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

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Summary: INFORMED, INSPIRING BOOK OFFERS ADVICE TO CANCER SURVIVORS
Review: "Natalie Spingarn brings two powerful strengths to this powerful book. She is both a cancer survivor and a superb reporter. "The New Cancer Survivors" is a companion and a source for the living, for the worried, for the loving-for all of us."-Jim Lehrer, "The News Hour"

"Compelling. Spingarn documents the many changes and improvements in cancer treatment achieved during this time and describes how changes have influenced her own survivorship. Her account of her own experiences is largely positive, but includes insights that could only come from a most thoughtful patient and critical observer. "The New Cancer Survivors" is a comprehensive guide, helpful in all measures-a book I treasure."-Robert W. Day, M.D., President and Director Emeritus, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle

"Few cancer survivors can top Natalie Spingarn's gift for writing about her own experience in a way that relates so personally to the reader's own cancer journey. Her intelligent writing is often poetic, frequently humorous, fully informative, and never boring. "The New Cancer Survivors" is marvelous, her best work."-Ellen Stovall, Executive Director, National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship

The over eight million Americans living with cancer today deal with a world profoundly changed from that encountered by healthcare writer Natalie Davis Spingarn when she first fell ill with metastatic breast cancer a quarter century ago. This is a world in which medicine has changed, ways of delivering that medicine have changed, and cancer survivors themselves have changed--from "in the closet" unobtrusive "patient patients" to active partners on decision-making teams. Indeed, the very idea of cancer survivorship is new.

In her latest book, "The New Cancer Survivors: Living with Grace, Fighting with Spirt," Spingarn focuses on this new world of survivorship, describing the tremendous gains and still baffling problems that survivors undoubtedly will recognize. They will identify with the author, as she describes with attitude and humor the experiences she and numerous others have encountered in their cancer journeys, whether these be dealing with drastically shortened hospital stays in a day of promising developments in genetic and pharmaceutical research, understanding (and misunderstanding) families and friends, fighting cancer stigma in the workplace and the hospital and insurance marketplace, or communicating with physicians.

The author was in for a surprise when she finally responded to years of pressure from fellow survivors to update "Hanging in There," her revolutionary 1982 book which they considered a classic helpful to them in innumerable ways--often as a welcome gift for anyone with a diagnosis of cancer and for family and friends. So much had happened since that book, the first to combine a personal story with an informed discussion of the psycho-social issues surrounding cancer, that she found herself writing a new book to explore in depth the phenomenon of survivors today who are not only "hanging in" for longer periods, but increasingly living "quality time" as they confront serious problems with skill and hope.

The result, "The New Cancer Survivors: Living with Grace, Fighting with Spirit," is a lively and compelling account of both the public and private contexts of a major illness, told through the eyes of a thoughtful, critical, survivor who first started warning about her cancer experiences for "The Washington Post" and other publications decades ago. Written in Spingarn's trademark "can-do" style, it addresses such heartfelt concerns as the positive, albeit slow changes in public perceptions of cancer, the movement of survivors from "alternative" to "complementary" therapies (and changes in attitudes toward them within the medical system), as well as survivor interest in such "tools and crutches" as support groups or counseling programs, and confronting spiritual needs.

Often moving, even poetic, frequently witty, always informative and well grounded in fact, "The New Cancer Survivors" is much more than an insightful personal story or catalogue of resources available to survivors. It is a book filled with practical information and cogent analyses of the issues from an author well respected by both the cancer survivor and medical communities, sure to inspire the spirits of all those who have been touched by cancer.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Help on the Journey
Review: 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."

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Summary: A gift to the curious cancer survivor.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A gift to the curious cancer survivor.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Questions and Answers about The New Cancer Survivors
Review: Q. When you wrote the pioneering book Hanging in There some fifteen years ago, you felt it filled a gap in the literature, going beyond the insightful personal story or "how to" book to combine your own story with an informed discussion of the psycho-social issues facing cancer patients--in the home, in the hospital, in the workplace. Why did you write another such book?

A. Other survivors felt the need--and remember, by "survivor" I mean anyone living with a diagnosis of cancer, whether he or she first heard it from a doctor five minutes or five or fifty years ago. They repeatedly asked me to fill a new gap for a new time in which there were millions more survivors "hanging in" for longer periods of time, confronting serious problems with skill and hope.

Q. So you signed on with the Johns Hopkins University Press to bring a fifteen-year old book up to date?

A. Yes, but that soon changed and I quickly found myself writing a new book. Largely, this was because cancer had changed really from a dread acute illness--one leaving you either cured or dead--to a manageable chronic disease. The medicines we take to manage cancer had changed; our treatments for it had changed; the ways of delivering that treatment had changed. Cancer survivors themselves had changed from compliant "patient patients" to partners on medical decision-making teams. Indeed the very concept of survivorship was new.

Q. In what ways do you think The New Survivors is helpful to cancer survivors and to those who care for and about them?

A. It gives them information and sources of other information they can use. But, more than that, survivors tell me it inspires them, not to put on a happy face, but to live with grace and fight with spirit in what may be a difficult situation. Today, for example, the survivor entering the hospital (usually at the beginning of the illness), has to be prepared for a completely different institution than the one that existed fifteen or even ten years ago--one that will probably send him or her home in a day or two, still hooked up to tubes and shaky. And the family and/or friends who receive that survivor must be prepared to help out in a hands on, often exhausting way.

Q. Does your book discuss survivors' relations with their doctors?

A. Indeed. Doctors--even those in the most expert cancer centers--normally respond to survivors in a far different way than they used to. They listen to them more and place more credence in their views, entering into partnerships which may not allow enough space for individual differences (some people devour facts and statistics about their disease, others feel uncomfortable with them, most of us fall in between--we don't want a medical education but we do need some information).

Q. And the problem is?

A. This is a country of yin and yang. The pendulum has swung from complete secrecy about cancer to complete openness. Doctors can overwhelm survivors with information about their increasing options, and leave them feeling they must assume full responsibility for medical decisions. As I explain in the book, they have to learn how to deal with this situation in an effective way so that they make the best decisions--in conjunction with doctors who have less and less time for informed discussions.

Q. So your book deals with the private and public contexts of serious illness?

A. They're often hard to separate. My feeling is that the survivors are going to have more and more impact on social institutions as they express their views, in large and small groups. I had to write new chapters on material that had previously been included in other chapters--like that on "Complementary and Alternative Therapies," which are absorbing the interest, time (and money!) of more and more survivors and consequently, the treatment institutions in our "can do society."

Q. You're on the fence on that one?

A. Readers seem to like the inner dialogue which ends that chapter-- a dialogue between the skeptic in me (TS) and the other part I call "Well, Maybe" (WM). I think people--doctors as well as survivors--recognize a lot of their own feelings in my dilemma about some of these now largely "complementary" therapies.

Q. Any other parts of the book you think are particularly intriguing?

A. Readers can follow me around according to their interests. Some may like the segment on the paralegal who lost her job which starts the "Work" chapter. She is a stunningly brave and creative New Survivor who was fired after her first diagnosis, took legal action against her employer, and won (not her job but a tidy amount of money)! Others will be proud and empowered when they consider the accomplishments on the different sorts of support groups that have sprung up around the country in the "Tools and Crutches" chapter. Or cry with admiration as well as distress as I did as I wrote the vignette about the group at the Capital's DC General Hospital which heads the "Money" chapter, the hardest of all the chapters to pull together. And it may be a real help to them to ponder the new material on the human spirit in the "Talking and Hoping" and final "Search for Meaning" chapters.

Q. You'd think that those topics at least would not have changed in a mere fifteen years.

A. There has been research showing the complex importance of hope. And importantly, as the relation between science and religion has gotten less dicey, survivors, like other people, have struggled to find more spiritual content in their different religions. Read the book. You might want to give it as a gift to someone whose life has been touched by cancer. Which is almost everyone, isn't it?

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for cancer patients -- and those that love them.
Review: 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.

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Summary: A lively and compelling "eyewittness" account.
Review: 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.