You are receiving this notice for one of two reasons: You are one of my blog subscribers, or you have met me at a recent event and asked to be notified when my memoir is available. That day is fast approaching!
Since I last posted to my blog, I have been using every spare moment writing this memoir, a project that is very important to me. I hope my new book will be very important to many people.
Some of you may remember that in 2018 I talked about my cancer in a series of blogs titled “My Personal Journey Through Head and Neck Cancer.” That series was important to me when I wrote it. In many ways it helped me live through a very difficult period. From the many responses I received at the time, I know that my words were helpful to many of you and that you shared the posts with others.
Since that time, I have been feeling guilty that I didn’t do more. My experience was an important story that could help people on their cancer journeys. It could help people who loved and cared for them. It could help people who treat cancer patients. And, as I saw it, there were three reasons I was the right person to tell the story:
- I had forty years of experience in health care, often bridging the span between patients and their medical providers.
- I knew firsthand what it was like to experience tongue cancer.
- I was a successful writer who knew how to best tell the story.
I sat down to write that story a couple of years ago, but I wimped out—instead of the actual detailed story of my cancer, I wrote a fictional story in which my main character suffered the same disease I went through. That book became The Miracle at Assisi Hill, and I think it’s a good story. It told about the effects cancer has on one’s life.
But it didn’t tell in detail what happens to a cancer patient and how to cope. It didn’t give the little tips that gets one through the treatment, recovery, and late effects of cancer. It didn’t show the day to day, step by step process. It didn’t show the enormity of cancer.
That story is memoir. And that is why I didn’t want to slow the writing of that story by taking time to create new blog posts.
Now, I am happy to tell you, Staying Alive Is a Lot of Work: Me and My Cancer, is about to be published by Eckhartz Press. Very soon we will “Go To Press!”
Perhaps you know some people who have cancer. Perhaps you know people who treat patients with cancer. Perhaps, sadly, you have had cancer yourself. Or maybe you just like a good memoir about survival. This book is for those people. I wanted you to know so you can pass the word to them. You can expect in the near future an announcement that my memoir is at long last available, and where you can order it.
I might also add that staying alive is a lot of work, and not only that, but writing Staying Alive Is a Lot of Work: Me and My Cancer, was also a lot of work! But it is my gift to you and to the world.
