"Kent, bud. We got your test result. And I'm really sorry to tell you that it is positive for Ebola."

Those are the words that changed medical missionary Dr. Kent Brantly's life forever, as, after his efforts fighting the West African Ebola outbreak last year, he went from physician to patient.

It's a battle he documents in an upcoming memoir, co-written with wife Amber and excerpted for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kent writes of his reaction following the diagnosis, immediately asking, "'OK, so what is next? What's our plan? What are we going to do?'

"I am a doctor, trained to respond to a bad test result by creating a plan. More importantly, I am a husband and a father, and my thoughts turned to my beautiful wife and children back home in the United States. I might not see them, much less touch them, ever again.

"I stared out our bedroom window, looking to [my colleague]. 'How am I going to tell Amber?' "

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Flights are shown cancelled on a screen at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport domestic terminal in Atlanta on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. Cancellations at the Atlanta airport got worse over the weekend, as about 370 flights were canceled Saturday and about another 470 more by Sunday. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

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Passengers wait at a Delta check-in counter at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. It was the first day the Federal Aviation Administration cut flight capacity at airports during the government shutdown. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com