Mardi Gras Treasures: Costume Designs of the Golden Age Book

Probably not very professional on my part, but I confess to taking on this reading with a very negative view from the beginning. As I got into it, the reading, so "over the top" Hollywood style and self- centered, supported my preconceptions. Even when I discovered a friend had written a review already, and thus had an excuse to stop where I was at in my reading, I kept going, a personal commitment to read every word of each book before committing my thoughts to paper. Am I glad I did because in that full reading I discovered I did enjoy this "character" (and I often use that term for both positive and negative connotations for an individual) more and more as I went on.

Cojo has a real sense of humor once you "get it" and realize while he indeed may be serious about those over the top comments and name dropping (I've never seen him nor do I know anything about him prior to this book reading), he is also poking fun at himself, especially as the kidney disease and transplant experience challenges deepen their impact on his life. Surprisingly (to me given the other personal stuff), his writing is integrated with a very realistic and factual description of the life experience involved living through all that. Jacks' review that follows will give you more of the story detail, but I wanted to share with you here how much I did enjoy the book, finding myself finally laughing at his self-deprecating humor. In the end, he does share a true life transformation, finally recognizing and reconciling with his family who come to support him throughout, even to the point of his mother, in her 70's, providing him with his second and finally longer term successful, living donation of her kidney. Along the way, with humor that can only be Cojo's, we do see the emotions, community and career impacts, family support, and even life in severe depression that is associated with devastating kidney disease.

I do recommend this excellent reading to patients and families facing their own transplant challenges, steroids and all. In fact, midway in this reading, I called a close friend who is undergoing his second kidney transplant wait to suggest he read this book so he too could enjoy the laughter while dealing with his own issues in that life experience. Oh, and did I mention that that friend lives in the immediate Hollywood area and seems to know a lot about Cojo, so I'm sure he would get even more out of it than I did.

Lesson learned: never judge a book by its cover.

see this and more than a hundred other organ donation/transplant related books - many with my personal reviews - at