An Amazon Best of the Month Book "For all the insight he offers into the hard science and thorny logistics of studying cancer, Dr. Scadden’s most moving passages consider the effect of the disease on the people who suffer from it and those who care for them." —The Wall Street Journal A doctor’s riveting story of loss and hope in the world of cancer. What is it like to encounter cancer? How does it feel to face the unknown, to enter a world of hope, loss, and dread? From the diagnosis of his childhood friend’s mother to his poignant memories in the lab, David Scadden’s seen the unknown world of cancer from the lens of a young boy, a classmate, a researcher, a friend, a doctor, and a neighbor. Scadden chronicles his personal memories of cancer – his visits to his sick neighbor and his classmate who left school and never came back. Now Dr. David Scadden, co-founder of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and one of the world's leading experts on immunology and oncology, writes his memoir, Cancerland, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio. With riveting stories and moving compassion, Scadden and D’Antonio paint a still rapidly changing landscape in the context of all too common stories of loss. Ranging from Scadden’s personal childhood memories to his triumphs and regrets as a doctor, Scadden illuminates a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Through opening a window into the science of medicine in the world of the unknown, Scadden and D’Antonio humanize cancer while inspiring action that we all so desperately need.

Journeys in Cancerland offers two object lessons in patient participation. For a long time, patients barely participated in their own care. Once diagnosed with a disease like cancer, they would enter an all-consuming acute care system that took over their lives until they went into remission or died. That this is no longer the case is due, for the most part, to patients and caregivers like John-Peter Bradford and Lisa Newman who have begun to take charge of their care. Their stories are not merely instructive about cancer -- they are lessons in how to live with life threatening illness and how to face death. John-Peter Bradford is CEO of Bradford Bachinski Limited and a member of the Cancer Care Advisory Committee of the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. Lisa Newman has over thirty years' experience in the Ontario healthcare system as a clinician, supervisor, and manager. Foreword by Sholom Glouberman, President of the Patients' Association of Canada

Shortly after Alysa Cummings was diagnosed with breast cancer, she sat down at her laptop computer and began keeping a journal. Over the two years of her cancer treatment, Alysa continued writing as she moved through the healthcare delivery system: I fantasized that I could somehow use my computer to craft a story with an upbeat next chapter or fairy tale happily-ever-after ending. Looking back, that's the only explanation I can come up with, why I felt so compelled to create a record of my day-to-day experiences as a cancer patient. The one thing I could control were these words that crowded each other as they quickly appeared on my computer screen; these stories that flowed through my fingertips in such a manic rush; these traumatic adventures that happened to me in a place I began to call CancerLand. CancerLand: it's this parallel universe, I swear, separate and apart from the rest of life as I once knew it. How did I end up in this wacky Bizarro World filled with freaky language and even stranger rituals? Gradually her daily journal entries became vignettes and poems that were published on the OncoLink website. Greetings from CancerLand, a collection of Alysa's writing from 2002-2012, charts one breast cancer survivor's journey as she discovers the power of writing to move her recovery forward.

The author's award-winning account of how she learned to stand in her power and speak her truth during a life crisis by connecting with her physician-within through dreams, meditations, and prayer. Believing in her intuition, Kathleen used it to self-advocate a course of cancer treatment in her healing process; never forgetting that the patient must make the final decisions. She is also the author of Dreams that Can Save Your Life: Early Warning Signs of Cancer and Other Diseases--Publisher. Show Less

Cancer is indiscriminate. It cares little for class, creed or color. Its patients are literally everywhere. When Laura Holmes Haddad was diagnosed, she discovered shelf upon shelf of overly-earnest, somber, gray survival books, and knew there had to be a better way. This Is Cancer is the thoughtful, informative fabulous-looking result for those who prefer their pathos with equal parts humor and reality and a touch of flair. A "what to expect when you're expecting" book for the diagnosis you don't want but are stuck with, This Is Cancer is the book that patients keep in their "heading to the hospital bag," because it's the only one that tells them what's going on and keeps them company. Including such useful snippets as: There is no limit to what you will put yourself through when told it might save your life. Stay away from the Internet. And don't let anyone tell you "what they looked up" about your diagnosis. You'll be surrounded by people but you'll feel lonely, and alone, sometimes. Lexapro is Tylenol for the soul. If you don't like your doctor(s), find new ones. You will feel somewhat at the mercy of them, like they hold the key to your mortality, but in fact more than one doctor can potentially save you and some are nice and some are mean. Whether you or your loved ones want a primer full of useful information in an easy to reference format or a friendly and comforting read, the honest, grave, and mordantly funny stories and tips from young survivors will bring you the real intel and advice that you need most during this tremendously difficult time.

Candid and immediate, written as it happened, In Cancerland shares prominent Canadian journalist and broadcaster Libby Znaimer's real-time reaction to her cancer diagnosis, her frustrations with the medical system, and the difficult choices she had to make. In a spirited narrative, the author carries the reader along as she thinks through those decisions, sometimes second-guessing herself in the process. Libby also writes about the lighter side of living with cancer, like telling her friends and choosing a wig. She devotes a whole chapter to her husband -- his support, his concerns, and his reactions. She takes the reader along as she fulfills a social engagement just hours after being diagnosed, plays tennis the morning after chemotherapy, and has to start a new job in the midst of her treatment. Emotionally honest without being sentimental, In Cancerland is both a moving memoir and powerful proof that treating cancer as part of life can help overcome it.

When the woman he loved was diagnosed with a metastatic cancer, science writer George Johnson embarked on a journey to learn everything he could about the disease and the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and combating it. What he discovered is a revolution under way—an explosion of new ideas about what cancer really is and where it comes from. In a provocative and intellectually vibrant exploration, he takes us on an adventure through the history and recent advances of cancer research that will challenge everything you thought you knew about the disease. Deftly excavating and illuminating decades of investigation and analysis, he reveals what we know and don’t know about cancer, showing why a cure remains such a slippery concept. We follow him as he combs through the realms of epidemiology, clinical trials, laboratory experiments, and scientific hypotheses—rooted in every discipline from evolutionary biology to game theory and physics. Cogently extracting fact from a towering canon of myth and hype, he describes tumors that evolve like alien creatures inside the body, paleo-oncologists who uncover petrified tumors clinging to the skeletons of dinosaurs and ancient human ancestors, and the surprising reversals in science’s comprehension of the causes of cancer, with the foods we eat and environmental toxins playing a lesser role. Perhaps most fascinating of all is how cancer borrows natural processes involved in the healing of a wound or the unfolding of a human embryo and turns them, jujitsu-like, against the body. Throughout his pursuit, Johnson clarifies the human experience of cancer with elegiac grace, bearing witness to the punishing gauntlet of consultations, surgeries, targeted therapies, and other treatments. He finds compassion, solace, and community among a vast network of patients and professionals committed to the fight and wrestles to comprehend the cruel randomness cancer metes out in his own family. For anyone whose life has been affected by cancer and has found themselves asking why?, this book provides a new understanding. In good company with the works of Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Abraham Verghese, The Cancer Chronicles is endlessly surprising and as radiant in its prose as it is authoritative in its eye-opening science.