Meet my friend Cancer
I just finished reading this book and it is a must read for anyone who has been affected by cancer in one way or another.
The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave may have cut off her diseased breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
The author, a Rhodes scholar, said in an interview that when he started writing the book in 2005 he thought of cancer as a disease, but as he wrote, he began to start seeing it as something that “envelops our lives so fully that it was like writing about someone, it was like writing about an alter personality, an illness that had a psyche, a behavior, a pattern of existing.”
After finishing this book, I thought of the movie “The Doctor” starring William Hurt. If you haven’t seen that movie you should.
The doctor – William Hurt
http://my.asiancemagazine.com/news/2011/04/19/indian-american–s-cancer-book-wins-pulitzer
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said he would “be dead” if “ObamaCare” had been in place when he was diagnosed with cancer.
Speaking at a campaign event Thursday in Lexington, S.C., the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza said President Obama’s healthcare plan would have limited his choice of doctors and prevented him from getting necessary medical testing in a timely manner.
“If ObamaCare had been fully implemented when I caught cancer, I’d be dead,” Cain said.
Somehow I just can’t see the businessmen who greatly profited from Obamacare subjecting themselves or their families and businesses to the plan. They spend a lot of money out of pocket for the best doctors available to them because they can. Who are they to tell the general public to follow a plan that they won’t even implement themselves?
Look at how many days a year Congress is actually IN SESSION and when they are they cannot get ANYTHING accomplished! Can you IMAGINE what it will be like if they have ANY power in the healthcare process??? I think that scenario serves as the basis for a better Hollywood horror movie than “CONTAGION!”
I can just picture it now: Pulse Pictures Presents: “Dead Man Waiting” A new film about Americans dropping dead like flies while waiting for tests and procedures to cure terminal illnesses. Starring: All American citizens who aren’t rich enough to buy the very best health care on the market. Directed by The U.S. Congress; Coming Soon (we hope before it’s too late) to a Theater Near You! LOL 🙁