Painkillers and Gummi Bears: A mother and son's journey through fear to freedom - Softcover

As a registered nurse, Gail Stewart Frare knew too well all the terrible medical possibilities that could devastate a person, and couldn’t help but fret over her two sons, Jeff and Christopher. By the time Christopher entered his teen years as healthy as his older brother, her worries subsided. Then the unspeakable happened.

While on a spring break trip to visit Jeff, fifteen-year-old Christopher nearly died from a virus-induced heart failure—becoming one of the only six in one hundred thousand people who suffer from post viral cardiomyopathy. Shortly thereafter, he had to undergo heart transplant surgery. The transplant was successful, but eventually his medication made him vulnerable to an aggressive form of cancer, and he died at the age of twenty-two.

After his death, Frare found an entry in her son’s journal declaring, “True, unadulterated joy in my life is to write at least one piece of literary mastery.” Painkillers and Gummi Bears is a coauthored mother-son memoir about facing fear, enduring pain, and choosing love. In writing it, the author holds out the very real hope that what you suffer will not ultimately crush you.

Gail Stewart Frare is a mother and a retired registered nurse with a cardiac specialty. She earned her BSN from the University of Washington and MPA from Evergreen State College, and worked in a wide variety of nursing positions throughout her career at Providence Health & Services in Olympia, Washington. A lifetime native of the Pacific Northwest, Frare has lived in the same family home for thirty-seven years in Olympia. These days, she enjoys serving her community by helping women find and maintain sobriety and volunteering as the coordinator for a large community garden that services the local food bank.