Living Time (Electronic book text)

Living Time is at once a personal odyssey, an intimate doctor-patient communication, and a prescriptive guide for patients and their families. Writing with wit and humility, Dr. Bernadine Healy shares the hard-won insights that transformed her own struggle with a deadly cancer more than seven years ago, affirming her identity as patient and doctor with the many who share this journey. Together with more than ten million survivors in the United States alone, Dr. Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health, is a close witness to the medical advances that have brought us to a turning point in the war on cancer. This quiet revolution is curing a growing number of cancers and transforming many others from a death sentence to a chronic illness, one that calls for vigilance but not despair. Beginning with her own compelling story, Dr. Healy interweaves it with one of the most lucid narratives ever written of what cancer is, how it works in our bodies, and how we can defeat it. She explains how genetic research and other new approaches are radically altering diagnosis and treatment, and she offers precise and empowering ways for patients and their families to access the information and support they need to secure the best in modern cancer care. She also underlines the urgency of accelerating the pace of research that could map out and destroy cancer in the twenty-first century. Dr. Healy is forthright about the rigors of treatment and the toll cancer still takes, but readers will come away from her book with the information, resources, and heartfelt encouragement they need to look forward to a future with hope. "From the Hardcover edition."