Roger Madoff was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002. After enduring two years of chemotherapy and radiation, two stem-cell transplants and numerous immuno-suppressive treatments, he felt strong enough to write about his experience. Roger was a reporter for Bloomberg News and lived in New York City with his wife, Jen, and dog, Milo. He died on April 15, 2006, at the age of 32, from the debilitating side effects of his second transplant. This book is filled with the strength, humor, love and hope that defined his life. For more information, please visit: www.leukemiaforchickens.com
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touched My Life,
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This review is from: Leukemia for Chickens (Paperback)
"Roger Madoff." I was just on my way out from my hairdresser when the name on the book jacket caught my eye. Roger had been a star among my reporters for two years when I was stock market editor at Bloomberg in the `90s. He was brilliant, personable, knowledgeable but humble, an excellent reporter. Delighted to see his name in print and eager to see what he had written, I picked up the book and found a photo of a very young Roger with a huge Smoky the Bear in the background. My pleasure disappeared suddenly as I read the title: "Leukemia for Chickens."
My heart fell as I opened the book and read the foreword written by a dean at Weill Cornell Medical College. "When Roger was first diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 29, he very made a conscious decision to fight his disease...With candor and humor, Roger chronicles his illness up until a few months before he courageously faced death in April 2006." I turned to my hairdresser. "I knew him!" I blurted. "His whole family comes here," said the hairdresser. "They gave me this book today." Mumbling a plea to pass along my condolences, I headed for the elevator, images of Roger flooding my mind. It wasn't until I had arrived home and ordered Roger's book on Amazon that I realized that in my shock, I had walked out without paying the bill. When the book arrived a day later, I thought it would be a tough read. Roger's widow, Jennifer, had published it herself. No surprise there - no doubt, agents would have wanted an uplifting account about how somebody beat the disease. Over the next few days, though, I found myself unable to put the book down. I finished it today, crying. It took just one day for Roger to enter the tortures of the damned. Feeling tired, he went to the family doctor and had a blood test that showed a high white blood cell count. Within 24 hours of retest and diagnosis, he began chemotherapy -- the first step in a process that would involve the complete destruction of his immune system in the hope of growing a new, healthy one. Roger had always been a compelling writer -- exuberant, totally original. A member of one of the most dynamic families on Wall Street, he had grown up talking stocks around the family table and probably knew more about the market than the rest of Bloomberg's New York news staff combined. But he never mentioned his family at all, and accepted editing with great grace. Grace, in fact, was a word that could have summed him up - he was a gracious person, graced with brains, a great personality, high energy, inventiveness, good looks, a wonderful family and a girlfriend, later wife. As a reporter, Roger had the equivalent of what my partner Victor Niederhoffer calls "a money-making personality" in traders - he had a story-making personality. He could find "new news" and do it justice. Not only was he an exceptionally vivid writer and expert phrase-turner; he had a merry sense of humor and would often put something outrageous into his stories -- just so that I would have something to take out, he once explained with a grin. I remember one classic Roger story that included the quote, "Puts are for putzes." I thought it was both funny and accurate, but a higher-up indignantly demanded the removal of what he deemed exceedingly offensive profanity. (One result of the incident is that we were treated to a highly detailed and hilarious explanation by the bureau chief of the scale on which "putz" falls.) Roger was regarded with affection and respect in the newsroom. That doesn't explain why I, who rarely finish any book, finished his book. It wasn't as though we were personal friends. I knew he had gone to work for a unit of the family firm, Primex, on a project to build a digital trading auction, but I hadn't spoken to him in years. The reason I couldn't put the book down is that it's a highly interesting, endearing first-person account by a stellar reporter of what it's like to undergo cancer treatment in the 21st century. You won't hear the real story by asking a patient or a doctor. The patient is likely to say, "I'm doing fine," while even an exceptionally sensitive doctor would be unable to give the story from the patient's perspective. While leukemia is rare, the stem-cell transplants that Roger underwent are used to treat two dozen other diseases. (He never had much more than a 50% chance - a fact that Roger says he was not aware of as he embarked on the treatment. His doctor, he writes, `discouraged me from inquiring about discomforting statistics." Roger tells about the treatments, the geometrically expanding side effects and resulting physical ailments and difficulties associated with the treatments, about his own emotions, about the effect on his own family and his marriage. The gracious Roger I knew survived it all -- there is no hint of bitterness or rancor toward his doctors or anyone else. Eventually, he tells how he came to terms with not being a conquering hero. "I had to reconcile myself to the fact that there are forces beyond my control, and yet I had to continue to work as if there weren't," he wrote. "Maybe I was turning a blind eye to the reality of my struggle, but I knew I would resume living my life as fully as possible. I would try to find richness in every day I had in front of me. I had always tried to live this way and I would reserve my strength for the moments that mattered, regardless of how small they were and how often they came." If you are close to someone with cancer, or if you are in health care yourself, I'd recommend this book. As an example of great work performed under extremely adverse conditions, it is worthy of a Pulitzer.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
incredible candor and courage,
By
This review is from: Leukemia for Chickens (Paperback)
once started, i could not put the book down! an incredible first person brutally frank and honest account of a young man's difficult journey through a terrible ordeal.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For healers in training,
By
This review is from: Leukemia for Chickens (Paperback)
This funny, brave, honest little book educates and edifies. I recommend it to all, but foremost to those training to be healers. I know of no finer introduction to disease then the one communicated here with careful, journalistic prose. As a doctor, it taught me more about the experience of illness than any grand rounds or medical school lecture. The author shows us that the great battle that is terminal illness is fought in many ways and in many places. As we interact with patients as therapists, nurses, and doctors we have an opportunity through our actions to honor this battle or to miss that opportunity. We are summoned here to know the experience of illness more deeply and with this understanding to act with far greater sympathy and compassion. It has my highest recommendation.
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