Saturday, November 19th, 2016, 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Proud Flesh: The Resurrection of Baby B

Cynthia Bowen joins us with her latest book, a memoir of her remarkable journey caring for an infant from the Shriners Hospital for Children here in Galveston.

Cynthia Bowen was done
raising children.

She and her husband Lawrence were empty-nesters living a quiet life in suburbia after putting their three children through college. But one afternoon, a phone call from their youngest daughter Kanika changed everything. She was in the midst of her residency at a burn hospital for children when a baby with life-threatening burns, abandoned by his family, arrives. Social Services could not find anyone who could take the infant, designated Baby B, because of his traumatic injuries. Distraught, Kanika pleads with her mother, “can you please come to Galveston and take care of him until a placement can be found?”

As Cynthia moves in with her daughter to care for the child, the approach of Hurricane Rita has placed Galveston in the middle of the largest evacuation in U. S. history. Cynthia Bowen’s memoir covers the turbulent events she faced in her efforts to care for the child as an uncaring medical system, a corrupt CPS worker, and an disruptive evacuation all came to bear on their lives.