In his monumental bestseller, Love, Medicine, and Miracles, Dr. Bernie Siegel broke new ground by revealing the powerful role the mind can play in fighting illness. His dramatic stories of seriously ill patients whose sheer will, determination, and love helped them survive against the odds inspired countless readers to consider the possibility of participating in their own healing. This new companion volume to Dr. Siegel’s timeless classic takes the journey further.
Faith, Hope, and Healing presents the remarkable stories of what happened to patients who followed Dr. Siegel’s advice. You’ll meet courageous women and men who have not only been cured of cancer, but have also found deeper faith, hope, joy, and healing by coming to terms with their own mortality.
Grouped into sections on faith, hope, and healing, these first-person accounts and Siegel’s insightful commentaries encourage and help you to develop a survivor’s attitude and personality traits. They also offer proven strategies for getting through difficult times and discovering the gifts—true gifts—that illness can bring into your life.
Among the survivors who tell their stories here, you’ll find a woman who discovered on the same day that she had lost her battle for the custody of her three sons and that her breast cancer had returned. In the midst of utter catastrophe and defeat, with no hope in sight, she discovered a love of life she had never known before. You’ll also meet the woman who asked, “Why me?” when she was diagnosed with cancer, and was surprised when a little voice inside her answered, “Why not?” And, a successful veterinarian reveals how his throat cancer taught him things about pets that he had never learned in school.
All of the stories in this deeply supportive collection help you discover what Dr. Siegel calls the “side effects” of cancer: the wake-up call that urges you to begin your life anew, a heightened understanding of what really matters to you and what doesn’t, and the courage to take control of your own healing process as you work with caregivers to cure your illness.
For more than twenty years, Dr. Siegel has been educating cancer patients on the importance of the spiritual life in facing and recovering from cancer. In Faith, Hope, and Healing, he helps you learn from the experiences of others how to recognize the disease as a wake-up call that leads you to seek nourishment for yourself and your life, start building a more authentic and fulfi lling today, and keep it going for many years to come.
* In this collection of first-person accounts, doctor and author Siegel (Love, Medicine, and Miracles) brings together almost three dozen cancer patients (or close relations of) to share their stories and the lessons they’ve learned. Many entries tackle the moment of diagnosis (the first, from survivor Angela Passidomo Trafford, opens with the line, “How many times do I have to have cancer?!”), while others pick up at the moment the diagnosis first hits home; still others focus on the end, like Ann Martin Bowler, whose sick brother passed days after a reinvigorating near-death experience. Lynn Zeller contributes a list of the “eight practices” she discovered through cancer that have led to a “wonderfully expanded experience of life” (including a focus on gratitude, mindfulness, and the idea that the universe “is in a conspiracy for my good”); Edwina Ford focuses on her afflicted husband’s admiration, and efforts on behalf, of Lance Armstrong’s post-surgery Tour de France comeback. For each piece, Siegel provides a reflection and a moral (“Life’s difficulties are what teach us to grow”) that clarify and encourage. Anyone struggling with cancer will find many relatable voices and, in Siegel, a compassionate expert commentator. (Apr.) (Publishers Weekly, April 20, 2009)
