Chimera. A patient's journey of hope through transplantation

"The conclusion was undeniable: If I wanted to stay alive, I would have to become a chimera" This novel begins with the aim of understanding the transformations I was undergoing as I became a human chimera, medical term used for persons who have received an organ transplant. The name comes from the mythological monster composed of the union of several animals. Patients who suffer through a transplant procedure also feel like a monster as their body goes through a drastic and painful transformation. This book intends to understand this process by blending historical reviews, fiction stories, and autobiographical accounts.

The chapters combine different styles and provide distinct approaches to a complex topic, helping the reader to understand the meaning of these recently developed human beings. Even more, the book expands the term and provides examples of architectural and geopolitical chimeras showing that generating new creatures by merging two realities may help to solve previously unsolvable problems. In fact, this book in itself is a linguistic chimera that relies on the union of different views to bring to the present this ancient word.

Miguel Quemada (Logro隳, Spain, 1964) is a Full Professor at the Universidad Polit嶰nica de Madrid (Spain). He is included in the World's top 2% scientists' list from Stanford University and he has published more than 110 research articles focused on

developing sustainable food production systems in the current and future climate conditions. In 2023, Dr. Quemada went through an acute myeloid leukemia (MLA) and a bone marrow transplant that save his life. He writes this book to show his experience in the transplant process and to share it with readers who may approach this book as patients, friends, physicians or merely out of literary curiosity.