and Meltdowns? Ready to dive into Miracles and Meltdowns? Special order your copy today and receive a free e-book copy! !