Beth Maloney | Book Chatter

Saving Sammy: Curing the Boy Who Caught OCD
By Beth Alison Maloney
Crown Publishing Group
September 2009
272pp

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

The summer before entering sixth grade, Sammy, a bright and charming boy who lived on the coast of Maine, suddenly began to exhibit disturbing behavior. He walked and ate with his eyes shut, refused to bathe, burst into fits of rage, slithered against walls, and used his limbs instead of his hands to touch light switches, doorknobs, and faucets.

Sammy’s mother, Beth, already coping with the overwhelming responsibility of raising three sons alone, watched helplessly as her middle child descended into madness. Sammy was soon diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and later with Tourette syndrome. Unwilling to accept the doctors’ prognoses for lifelong mental illness and repeated hospitalizations, Beth fought to uncover what was causing this decline. Racing against time as Sammy slipped further from reality, Beth’s quest took her to the center of the medical community’s raging debate about whether mental illness can be caused by infection. With the battle lines firmly drawn, Beth searched until she found two cutting-edge doctors who answered that question with a definitive yes. Together, they cured Sammy. Five years later, he remains symptom free.

The Short of It:

A startling look at one family’s experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder and how a mother’s unwavering quest for a cure slowly brings about change within the medical community. Touching and well-told. This is a story with a purpose.

The Rest of It:

I picked this book up, read about ten pages and then could not put it down. I finished it in just a few sittings. Anyone with a child can relate to the difficulties of dealing with a sick kid. There is nothing worse than seeing your son or daughter struggle through an illness, be it flu or something more serious. In this case though, Sammy is struck with obsessive-compulsive disorder and it hits him out of blue. One day he is well, and the next day he isn’t. It’s starts with little quirks. Sammy’s need to touch a wall as he passes, or his need to enter a room a certain way. His mother, Beth, chalks it up to being a kid. Sometimes kids do weird things. As time passes though, his need to do things a certain way become compulsions which take several hours to complete. Simple activities such as going to school because extremely complicated when it takes over two hours just to get him dressed and out the door.

After taking Sammy to psychiatrist with no success, Beth discovers through research and a conversation with a friend, that Strep is sometimes related to OCD. This prompts additional testing and an elevated strep titer is discovered which leads to a diagnosis of PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal). However, since the condition is fairly new, many of the doctors that Beth encounter, do not want to treat it as such even though Sammy seems to improve dramatically when the strep is treated.

This book was a bit of an eye opener for me. I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder a few years ago and the doctors at the time believed it to be caused by strep as I had an undiagnosed strep infection and the symptoms of the auto-immune disorder came on suddenly, nearly overnight. However, I didn’t believe that to be the cause and although I was treated for a common strep infection and went through one round of antibiotics, my symptoms did not improve and they began to treat me for Lupus. Over the course of a year I have been treated off and on for strep as I have had three strep infections and no symptoms of strep, silent strep is what they call it. I’ve also been treated for Lupus though and now I seem to have a handle on it, but was strep really the cause? After reading Beth’s book, I tend to think it may have played a role in it.

What impressed me with this book is that no matter how dire the situation, Beth remained positive. Sure, she had doubts but she displayed incredible patience with not only Sammy but her other children as well. Her entire household was turned upside down by this and her willingness to put it all on the line for the sake of getting Sammy well really struck a chord with me.

What stuck out a bit for me was the lack of a father figure in most of Beth’s story. Sammy’s father does come into the picture towards the end of the book but with all that was going on, and with all that Beth had to endure, I kept waiting for the Sammy’s dad to make an appearance. They are divorced at the beginning of the story but with Sammy’s condition being so severe, I expected a bit more involvement from the dad.

Overall, I feel that this is a valuable story for anyone that is dealing with a sick child, even if their child’s illness is not OCD. The perseverance that Beth displayed and the textbook comments from most of these doctors really make you question Western medicine as a whole.