Nineteen years after his original diagnosis, years of deep study, and an urgent sense of mission about hope and alternatives for those with cancer, David Servan-Schreiber submits to an emergency MRI that confirms his greatest fear: the brain cancer has returned. Here, he shares his coming to terms with the news and, with courage and candor, examines his life from the point of view of one who understands that his illness is terminal—nevertheless, living every day fully and with hope. As the author of and spokesman for the Anticancer program, a doctor who has given hope to millions of readers around the world, David frankly acknowledges the ways in which he departed from his own advice. Reaffirming the anticancer program—from nutrition and exercise to rest and meditation—he also weaves in the stories of a number of clinical cases, and offers a rebalanced approach, emphasizing certain elements that he himself tended to ignore.
The story he tells here raises many of the most complex and personal questions about how we choose to live and how we prepare for death, striking a delicate balance between the limits of medicine and the hope that sustains us as we confront them. It is powerful, honest, and truly inspiring.