Patient: The True Story Of A Rare Illness

The Story

In the summer of 1992, on the eve of an American tour, Ben Watt, one half of British pop duo Everything But The Girl, was taken into a London hospital complaining of chest pain. He didn't leave for two and a half months. Still only twenty-nine, Watt had developed a rare life-threatening disease that initially baffled doctors. He needed two months of hospital treatment and four risky operations to remove dead internal tissue before the condition was stabilized. By the time he was allowed home, his ravaged body was forty-six pounds lighter, and he was missing most of his small intestine. But Patient is more than a diary of Watt's hospital days. As he awakens bewildered and disoriented in a hospital bed between bouts of surgery, Watt injects pathos and humor into his medical nightmare, writing about his childhood and reflecting on his family and on his shared life with bandmember and partner Tracey Thorn. The result is a provocative and affecting memoir about life, illness, and survival.