Tick Tock: No Time to Lose

About the Book

This spellbinding novel reveals a stunning, provocative account of an emergency life- saving liver transplant that leaves the author in a five week coma. The author uses exerpts from her childhood, teen, and adult experiences to illustrate how they prepare her to withstand profuse bleeding, a stroke, and the ability to come out of her lenghty sleep. The testimony is sprinkled with uplifting humor and helps the reader to understand how perseverance, divine intervention, and timeless optimism helps one to overcome catastrophic experiences. One year after her traumatic experience, she returns to her professiona as a public school administrator, strong and prepared to continue her phenomenal reputation as a no non-sense high school leader. The novel is a perfect literary example of man vs. the universe. The author now shares her experience in multiple venues to support liver and organ transplants across the nation.

About the Author

Dr. Helen J. Harper has worked as an adjunct college and university professor, a middle school and high school administrator, and a teacher for over thirty years. Her first three teaching years were devoted to private schools in the Catholic Diocese of Memphis. However, she has devoted a number of memorable years to public education as a teacher and administrator in Memphis and Detroit. Dr. Harper has K–12 and higher education endorsements in English, Elementary Education, Administration and Supervision, Curriculum and Instruction, and Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. She was a “cutting edge” leader in school restructuring during the late nineties, and she has appeared in the local news media numerous times in Memphis and Detroit while serving as a teacher, leader, and administrator. She has presented in Tennessee, Michigan, Florida, and Arkansas on various leadership and educational topics. She believes in leading by example and engendering teamwork through trust and networking. This is the thrust of her dissertation, entitled: Mentoring in Preparing Principals for Effective Leadership Practices. Dr. Harper relocated to Detroit in 1994 and returned to Memphis in 2007, where she experienced one of the greatest health challenges of a lifetime—a liver transplant. Professor Harper has received a plethora of awards in Memphis and Detroit for her outstanding achievements in the field of education. The main focus of her interests is on the “disadvantaged,” which became a large and pivotal part of her family portrait during the 1960s and ’70s when she was a child observing her family members’ active participation in the Civil Rights Movement. Her profound interests in disadvantaged children led to her deeper understanding of the political crises that influence Blacks in America. In Detroit, she was the supervisor of the Second Chance Program for secondary “at risk” students at Osborn High School. Her other interests include Black Studies, international travel, anthropology, reading, and writing short stories and nonfiction. Her travels to Africa, Spain, and England have widened her perspective about educating minorities. Dr. Harper is the youngest of thirteen children. Her daughter follows in her footsteps as a public school teacher/administrator, and her son is a prolific, award-winning artist.