As a young mother in the 1990s, Jane Wilson-Howarth lived with her aid-worker husband in rural Nepal, using her own medical training to support local doctors.

Flying back to the UK for the birth of her second child, she discovered the baby had serious heart problems. Amid a gloomy prognosis, David endured needles, tube-feeds and medical cocktails that left him twitching at noises and vomiting after each feed. Jane came to a snap decision: escaping the hospital system would be a better option for her beautiful but unresponsive baby than spending his whole life on a ward.

Returning to Nepal, she took him into a world where he was seen as special – touched by God – rather than abnormal. Living close to the jungle home of tiger, rhino and wild elephant, with occasional treks into the Himalayas, she and her family learned to treat David's frequent laughter as the ultimate blessing.

In this powerful, uplifting memoir, Jane looks back on David's short life of dignity and happiness, surer than ever that she made the right call.



Jane Wilson-Howarth studied zoology and parasitology at Oxford before qualifying as a physician. She spent 20 years running child survival projects across Asia and later worked as a GP in Cambridge and with refugees. A fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, she is a leading authority on travel health and has written for The Guardian, The Independent, and other international outlets. Her books include the bestselling How to Shit Around the World, travel memoirs, a novel, and a wildlife adventure series for children.