Dirty South

Andy Hageman was an elite athlete and an award-winning broadcaster living the American Dream in the high desert of New Mexico. Then came the back pain. What should have been a standard spinal procedure spiraled into a nine-week descent into medical purgatory. The itinerary included a brain hemorrhage, a spinal fluid leak, and what Andy was later told is sometimes called a "never event," a surgical needle tip left behind inside his spine.

When creamy pus eventually ran down his leg, the doctors finally arrived at a startling conclusion: something might be wrong.

DIRTY SOUTH is a raw, biting, and darkly funny account of what happens when the people paid to save you become the ones you need saving from. From the filth of the infamous hospital ward that gives the book its name to a six-year legal battle, Hageman chronicles his journey from a stallion to a "six-hundred-dollar bionic knockoff."

Told with unflinching honesty and the gallows humor only a Brit could muster while watching his life dissolve into a pool of spinal fluid, this is more than a medical memoir. It is a story of survival through spite, a celebration of the wife who would not let him quit, and a high-stakes hunt for justice that concludes with a twist of serendipity across a neighbor's dinner table.

In a healthcare system where Andy often felt like just the "overtime" on a surgeon's schedule, DIRTY SOUTH is a rallying cry for the disposable patient. It is a reminder that even when they break your back, they cannot always break your spirit. Or your wit.