Deanna Fei: Girl in Glass

Sarika D. Mehta » Podcast

Deanna Fei is a writer, known for her debut novel, Thread of Sky. In fact, that’s how I came to learn about her in the first place, when she was a guest on APA Compass.

She was unexpectedly back in the news when AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong blamed employee benefit rollbacks on “two distressed babies”, which included Deanna Fei’s daughter (AOL was her husband’s employer). She wrote about it for Slate, and about a year after her family survived the arrival of her daughter – at 25 weeks with 3 months in the NICU – she wrote the memoir Girl in Glass: How my “Distressed Baby” Defied the Odds, Shamed a CEO, and Taught me the Essence of Love, Heartbreak and Miracles.

Her book gives an honest and raw take at what it means to deliver a baby at 25 weeks, how this “catastrophic event” affected her family, and then the entirely bizarre story of being blamed for corporate cutback decisions. She investigates what really happens behind the scenes with CEO’s bonuses, targeting employees’ medical records and our lack of privacy in healthcare (despite HIPAA regulations).

For my healthy living episode of Intersections Radio, she joined me live from New York. We talked about medical privacy as a civil right, her experiences with this issue and how this ultimately determines the value of a human life. She was an amazing guest so go read her book and of course, check out the podcast!

Air date: 10/2/2015:

https://sarikadmehta.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/deannafei_intersections-1.mp3