Book Recommendation

I am reading Solzhenitsyn's "Cancer Ward" right now and it's blowing me away. 1955, Soviet Union, cancer hosipital, doesn't get more dismal than that but for those of you who can take yet another book about cancer, I recommend it. Actually, I especially recommend it to all cancer doctors and their nurses. I am very tempted to send a copy to my oncologist!

It's bleak but at the same time very inspiring.

[Mishelle]

My favorite hobby is reading. Is this a new book or do you think it could be found in a used book store? Is it a true story?

[Gatsby]

You can probably go to amazon.com and look for the used version.  That is how I find most of my books, and to tell the truth I don't think they are really "used" just overstocks.  Good luck.
~Tascha

[milashka]

Solzhenitsyn was a cancer patient while living in exile (gulag), so the book draws on both. Yes, it's a look into the dysfunctional Soviet system through the stories of the patients, nurses, doctors but it deals a whole lot with cancer and the fear and helplessness that comes with it.

It was written in 1968. Available new and used but maybe you want to check for it at your local library, so if you don't like it you're not out the money. Or sample read it on amazon. I agree it might not be for everyone.

It has so many parallels to what we are all going through in regards to treatments, hopes, fears, and dealing with doctors and nurses.

[Aquinnah]

I read it many years ago and like to just over half way through. But then is got so bleak, I gave up. Never quite finished it. It is after all an allegory on the soviet system, not really about cancer.

[Aquinnah]

Fairenoughsky! (To continue a russian theme.)Long time since I read it and I didn't know that Solschenitzyn had cancer. I do remember liking the first half (or so), but then the second became sooo depressing I gave up, literarly a few pages from the end. I do remember that well! It had a lasting impression. While never having suffered cancer myself (just this current lingering worry so far), I have sort of lived with it a lot, my mother having suffered it twice (breast and cervical) plus some more queries (skin). The first was while I was still in school.That said I do find it encouraging that she is still pretty well and healthy at 89.