Customer Reviews

That's Unacceptable: Surviving a Brain Tumor - My Personal Story

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At the time when a friend received that most terrible of diagnoses, GBM4, this book has been a lightbeam of hope and a treasure trove of practical advice.

It feels like Rebecca is seated in the chair talking right to you. Definitely required reading if you have a brain tumor dx, or if you're caring for or about someone who has.

What would you do if you woke up one morning feeling a little absentminded, only to discover that you had a brain tumor and little chance of surviving even for two years? That happened to Rebecca Libutti and, although not a trained writer, four years later she wrote this book about her experience. She has some important things to say.

That's Unacceptable is about how one survivor reacted when the unthinkable became the everyday, from extracting the news about her diagnosis from reluctant lips to choosing experimental medical treatment to dealing with insurance companies. Rebecca Libutti hasn't discovered a miracle cure for high grade astrocytomas, but her optimism and assertiveness may be part of how she beat the odds.

This book became one of my family's favorites when the same disease entered our lives. I have personally recommended it to dozens of others in the brain tumor community. Ms. Libutti offers hope: not false hope, but warm and humorous hope from practical experience.

I am a GBM 4 patient myself (Diagnosed on 9/29/2010) and quickly approaching my 1 year mark.

I am also a very research oriented person (sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse).

I have to say that I enjoyed this book very much. It was a good balance of her personal experiences and her personal thoughts as well as presenting the various treatment options she had and which ones were useful.

The story is well written and presented in a way that I felt provides a realistic view of the path this disease can take, but also gives hope that there are ways that you can extend your options and live longer than expected.

I will say that there is a religious component to this text that, being a non-religious person myself, I had a slight issue with, but it did not in any way impede me from taking this contents to heart, or make me want to stop reading it. It is understandable that since that is a part of her life it would be included in the book, and she did not make it seem as though her religious beliefs in any way really had a positive effect on her survivability other than the fact that they gave her personal positive reinforcement. I applauded that view and use of her personal religious beliefs in the text.

I highly recommend this text for both those afflicted and those playing the role of a caregiver.