Book Description
From mortal illness to miraculous recovery, a doctor's moving account of his own experience as a patient

At forty-two, Geoffrey Kurland, a pediatric pulmonologist specializing in such deadly diseases as cystic fibrosis, was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia, a rare cancer with a statistically low survival rate. A remarkably fit man in training for 100-mile "extreme" races whose job is equally high performance, he is forced to confront the challenge of his own mortality. He tries to cope by turning inward in a desperate search for ever-elusive answers. As the doctor becomes a patient and lives through the terror and pain that he had until then only observed at a remove in his young patients, he learns invaluable life lessons that will ultimately make him a better doctor.

This is Kurland's memoir of his diagnosis, treatment, and return to health and "normal" life-an unforgettable testament to the resilence of the human spirit.

From Library Journal
The diagnosis of Kurland's recurrent chest pain marked the beginning of a series of medical conditions, including leukemia and tuberculosis, that threatened the 42-year-old pediatric pulmonologist's life while forcing him to slow down and examine his relationships with his own patients. Kurland's remarkable medical journey, as recounted in this compelling memoir, paralleled his personal quest to run a 100-mile marathon through the mountains of California. Recalling patients who underwent harrowing treatments similar to those he now had to endure, Kurland realized that the necessity of these treatments didn't lessen their painful, terrifying, and humiliating reality. His epiphany regarding his former failure to understand the patient's perspective is deeply felt and communicated; anyone who has experienced the uncertainty of his own or a loved one's disease will find this account illuminating. Joining other excellent medical memoirs by physicians (Jamie Weisman's As I Live and Breathe, David Biro's One Hundred Days, and Robert Pensack's Raising Lazarus), Kurland's book is highly recommended for all public and medical libraries. Kim Uden Rutter, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Kurland, a specialist in children's lung problems, says he is lucky. In 1987 a routine chest X-ray revealed a large mass that his doctor couldn't identify. Subsequent careful diagnostic work turned up hairy cell leukemia and atypical tuberculosis. Kurland describes growing appreciation of being a patient as he recounts the tests and operations he underwent and his day-to-day relations with doctors, nursing staffs, orderlies, and administrators at the hospitals in which he was treated. The personality his account discloses makes one suspect that his patients eventually benefited from those experiences, too. The main threads binding the events of the book are Kurland's relations with his parents (his father is a Mayo Clinic physician) and his lover, Denise (like him, a veteran of previous matrimonial mishaps), and his running, which seems almost as vital to him as breathing--the book ends with Kurland about halfway through the Western States 100-mile run. No self-adulating doctor-as-patient discourse, this is a mature autobiography that will especially impress those Diogeneses perpetually in search of a good doctor. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"The story of Kurland's battle with a disease that almost took his life, is compelling and poignant . . . unique and deeply insightful."
-Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner

"Taut, dramatic, and intensely real . . . very well-written."
-Oliver Sacks

"Dr. Kurland, no longer a tourist in the land of cancer, here shares his experience as a native. I admire his courage."
-Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Prescriptions for Living