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Dr. Neil Spector, M.D. wastes no time pulling you into his harrowing medical journey in his memoir, Gone in a Heartbeat: A Physician’s Search for True Healing. Page one begins when, at 53 years old, he’s told he needs a heart transplant or he will be dead in a matter of days.

Dr. Spector had a happy childhood and caring parents: His mother was a psychologist and family therapist, and his father was a highly influential scientist. Their passion for people and science encouraged his own pursuits in medicine.

He went on to endure the grueling years of medical school, and later fellowships in hematology/medical oncology and bone marrow transplant at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. As an oncologist and cancer therapy researcher, he didn’t simply treat patients, he cared for them deeply and on an emotional and spiritual level.

In 1991, Dr. Spector married the love of his life, and he was the epitome of health, often running 10 to 12 miles a day, six days a week. Just two years later, while embarking on an exciting career in a new city and ready to start a family, the unexplained heart symptoms began.

“Everything was perfect… until it wasn’t.”

Short episodes of rapid-fire heart beats came and went for months, but his doctors could find nothing wrong and chalked it up to stress. Then, one evening, he found himself experiencing every textbook symptom of a heart attack — while driving 70 miles per hour on the highway. He managed to make it safely to the closest emergency room, where an evaluation found his heart to be “normal,” and stress was named the culprit once again.

Thus began Dr. Spector’s downward spiral into a world of mysterious symptoms and progressively worsening health. His journey to find the underlying cause was long and frustrating, and even when he finally got a diagnosis that made sense — Lyme disease — the news was only a brief pit stop on his road to healing. His ordeal immediately roared on with more twists and turns, setbacks and roadblocks, as he dealt with the life-threatening effects of Lyme on his heart and ultimately had to undergo a heart transplant.

Dr. Spector tells a riveting story, plus offers thoughtful reflection and commentary on his time growing up, attending medical school, and treating patients, as well as his personal life and spiritual evolution throughout his health ordeal. The book reveals much about how and why he developed a unique, nuanced, and holistic approach to medicine and healthcare, and how it served him as a patient.

All of that makes Gone in a Heartbeat hard to put down, as does the way Spector writes — eloquently and with ample foreshadowing and backstory, teasers and cliffhangers. Expect to tear up, if not fully break down at certain parts both beautiful and excruciating.

“Even when he finally got a diagnosis that made sense — Lyme disease — the news was only a brief pit stop on his road to healing.”

But even more than a compelling read, Dr. Spector’s book is insightful. He shares valuable lessons throughout that come from a place of first-hand knowing and authentic desire to pave an easier path for others. At various points, the book feels like both a pep talk and spiritual guide for those dealing with chronic and serious medical conditions.

But the takeaways are useful no matter where you are on your own wellness journey — be it dealing with mysterious or textbook symptoms, a chronic illness or acute condition, or all or none of the above. The main message, after all, is right there in the title: Health and life are fragile, and can be gone in an instant.