Face-Lift 1548

Guess the Plot

Choosing Hope

1. Hope von Friss wants to be the next bachelorette, but first she needs to make it through a ninja warrior obstacle course in style.

2. After their doctor tries to get a couple to give up their new baby for adoption, they build a five million dollar medical center, mostly for the pleasure of banning their doctor from practicing there.

3. Seeking a cure for his inoperable stage 4 thyroid cancer, Tom travels to Mexico for a new treatment involving avocado pits blended with Icelandic yogurt and applied to the neck. But will Big Pharma stop him at the border?

4. Boots tries to catch the UPS truck every time it comes down the street. Not because of its distinctive noise, but because he'll never forget the time it brought him his favorite squeaky toy.

Original Version

Dear Evil Editor: 

My newborn son was saved by a million-dollar surgery—then denied routine life-saving care because he had Down syndrome. Outrage turned into action as our community launched one of the nation’s first Buddy Walks, raising $5 million to help build the largest Down syndrome medical program in the U.S. at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

The memoir, Choosing Hope: A Mother, a Son, and the Power of Us (63,000 words), traces our journey overcoming disability-based medical discrimination and reveals how ordinary people, when united, can spark extraordinary change. [Especially ordinary people with five million dollars to spend.] When the genetics doctor told us our baby had Down syndrome, he offered foster care or adoption as “help.” [Nice. In other words: "Your baby has Down syndrome; I'm pretty sure I can find him better parents than you two."] Months later, my husband was treated for pneumonia—but Georgie was denied the same treatment because of his diagnosis.  [Not immediately clear, at least grammatically, whether Georgie is husband or son. Why not name him in the first sentence?] [Also, are you saying Georgie had pneumonia but they wouldn't treat him?]

With no hospital backing or major donors, our community gave what it could—time, talent, or piggy-bank savings—to support a visionary CHOP neurologist. Since 2002, that effort has grown from a parking-lot walk into an annual celebration at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles, raising half a million dollars each year. 

As the founder of the CHOP Buddy Walk and a National Down Syndrome Society Advocacy Ambassador, I bring grassroots credibility and a national platform spanning 275 Buddy Walks (330,000 participants) and conferences with audiences of up to 5,000.

The national conversation around disability has taken a troubling turn. Families and advocates need grounded, hope-centered stories that illuminate both the harsh reality of discrimination and community response. This memoir meets that need. [One could interpret "harsh reality" as applying to both discrimination and community response. If that's not the intention, stick a phrase like "the contrasting hopefulness of" in front of "community response.]

Thank you for your consideration.  

Notes

Very well written, but it would be nice to bring the query back to Georgie at the end. How he and others are thriving thanks to the new medical center. I assume you do this throughout the book. Personal anecdotes with emotional depth are likely to be the most relatable aspect of the book, even if you think of it more as a template for other people who might want to start a similar organization. 

This being nonfiction you may need to provide a sample chapter or two, so make sure you have something featuring the kids, and not too heavy on statistics.