COURAGE The Testimony of a Cancer Patient

Tells the story of Barbara Creaturo, a cancer patient, desperate to find the best available treatment for her malignancy, ovarian cancer, and her search for better medical knowledge and a cure

While ovarian cancer is relatively rare (18,000 women diagnosed each year), deaths caused by it exceed those of cervical and endometrial cancers combined. Creaturo, who died after she finished this book, chronicles her battle with this deadly disease. Her journey is reflected in her chapter titles: Discovery, Panic, Experiment, Struggle, and a fleeting Victory. Creaturo's medical odyssey convinces her not to accept passively the recommendations given her but to investigate all available treatments from the standard to experimental, while educating herself about her illness. In describing her search for a cure, she reveals strength and perseverance, and her fighting spirit is awesome. The afterword, written by Ezra Greenspan, the chairman and medical director of the ChemoTherapy Foundation, has useful data on new drugs, recent strides in immunotherapy, and a new advocacy group. Read with Mary-Ellen Siegal's The Cancer Patient's Handbook ( LJ 10/15/86), Creaturo's book provides a strategy for coping with cancer. Recommended.
- Janet M. Coggan, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.