The Man Who Couldn't Eat

The Man Who Couldn't Eat by Jon Reiner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am always fascinated about learning about new things and I really do try to do this from reading a variety of books. I'm not one of those people that reads one genre and that's it. I read absolutely everything so when I saw the title of this book (The Man Who Couldn't Eat) it quickly drew my attention and I was like, “What's that about?” The book is about a man that is living with Crohn's disease, and for those that don't know, it is an inflammatory bowel disease that can cause huge problems for people and even death. While the book is about the man having to go to great lengths to deal with, all he really wants to do is EAT (amazing food) and he can't. He gets put on NPO which is no food by mouth for quite a few months and it's torture. He's around his family eating whatever they want and when he has to do grocery shopping there's all this tantalizing food around that he can't even try or barely look at, just smell and what a downer that is. While he is on NPO he gets a treatment called TPN which is basically feeding your body via IV fluids. The TPN treatment is administered at night and he is up all night going to the bathroom and having to do all sorts of things that are side effects of the TPN. (I kind of found it bizarre that they wouldn't give the TPN during the day so that at least he is up and it's not a big deal having to go to the bathroom 10 million times, but during the night he was only able to get sleep in 1 hour or less increments due to the TPN.) The story does take place in the USA and therefore once his insurance ran out he had to start footing the bill for all these things himself. He considered disability but it wasn't going to even be worth it for him so he chose not to apply. He does have a serious surgery at the beginning of the book where he ends up having part of his bowel removed and put back together, which is quite common for people that suffer from Crohn's disease.

Before reading this book I had little to no knowledge about what people with bowel diseases go through so this was a very eye opening and interesting read. Sadly the end of the book fell short. Reiner decides to look in to and start living on a macrobiotic diet, which is so restricted and supposed to be one of the better things that someone with bowel disease should consider. In the 10th chapter of the book, the word macrobiotic was probably used at least 50 times and the person he met with that was helping to get started, I found very annoying. She just kept harping on things that he should be eating everyday and it was to the point that she was a naggert. I have to admit that I found the relationship between Reiner and his wife very strange and the fact that they tried to keep their children so sheltered regarding his illness was bizarre. A prime example was when the wife and kids still went on family vacation while Reiner was home NPO and receiving TPN and had not been out of the hospital for that long. To me that sounded selfish and there wasn't really a back up plan in case something happened to Reiner.

For something new to read this was sort of biographical with a medical twist and we all know that I love reading about anything medical. Even though the ending fell short I would give this book a solid 3.5 but since I can't do that I will ere on the side of caution and stick with the rating of 3 stars.