Breath

A triumphant story of hope and survival

I am dying. I know that I'm dying, despite not having been told by my doctors that I am dying. I know I am dying because I'm in the dying room.

Carly-Jay Metcalfe was born with cystic fibrosis, survived a double-lung transplant at the age of twenty-one and faced a rare cancer at the age of thirty. What she has endured should have killed her, but her humour, courage and optimism became her best survival skills.

From her hospitalised childhood to her many friendships, loves and losses, Carly-Jay shares the fickle nature of life with candour and warmth. She writes with compelling insight about organ donation, opioid addiction and survivor's guilt, while still managing to find joy amongst the wreckage.

Breath is a stunningly frank and darkly funny memoir about living, dying and trying to breathe.

'The only thing more remarkable than Carly-Jay Metcalfe's story, is the way she tells it. This book is a love letter to the sublime human mess called life; an invitation to pay attention to every precious lungful.' Beejay Silcox