Adverse Reactions

Michael Creegan

Jul 2010 · Michael Creegan

About this ebook

At his Manhattan North Hospital office, Steve Coughlin's job is complicated by an invisible companion - epilepsy. Its seizures have defied every effort to control them and force him to take them into account with everything he does.When he becomes a patient of the hospital's best neurologist, Dr. Diane Schneider, he hopes she's the one who can stop them. They've nearly killed him more than once and he knows his luck won't hold out forever. But she recommends unexpected hospitalizations and medicine changes that turn his life upside- down.His already-suspicious wife thinks he's cheating and leaves him. He's demoted at work. Schneider illegally gives his case to the hospital's human resources department, which insists that he "voluntarily" commit himself to their psychiatric hospital or look for a new job. Not seeing a way around the threat, he complies. After discharge, he's fired anyway.Jobless and alone, he confides in his close friend, Melissa. In time, they grow closer. They want to put the hospital behind them, but don't understand why Steve wasn't fired like other people; why the hospital insisted on making him a psychiatric patient first. Hallucinations, suicides, cyber-stalkers and other nightmares will make them fear for their sanity and lives before they find the surprising answer.

Ratings and reviews

I had a chance to read the Kindle version of Adverse Reactions, and was glad to have done it. Like the book's main character, I've had problems from seizures since adolescence and read it in three days whenever I had spare time. One thing I can say for certain about the author, Michael Creegan: he has an understanding of epilepsy's ups and downs. His style of writing is almost conversational, as if he's swapping stories with you. No theatrics and dialogue that's believable. His ability to do that makes some of the not-so-routine plot elements that much more believable. While he's clear that the book is a fiction, his decriptions of hospitals ring a familiar bell to me. Maybe that's because I'm from the NY metro area or maybe it's because most hospital suck. Maybe NY metro area hospitals suck, I don't know. Regardless, it wasn't hard to imagine the trials and tribulations of the protaganist, Steve, and his friend Melissa, actually happening. Bottom line? I have no hesitation recommending Adverse Reactions. Mike Quinn

I have epilepsy and while it's generally under control, I can understand and sympathize with the story's main character, Steve Coughlin. Like him, I've had neurologists whom I really respected and others I couldn't stand. Having been a patient at some of the city's most highly regarded epilepsy centers, I can tell you many are more interested in "prestige" and their annual U.S. News rankings than they are in their patients. Good job, Michael.