Living Time » (Reprint)

Bernadine Healy, M.D., is one of America's best-known physicians. A cardiologist by training, she is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, the American Red Cross, and the College of Medicine and Public Health at Ohio State University. She is currently the health editor for US News and World Report and writes the magazine's bi-weekly "On Health" column. She also makes nationwide speaking and media appearances about our most crucial health issues.

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.

The Start of My Journey
A Valentine's Day     3
The New Face of Cancer     14
How Cancer Comes to Be
Anatomy of Cancer     29
The Hubris of Immortality     46
Cancer on the March     57
Can We Control Our Fate?
Cancer Risk Factors     75
Making an Everyday Difference     103
Working with Your Doctor     124
Treatment's New Era
Getting Started     141
Why Cancer Treatment Works     159
Treatment Scorecards     181
Patient Empowered
Personal Choice     209
Medics, Mentors, and Cancer Centers     225
Survivors Rising
Reaching Out     247
Survivors All     260
Attitudes of the Head and the Heart
Weathering the Storm     277
Living Time     294
Resources     311
Acknowledgments     327
Index     329
About the Author     340