A Thank You Note

It has been fifteen months since the publication of my book, Back To Life: A Bladder Cancer Journey.

So, I feel some thanks are in order.

First, I want to thank each and every one of my readers. The sales have so far exceeded my expectations that I am truly stunned and humbled.

Next I want to thank all of the bladder cancer patients, caregivers, and physicians who have reached out and contacted me through the email in the acknowledgments section of the book and through the book's Web site, www.bladdercancerjourney.com.  I have spoken on the phone with dozens of folks who are having to make some of the same decisions I detailed in my story, and actually met one reader in person for lunch when we both found ourselves in Las Vegas at the same time.

Special thanks to the 43 (and counting) readers who have put fingers to keyboard and published a review of Back To Life on Amazon.  Amazingly, 41 of the 43 reviews awarded it five stars!  Read the reviews here.

Thanks to the gallery owners, banks, and coffee shops that have hosted my book signings and readings here in Portland. I have met so many interesting people, and what fun they have been!

As always, I have to thank Dr. Sia Daneshmand, who not only saved my life, but also agreed to contribute the incredibly powerful Foreword to my book.

Mary Elizabeth Williams, who just released her own cancer story, A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles, was kind enough to write the back cover blurb, which is reproduced at the end of this post. She's a senior writer for Salon.com, and a storyteller extraordinaire. Thanks, MBW!

Lastly, I wrote this book not as a bladder cancer book, or even as a medical memoir, but as an adventure story. My thanks go out to everyone I wrote about in Back To Life, who make up this true story.

If you have read the book, please take a minute of two to submit a short review on Amazon.  A continuous flow of new reviews is the single best way to insure that one's book will appear high in the search rankings on the site.

And of course, if you haven't read it, now would be an excellent time to pick up a copy, either in paperback or Kindle e-book format.

Many thanks to you all!

The Author and Dr. Sia Daneshmand

"As a Stage 4 melanoma survivor, I found myself deeply moved by - and profoundly grateful for - Frank Sadowski's honest and enlightening account of what it's really like inside the cancer experience. But more than that, simply as a reader, I was enthralled with his effortless gift for compelling storytelling. Back to Life is full of humor, suspense, and grit, a medical drama that brims with heart and soul." 

-- Mary Elizabeth Williams, senior staff writer at Salon.com and author of Gimme Shelter and A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer. 

Another Point of View

When I turned on the early NFL game yesterday, I instantly knew it was October. Yep, there was pink this and pink that and courageous this and heroic battle that, all over the place. October is breast cancer awareness month, people! Pink out!

Seriously, can there be one single person in this country not living in a cave who is not aware of breast cancer? The October shenanigans alone have been going on annually for twenty-nine years, and when you add in the TV advertising, professional sports hoopla, and everything else pink and ribbony that is going on seemingly everywhere, you got some serious awareness, right?

Well maybe. But I take another view, that we have succeeded in turning a horrible, terrifying disease into some kind of national party, a decidedly for-profit orgy of merchandising and marketing. God forbid you should suffer and die from it! It’s all about positive attitude, fighting the battle, and “beating” cancer.

I’ve got news for you: cancer kills people. It’s what it does. Nobody "beats" cancer. Some of us are lucky enough to get effective treatment and survive, at least for a while. There are literally millions of good folks who do everything right and still die from cancer. The whole “pinkwashing” of our society every October is deeply disturbing to many people who are living with, through, and hopefully beyond the dreaded diagnosis of cancer. No amount of insulting, juvenile “Save the Boobies” campaigns will change this fact.

I’m not saying awareness is not a good thing, and there is a lot of money raised for cancer research every October. But could you stop for one minute and consider how much more could be done if every penny spent on the annual commercialization of breast cancer were spent on real science instead? On research into the genetic causes of cancer and the promising new immunotherapy treatments, the first new approach to cancer treatment in almost a hundred years. We could end the “cut, poison, burn” trio of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

So what about awareness? How about becoming more aware of the literally hundreds of cancers that people know little or nothing about, like bladder and esophageal cancer, or the host of incredibly cruel cancers that prey primarily on our young children.

Think about it.

Portland, OR  

October 6, 2014