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Stories of Survival

Modern

Age

in the

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Sarah Booth-Henry

October 4, 2022

From Renal Failure to Author

At 22 Sam Dawson was told she had renal failure,

a condition she’d had since birth,

and which had gone undiagnosed.

In this episode she shares her journey from diagnosis to dialysis

and from receiving a live donor to becoming a published author.
 

Listen

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Guest Info      Show Notes

&

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Sam Dawson

At 22 Sam Dawson was told she had renal failure, a condition she’d had since birth, and which had gone undiagnosed.

After three and a half years of at home dialysis – Sam says it became a way of life, “although you would not call it living,” she says, “merely an existence,” then in ‘95 she received a live donor transplant from her mother.

Today, despite a kidney function of around 20%, Sam is the author of three children’s books and is studying for a degree in English Literature, English Language and Creative Writing

Sam says that society defines you by the job you do, the car you drive, the house you own – the first question most people ask is ‘what do you do?’ When you are unable to work you feel as though you don’t exist, that you are irrelevant. With a short story performed on Radio Lancashire, three poems and three children’s books published, Sam now feels part of society and no longer defined by her illness but as a writer.

Follow Sam at:

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I'm grateful for being alive!

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Tess Gerritsen
 

Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.

​

While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction. In 1987, her first novel was published. Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, was followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, "Adrift", which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Her books have been top-3 bestsellers in the United States and number one bestsellers abroad. She has won both the Nero Wolfe Award (for Vanish) and the Rita Award (for The Surgeon).

​

Now retired from medicine, she writes full time. She lives in Maine.

Sam enjoys anything from:

BOOTH-HENRY

arah

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© 2026 by Sarah Booth-Henry

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