Customer Reviews

I'm Alive and the Doctor's Dead

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"She will be dead soon." Fifteen years after that awful pronouncement, Sue Buchanan is lecturing, running her successful corporation and reminding all breast cancer patients that we are NOT victims. Stand up for your rights, stand up and do the unexpected, stand up and laugh out loud. Her honest story of her battle with breast cancer and some of the doctors she met along the way is a quick, enjoyable read. Her continued joie de vie and encouragement for all women is delightful. A good book when you are down in the dumps - it's enough to shake you out of the doldrums and into some action!

I prefer the original title: Love, Laughter and a High Disregard for Statistics. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago, friends and family (with the best intentions) felt compelled to send me books by survivors of the disease. Some of them were interesting, others downright depressing, but this one really lifted my spirits and helped me to cope. Well written -- a fun read -- I still have it and frequently share it with other women as they face the challenges of cancer. Sue Buchanan, you sure made a difference in this woman's life. Mahalo nui loa!

This book was originally given to me when I was diagnosed with Stage 3
breast cancer, almost 10 years ago. What a great humorous book loaded with encouragement. I now buy it and give it to anyone I know or meet that has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Very inspirational.

I found the overt Christianity in this book a little difficult to get past. I do not believe in a god, and if I haad known about this slant before buying I probably would not have bought it.

I also found Sue Buchanan's adversarial relationship to her doctors and indeed (except at the VERY back of the book) to the medical profession, a little disturbing. She is not required to use any doctor she meets, and if she is going to laugh at them in public and write all over all the tongue-depressors, she should find a new doctor. Yes, it is hard to be kept waiting or to be talked down to by surgeons, but a) the doctor you are waiting for may be coping with another distraught patient, and b) all surgeons I have ever met, while techically skilled, are poor at patient communication. They are skilled,arrogant, decisive, and opinionated -- and that's what I want when I'm in the operating room. But in the office they are abrupt and impatient.

I found it interesting that she had her chemo treatments BEFORE the blood chemistry results came back. They would NEVER do that where my wife has chemo. Accurate reading of blood counts and differentials is key to proper chemo decision-making. Glad she survived.

And by the way, they don't take blood to detect cancer -- cancer cannot be detected in the bloodstream even if it is there because of the very low density of cancer cells compared to blood cells. Detecting cancer in the blood is done by inference only.

She is to be commended on her upbeat approach, but an optimistic attitude, solid family support, and a generous heart are more important than "dissing" the medical profession. Yes, statistics are sometimes grim, but you may always be the 1% who get the good results -- and you may not. Statistics DO help you evaluate procedures and treatments, however.

Despite my defense of the medical profession, I am not a medical person nor are any of my relatives except one nephew who is a vet. We met the medical profession when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.

So while this was a OK read, I found it much less interesting than Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, 3rd edition, which (in its earlier edition) was recommended to my wife at the time of her diagnosis by her surgeon and is very readable and well-organized, and quite upbeat too. I also liked Dr. David Spiegel's Living Beyond Limits. Both were far more valuable and thought-provoking than this book.

This book is written from a Christian perspective -- scripture is referenced in context but not thrown in your face -- and is humorous and encouraging to boot! Buchanan makes the point that cancer is as individual as a thumbprint -- everyone has a thumbprint, but each person's is unique in some way. Cancer may "look" the same in different people, but we all have different body chemistires, faith, genes etc. that make it act differently. The reality for a cancer patient is that no one really knows the outcome that any of us will have. I found Buchanan to be wonderful -- she has a sense of humor, faith in God and a dose of good old fashioned common sense. I would highly recommend this book to anyone trying to deal with or understand some of the emotions related to breast cancer. If nothing else, it is a quick, fun read!