Free: Walking On Water: Five Ingredients for Living Through Life’s Toughest Challenges

Walking On Water: Five Ingredients for Living Through Life's Toughest Challenges
What if all of a sudden you had a terminal illness and you were given less than a month to live? Would you change anything?

February 11, 2018 transformed the way author Ruben Narváez began to look at life. That day, he was diagnosed with stage 4 terminal cancer. The prognosis was grim. The doctor said that if Ruben were lucky, he would live a month at the most. That meant he needed to write his will, buy a plot, and plan his funeral — he didn’t do any of those.

Having been a Christian for almost 30 years, it was time for the biggest test of Ruben’s faith. He began to live as if every day was his last, enjoying life like never before. In making the best of his last month, he stopped everything so he could spend quality time with his loved ones and began traveling to places he’d only dreamt of.

Life took on a new meaning, every day became an adventure and an opportunity to appreciate the small things. Worry, stress, and other negative emotions became meaningless. No matter the circumstances, life would now be full of happiness and joy every day.
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Free: The Opportunity In Cancer: How to Radically Transform Your Cancer Recovery Journey

The Opportunity In Cancer: How to Radically Transform Your Cancer Recovery Journey
The power cancer has on our society is astronomical. Even the word cancer insights fear. As science and treatments advance, more people are living longer with cancer. Yet, many challenges remain within cancer survival, including fatigue, overwhelm, and fear. Meeting these challenges, at every stage of cancer recovery, while facing the uncertainty of the future, is a huge task.

In “The Opportunity in Cancer,” Dr. Katrina takes the reader through a thoughtful, researched, and step-by-step guide to cancer recovery. Her focus on moving beyond survival and transforming to thriving is a novel approach that is grounded in research, and illustrated through case studies.

Her mission is to create a cancer recovery approach that is accessible, and focuses on the fundamentals of individualized care and community support. She does this by exploring her signature system, The Climb Through Cancer Recovery™, which details how to release trauma, reclaim control, restore the body and renew life. Using the lessons learned within this book, Dr. Katrina dismantles the commonly held belief that there is nothing that can be done to influence cancer recurrence by highlighting and addressing the roadblocks to transformation.

Whether you are a cancer survivor, a family member or friend of a cancer survivor, or a healthcare practitioner, you’ll soon understand that every step is a step in the “right” direction, because every movement brings about awareness, grounding, and, most importantly, opportunity. Free on Kindle.
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How Not to Be My Patient

How Not to Be My Patient

COVID changed everything. Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Edward Creagan addresses critical changes in the healthcare delivery system and survivorship in this REVISED third edition of his award-winning book for empowered patients.

“This book is for everyone who decides to take charge of their own health and their own destiny.” Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN

The facts are clear. If you want to be healthy for life—

• Learn to talk so your doctor will listen.
• Get insights on how to navigate patient portals and telemedicine visits.
• Understand your diagnosis—and realize that you can survive bad news.
• Follow Dr. Ed’s 8 simple commandments for living well—and you’ll live long enough to cash in your 401(k).
• Separate hype from hope, especially with perplexing medical headlines and confusing internet information.
• Get insight into what your doctor wasn’t taught in medical school.
• Combine the best of traditional and complementary treatments.

Dr. Edward Creagan treated very sick patients for more than 40 winters at the renowned Mayo Clinic. This book is not just about lifestyle choices, although these are important aspects of Dr. Creagan’s healthy living plan. It is about using your precious minutes in the exam room (the average doctor visit is about 16 minutes), forging the right kind of relationship with your care providers (because that world is changing quickly), and understanding and using the healthcare system—instead of having the system use (and often abuse) you.

Edward T. Creagan, MD, FAAHPM, is Professor Emeritus of Medical Oncology at the Mayo Clinic Medical School, Emeritus Professor of Humanism in Medicine, and Emeritus Consultant in Palliative Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hospice medicine and palliative care.
$0.99 on Kindle.
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All of Us Warriors: Cancer Stories of Survival and Loss

All of Us Warriors: Cancer Stories of Survival and Loss

In All of Us Warriors, Rebecca Whitehead Munn paints a realistic picture of the impact cancer has on an individual’s life, and she attempts to demystify the experience by sharing heartfelt stories from twenty survivors and the loved ones of those that passed. $0.99 on Kindle.

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Free: Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

Roads to Meaning and Resilience with CancerL Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer
Pursuing a more Purposeful Life? Assimilate stories from 39 patients with incurable Lung Cancer as they share their experiences, hopes, and strengths to find meaning in your life.

Life is an unfinished project, and similarly, finding meaning is an uncompleted task. But how exactly do we find meaning? How do people find strength? The diagnosis of cancer or other terminal cases create significant adversity. So how do people develop resilience? How do they keep going? These questions had been tackled for centuries by philosophy and religion. So what is there to add?

While there is no such thing as a School of Life Professor, you now have a viable alternative. Morhaf Al Achkar obtained his Ph.D in education and is currently a practicing family physician at the University of Washington. He was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Since then, his research has focused on the experiences of patients living with cancer. This book is based on interviews he did with 39 patients who live, like him, with advanced illness. He explored how these patients find meaning, cope, and build resilience. Using his own experiences and deep knowledge of philosophical concepts, Morhaf shares his understanding of a meaningful life from the perspective of someone aware of his own finitude.

Inside Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer™, you will:

Confront questions about life, meaning, and your legacy before it is too late
Gain a new perspective on the meaning of living that transcends culture and social status
Learn countless coping strategies across various disciplines to build your individual Resilience
Acquire a positive and realistic perspective on your life that promotes hope and healing for your body, mind and spirit.
And much, much more!

This is a compelling book by an author who is wearing multiple hats — as a doctor, an academic, a lung cancer advocate, and ultimately, a patient himself. Free on Kindle.

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Free: Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

Roads to Meaning and Resilience with CancerL Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer
Pursuing a more Purposeful Life? Assimilate stories from 39 patients with incurable Lung Cancer as they share their experiences, hopes, and strengths to find meaning in your life.

Life is an unfinished project, and similarly, finding meaning is an uncompleted task. But how exactly do we find meaning? How do people find strength? The diagnosis of cancer or other terminal cases create significant adversity. So how do people develop resilience? How do they keep going? These questions had been tackled for centuries by philosophy and religion. So what is there to add?

This is a compelling book by an author who is wearing multiple hats — as a doctor, an academic, a lung cancer advocate, and ultimately, a patient himself. Dr. Alachkar’s knowledge-based, yet deeply personal and relatable book will give you a variety of viewpoints on questions like the meaning of life, finding hope in a terminal diagnosis, building resilience, finding or losing one’s faith in a higher power, and much more! From its heartfelt personal accounts of how these strong individuals cope with cancer, to the thought-provoking search for meaning that underlies it all, this book is sure to run you through your complete gamut of emotions. If you seek a greater capacity for empathy or find relief in shared experiences, acceptance of altering realities and changed identities, then you can’t afford to miss this book.

This book is about the essence of the human experience at its limits. It is for Every Reader! Free on Kindle.

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Free: Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

ROADS TO MEANING AND RESILIENCE WITH CANCER: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

This is a compelling book by an author who is wearing multiple hats — as a doctor, an academic, a lung cancer advocate, and ultimately, a patient himself. Dr. Alachkar’s knowledge-based, yet deeply personal and relatable book will give you a variety of viewpoints on questions like the meaning of life, finding hope in a terminal diagnosis, building resilience, finding or losing one’s faith in a higher power, and much more! From its heartfelt personal accounts of how these strong individuals cope with cancer, to the thought-provoking search for meaning that underlies it all, this book is sure to run you through your complete gamut of emotions. If you seek a greater capacity for empathy or find relief in shared experiences, acceptance of altering realities and changed identities, then you can’t afford to miss this book.

This book is about the essence of the human experience at its limits. It is for Every Reader! Free on Kindle.

amazon buy now

Free: Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

ROADS TO MEANING AND RESILIENCE WITH CANCER: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

This book offers insights for all of us, healthy or not, who seek to better understand ourselves.

“Impressively informative, exceptionally well written.” Midwest Book Review.

“This is an intimate and challenging read, especially if you have personal experience with the pain of terminal cancer, but it is also essential. ” Self-Publishing Review

“The author’s nonjudgmental stance allows this book to be read by people with differing stances on many topics without feeling criticized.” The Journal of Family Medicine. Free on Kindle.

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Nowhere Near Goodbye

Nowhere Near Goodbye
A mother’s love vs. a doctor’s oath.

Oncologist Emma Blake has dedicated her life to finding a cure for a rare brain cancer. Twenty-five years ago, Emma’s childhood friend Kate died of glioblastoma, and Emma vowed to annihilate the deadly disease. Now, Kate’s father, Ned, is pushing her to work harder to fulfill that promise.

When Emma discovers she’s pregnant, she’s torn between the needs of her family and the demands of her work. While Ned pressures her to do the unthinkable, her husband, Tim, decorates the nursery. Unwilling to abandon her research, Emma attempts to keep both sides of her life in balance.

Emma knows she needs to reconcile her past with her present and walk the fine line between mother and physician. But Ned has a secret, and when Emma discovers what he’s been hiding, the foundation of her world cracks.

Nowhere Near Goodbye is a story of family, failure, and second chances. $0.99 on Kindle.

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Free: Roads to Meaning and Resilience with Cancer: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

ROADS TO MEANING AND RESILIENCE WITH CANCER: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancer

The book tells the stories of 39 patients with incurable lung cancer. It aims to help patients, families, and healthcare providers understand the experience of living with cancer. It also invites reflections on the essential questions of meaning, resilience, and coping with adversity in life. The author is a family doctor, teacher, and researcher who is also a stage IV lung cancer patient himself. He is patient number 40. Free on Kindle.

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Free: Being Authentic

Being Authentic

Our existence is fragile. I learned that in many intricate ways, so I do not take today for granted. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not even know if tomorrow will come.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2016, I received the diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. Next to dying, I fear the spread of cancer to my brain and losing my ability to think, speak, or write. This loss would be devastating to me.

The fragility of our life made me want to be authentic. Therefore, I am writing this memoir to be authentic—we become our true selves when we author who we are.

I am afraid of being forgotten. Death does frighten me. But more than dying, I am scared of having no one remember me or, even worse, of being recognized differently from who I was. At the same time, I have never thought that I was entitled to ask others not to forget me. But, not to be forgotten is precisely what I yearn for.

While I am writing for the other, I am simultaneously writing for myself. I am one of the readers and will test the subject as it gets written. My criteria are stricter. I want to say, “This is my narrative.” Free on Kindle.

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First Survivor

First Survivor

First Survivor is the inspiring true story of how one family’s tireless search for answers saved their son and countless others from a rare form of pediatric cancer. With the help of some of the top doctors in the world and the advocacy of his parents, Louis Unger beat a zero chance of survival diagnosis to become the First Survivor. All profits are donated to the Carrot Seed Foundation to help fund pediatric cancer research, clinical trials, pediatric oncology nursing scholarships and other causes that help families overcome the hardship of battling Neuroblastoma. $2.99 on Kindle.

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Fighting Back

Fighting Back

A short read of a long story. This is about my battle with a stroke, a heart attack, and cancer. It is not a pat me on the back book. It is more a literary learning curve, possibly a work of prevention for some, or a confidence coach for you or a loved one recovering or fighting one of the above $3.99 on Kindle.

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Fine, Thanks

Fine, Thanks
Mary Dunnewold was a yoga-practicing, organic-food-eating health geek. But six months after a clear mammogram, she was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer. She had six tumors. The largest was the size of a summer plum. $0.99 on Kindle.

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90 Days to Live

90 Days to Live

An award-winning, inspiring and unforgettable memoir of one couple’s push for survival in the face of insurmountable odds. Alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming–and delivered in an engaging dual-author format – 90 Days to Live will speak to anyone struggling with an “incurable” disease, building a business under trying circumstances, or anyone who just loves a good old-fashioned, “beating-the-odds” story. $0.99 on Kindle.

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90 Days to Live

90 Days to Live

An award-winning, inspiring and unforgettable memoir of one couple’s push for survival in the face of insurmountable odds. Alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming–and delivered in an engaging dual-author format – 90 Days to Live will speak to anyone struggling with an “incurable” disease, building a business under trying circumstances, or anyone who just loves a good old-fashioned, “beating-the-odds” story. $0.99 on Kindle.

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Free: Fine, Thanks

Free: Fine, Thanks

Mary Dunnewold was a yoga-practicing, organic-food-eating health geek. But six months after a clear mammogram, she was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer. She had six tumors. The largest was the size of a summer plum. The author moves from needing a reason to explain her troubles to finding meaning despite the randomness that afflicts all. Free on Kindle.

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Free: 90 Days to Live

Free: 90 Days to Live

When an out-of-the-blue cancer diagnosis quickly turned into a 90-days-to-live death sentence from his doctor, Rodney Stamps and his wife Paige defied the medical establishment and drew their line in the sand.

With both a growing family and business–and given that their doctors promised only to briefly extend his life with chemotherapy–the Stamps gave a resounding “No” to chemo and radiation.

90 Days to Live recounts the Stamps’ incredible and inspirational journey to find an alternative answer to cancer. Free on Kindle.

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90 Days to Live

90 Days to Live

After being told by his doctor he had 90 days to live, Rodney Stamps and his wife Paige embarked on a search for an alternative to chemo and radiation. This heart-wrenching and heartwarming book chronicles Rodney’s triumphant journey to full remission after following a little known but highly effective cancer treatment. $2.99 on Kindle.

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Free: Love Conquers Cancer

Free: Love Conquers Cancer
Ours is clearly not the only story out there. With the declaration of a single word, cancer, we joined the ranks of an army far larger than the world has seen. As Lenny and I walked the path of diagnosis and treatment, something became increasingly unclear. If so many millions are facing the same enemy, how is it that we have not yet conquered it? This question launched us on a quest: to beat cancer no matter the method. Along the way, we realized our goal was not only to see Lenny healed, but to also help others to pursue and discover ways, both traditional and alternative or unconventionally, to fight and conquer cancer. Lenny has undergone and had traditional treatment for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and as it is does not currently have a cure within the U.S. medical world, he has also undergone many alternative treatment methods some that are beyond our borders. It was these alternative methods that he has experienced the greatest victories.

Our seventeen year journey has not always been a graceful one. I’ve also battled depression along the way, and as Lenny’s wife and primary caregiver, this has many times proved challenging for our family. This is a story about grit. It is a story about refusing to accept the status quo, the statistics and above all else, refusing to give in to a disease that has ravaged the world for far too long. It is our hope and prayer that the research and the steps that we have taken would encourage you to be your own health advocate and realize that there are many more alternative options available to you besides the chemotherapy, radiation and other pharmaceutical methods. May the pages that follow provide you with practical knowledge, indestructible determination and absolute hope for your story. Free on Kindle.

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