Boy in the Moon Book Review

Ian browns sons face is distorted, missing his eyebrows, has a thick lower lip, beats himself and so much more. His son, Walker (note the sad irony of his name) is diagnosed with cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome (CFC), an extremely rare genetic mutations with only 100 reported cases worldwide. The formula walker depends on to live costs the Browns 12, 000$ a year. Ian meets with other families who have a relative or a loved one diagnosed with CFC, though the solace they provide is only passively communal. “The Boy In The Moon” presents the philosophical dilemma that one receives and demonstrates the bitter-sweet moments of a life that come along with a child like Walker. Ian starts the book with an all too common routine in the Browns household. Walker is rhythmically beating himself in the dead of the night waking Ian up to do “The same routine of tiny details, connected in precise order, each mundane, each crucial” as he puts it. The only way to ease him back asleep is to make him a bottle which requires him to disconnect the feeding contraption. Walker has a mickey or a G-tube (gastrostomy tube) which is a tube that goes from the stomach all the way outside the body, the tube is cut off by a valve. Walker feeds during the night through the mickey. The simple task of making a bottle for walker now becomes an extremely complicated task. First he must turn off the feeding pump, close the feed line, crimp the tube, un-zip the sleeper, unlock the line from the mickey, pull the line, re-zip the sleeper then take out walker, all in the dark and in complete silence. Ian and Johanna’s (Ian’s wife) first child is called Hayley, the idea of having their second child Walker came because of the thought that Hayley, being a single child, needed the company, an ally of sorts in ‘her future fights’ as Ian comes to call it. After a while ‘We [Ian and Johanna] let nature take its course’ and ‘quickly produced a brother for Hayley’. Hayley was three when