About this item
Best-selling author Pia de Jongs vivid memoir about her newborn daughters battle with leukemia and the startling decision that led to her recovery.On a still summer night in a seventeenth-century canal house in Amsterdams old quarter, Pia de Jong gives birth to a delicate, bright-eyed baby girl with a riddle on her back - a pale blue spot that soon multiplies. In a bare, air-conditioned hospital room, a doctor reveals the devastating answer: it is a rare and deadly form of leukemia, often treated with chemotherapy, a cure nearly as dangerous to a newborn as the disease itself.Pia and her husband Robbert make an intuitive decision. They do not subject Charlotte to chemotherapy; they bring her home. They transform their canal house into a sanctuary where Charlotte can live surrounded by love and strength, where Pia can give her a chance to live. In return, Charlotte gives her mother the greatest gift of all: purpose.Saving Charlotte is the story of a daughters fight to survive, and of a mothers fight to live a life of passion and meaning alongside her.
About the Author
Ten Things I Want My Readers to Know about Me:I was a romantic girl, who loved to read...but my father's idea of raising me, was building confidence by taking me on trips in faraway places that were not even on the map. When I was fourteen, I walked six weeks in Lapland between the gold finders and the reindeer. We got lost, and our food supply ended. I wrote a book about this vacation, that miraculously had a happy ending.I'm intensely curious... there are so many things I know that I don't know. I gulp experiences in. I live by poet Robert Louis Stevenson quote: The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.I never was much interested in writing ...... ...until right after my infant daughter Charlotte went into remission from her leukemia. I sat down in the middle of one night and penned down her name. Then mine. I never stopped writing since. I am married to the Herald of the King...My husband Robbert Dijkgraaf is a scientist and science communicator who does a terrific annual TV special. When William-Alexander was crowned King of the Netherlands in 2012, Robbert announced the coronation to the crowds assembled in front of the Royal Palace on Dam Square. When I was pregnant with my oldest, I signed him up for full-time daycare. I did not want to let my child interfere with my career. But when he arrived, I was completely overcome by emotions, hormones and love. Let alone lack of sleep. Motherhood was completely different than I ever expected.I lived in Amsterdam on the posh Herengracht canal. But across the ally worked a hooker. A young blond who always wore the same pink bra. When my children were born, she knitted hats and sweaters for them. She lit a candle for Charlotte when she was sick. We became friends.When 5 years ago, we left our beloved Amsterdam to live in America, I struggled with the language. And I am a word person! That I am now able to tell my story in English, means the world to me.For 5 years I write for a Dutch newspaper about my life in America. A country that never seizes to surprise me. And I only once wrote about Trump!Before my daughter was sick, I was outgoing and fun loving. For years afterwards, I had become an introvert. Now, with the release of this book, I like to be out there again. World, here I am!I always was a city slicker... I never mattered that I had no yard, not even a balcony. And now I live in the woods, surrounded by squirrels and deer. It took me a while to get used to it. Now I love how calm it makes me feel. There is something healing about being in nature. Before I was a writer, I worked as an imagination therapist. I loved helping people to connect with their deepest feelings, and find their true North. And now I finally have found my own.
