Against medical advice

Cory Friedman is five years old when he wakes with an uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that morning, tics and involuntary sounds take over his days, and his family begins taking him from one specialist to the next in search of a cause.

The treatment brings its own trouble. Cory is given many combinations of drugs, and before long it is hard to tell which tics come from the illness and which come from the medication. The one thing that is clear is that his condition keeps getting worse.

This is a true story, told as a family account of a battle that runs across decades. Cory and his relatives fight to keep him alive while dealing with a medical establishment that repeatedly fails them. The book is credited to Hal Friedman and James Patterson.

The tone is harrowing, and the book stays close to the daily reality of a child and then a young man living with a condition he cannot control. The story builds toward a climax with the drive of a thriller. It suits readers of medical memoir and of true accounts of family endurance.