Customer Reviews

The New Cancer Survivors: Living with Grace, Fighting with Spirit

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Diagnosed in Oct. '99 with MM, I was devastated, alone, and confused by doctors and information sources. Luckily a friend passed me a copy of this wonderful book and I survived my first surgery and chemo with new strength and resolution. I have recommended this book to members of the clergy and those visiting the sick as the one gift they should come bearing when visiting cancer patients. The book continues to comfort and educate me on the second and third readings. As I enter the transplant phase of my treatment, it will stay with me. The author knows just how to talk to cancer patients, their family, and friends. I consider it a "must have."

The New Cancer Survivors: Living With Grace, Fighting With Spirit focuses on men and women who have survived having cancer and how their illness and its treatment have effected profound changes in their lives and life-perspectives. Herself a survivor of metastatic breast cancer, Natalie Spingarn writes with a meticulous attention to the attitude and humor the experiences she and numerous others have encountered in their fight against cancer included drastically shortened hospital stays in a time of promising developments in genetic and pharmaceutical research, the understanding (and misunderstanding) of family and friends, fighting cancer stigma in the workplace, the hospital, and the insurance marketplace, and communicating with physicians and health care providers. The New Cancer Survivors is a lively and compelling "eyewitness" account of both the public and private contexts of a major and pervasive illness.

The New Cancer Survivors focuses on the modern routines of being a cancer survivor, describing both the gains in treatment and lifestyle and the problems which remain for survivors. The author, herself a cancer survivor, describes a new spirit of living with grace and fighting disease which examines new tools, promising new treatments, and the pros and cons of alternative therapies.

I have been waiting for this book for quite some time as I am a fan of this author and of everything she writes. As a fellow survivor who has witnessed dramatic changes in healthcare over the past 3 decades, I especially appreciate the complexity and depth the author brings to the cancer experience. This book describes not only the changes in technology and treatment options, but also the social changes that affect the emotional, spiritual, financial and practical aspects of our lives. Cancer is so much more than either being successfully treated or dying from the disease.

This book reads like a mixture of biography -- the author's personal story is compelling -- history, philsophy, and social commentary on the state of cancer care in the U.S. It would probably not be the first book that I would pick up if I was just diagnosed with cancer as this book deals with complex issues. I would need something more practical and simple and easy at that stage of the game. But for the millions of survivors who are mentally and emotionally ready to explore cancer on a deeper level and try to make sense out of it all, this just may be one of the best books available. It describes how we got to where we are today and where we hopefully are going. It is honest in descibing both the joys and successes of cancer care along with the tragedies and challenges. It is a pragmatic book about cancer and hope.