Time on Fire

Once a year, I revisit this story, as every nurse and physician should. Take an active role in your treatment, and be an informed consumer...these days, healthcare is a business. Don't let the residents and fellows treat you like a pincushion. This book changed the way I do my job.

Though I read his book a few years' ago, I still remember insights of Evan Handler. His recounting of his experiences with current therapies -- traditional and non-traditional -- and health care providers are memorable. Whenever I think of the word "hope" I remember this: "I've heard the phrase -- "false hope" -- used by doctors and nurses again and again, in very self-congratulatory ways, as if, by exterminating it, they were providing a great philanthropic service to the community...I will state, unequivocally, that there is no such thing as false hope. It's an oxymoron. It can't exist. Hope has no connotations of certainty. Hope carries no assurance of success. Hope is the one thing in the world that can never, ever, be false. Hope is just what it says. A longing. A desire. Is there such a thing as a false, aching desire? I think, too often, that some doctors are protecting themselves from the aching desires, the hope, of their patients. It must be very painful to fail to save the life of someone who never concealed his passion to survive. His hope. Much more painful than the death of a patent willing to hide the intensity of his wish. If only they could learn what a potent source of energy they're wasting."His comments about receiving needles are especially pertinent because hospitals, with their cost-cutting, have been training greater numbers of employees how to draw blood. Hospital administrators should read Handler's account of the artistry of a good phlebotomist and the torture inflicted by a poor phlebotomist.I found his book to be a genuine and realistic account of his experiences and a gift to his readers. He is an excellent writer. I wait and hope for many more articles and books from this author.

Two years ago, when searching for health books for my sick father, I stumbled across this book. Before handing it over to him, I decided to read it. What a magnificent book! You need not be sick to be swiftly taken in by Handler's keen, sarcastic, loving and honest observations & emotions, as he leaves no stone unturned (or ridiculous practice uncovered) in his fight for life. Interwoven with horrific or blissful medical environments, he keeps us vividly informed of his physical and emotional state (both strong and weak) and lets us in on his family, spiritual, sexual and professional life. I cried, but laughed even more, the terrors fused with an uncanny irony, but mostly I fell in love with this amazing young man's vitality. You'll wish you could know him or have his perspective.

A year after I had (supposedly) closed the door on a wrenching chapter in my life this book blew it open and allowed a true healing to begin. As I read this book I felt like I finally understood what the "other side" was... I was a man whose girlfriend was diagnosed with lymphoma and I struggled to be supportive, strong and appropriate in my heart and actions. I found myself thinking "YES... THAT'S IT" with every account of Handler's torturous descent into the pits of depression, his amazing resolve to fight and his heartbreaking account of his relationship with his girlfriend through the process. Every detail of Handler's journey reverberates with me, I have NEVER been so gripped by a book. The plane flight from LA to NY took what seemed like an hour as I was absorbed in the book. Touching down I felt like I was on a different planet. I immediately purchased a copy of the book and shipped it back to my now ex girlfriend in LA... and it touched off another healing there. For those of us touched by devastating illness, especially cancer with its appurtenant treatments and nightmares, this book is an absolute treasure. I feel like I finally "got it" and now I have peace. Few books have truly changed my life: this is one of them. My thanks to the author for an honest, visceral and dynamic book.

Handler's account of his illness and recovery is, first of all, a hell of a good read. He is smart, funny, articulate, and painfully honest. This book is eminently worthwhile for any reader who enjoys a gripping story well told. But it also is a priceless resource for anyone whose life has been upended by a diagnosis of acute myelogenous leukemia. I ran across the book serendipitously in the spring of 1997 shortly after David, an eighteen-year-old friend of mine whom I loved like a son, was diagnosed as having AML. I have Handler to thank for the fact that, as David wrestled with the disease, much of the time I understood what was going on, what was at risk, and what was likely to happen next. Handler's clear and powerful articulation of the patient's point of view helped me to help David--and for that I'm deeply grateful. Even when, after 16 months of struggle, his autologous transplant failed and his heart gave out, having read Handler served David's family and! friends, enabling us to understand the course events were taking. If you have a loved one fighting leukemia, I urge you to read this wonderful book. You won't find it comfortable, but you will, I believe, find it enormously helpful.