Med Head: My Knock-down, Drag-out, Drugged-up Battle with My Brain
This youth edition of Against Medical Advice (2008) adds an introduction, photos, Q&As, and other educational back matter to the story of the medical tribulations of young Cory Friedman, son of co-author Friedman. The main text itself goes unaltered, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A first-person voice gets inside the head of Cory, who we met as a four-year-old recently prescribed Ritalin. It is the beginning of a grueling 13-year saga that is as much a struggle against Tourette’s as it is an endless war drug cocktails wage inside his body. His condition is alarming: OCD impulses create violent tics that sometimes knock him over or compel him to grab the steering wheels of moving cars. Soon the happy child becomes a slave to capricious masters by the names of Paxil, Risperdal, Klonopin, and more. Patterson’s infamously choppy chapters actually reinforce the twitching and lurching physicality of Cody’s existence, though the lack of dialogue and overall swiftness do prevent him from becoming a fully fleshed out. It’s hard to deny the power of this story, though, or its ultimate inspirational effect. Grades 7-10. --Daniel Kraus