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Laddar... Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action; A Memoir (utgåvan 2019)av David Fajgenbaum (Författare)
VerksinformationChasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action; A Memoir av David Fajgenbaum
![]() Ingen/inga Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. The author was a medical student when he first suffered a bout of a mysterious illness that brought him to the brink of death. Over the next several months he suffered repeated near-death episodes of the same illness. When he finally received a diagnosis, his situation did not improve much because very little was known about his disease, and there was no known cure. So he decided to do what he could to ramp up research and search for a cure. This was a good medical memoir about a mystery illness and one fascinating person's attempts to solve the mystery. 3 stars As an aside, the author's father is a doctor, and when the author first became ill, one of the doctors his father called upon for help was Dr. Anthony Fauci of covid fame. This should be an inspiring story, but I never quite connected with Fajgenbaum, maybe because of his complete single-mindedness and his incredible luck and privilege. I hope it inspires others, though, because he seems to be accomplishing real change. > Hope cannot be a passive concept. It's a choice and a force; hoping for something takes more than casting out a wish to the universe and waiting for it to occur. Hope should inspire action > I now realize that very few people my age are lucky enough to experience this security, the sure knowledge that she would be with me through thick and thin, fatness and baldness, through terrible times, and more. > There are approximately seven thousand rare diseases and 350 million people afflicted by them worldwide. One in ten Americans has a rare disease; half of these are children, and about 30 percent of these children will die before their fifth birthday. > It became even clearer to me that the approach in biomedical research of let's hope the right researcher with the right skill set applies to perform the right study at the right time was backward. > Few incentives exist for pharmaceutical companies to invest in expensive clinical trials to determine if an already FDA-approved drug may be effective for a rare condition. And when clinical trials are performed, the data are rarely submitted to the FDA for approval in this new use. The whole process is just too expensive and time-consuming. And there are potential downsides: If the drug elicits new side effects in the trial for the rare disease, its approval for the original disease is put at risk. I love the passion that David C. Fajgenbaum is chasing after Castleman's Disease. This is an exciting book for me. There is a lot of technical terms in this fast reading book. I hope that there will be a glossary of them in the final copy. I am familiar with many but it is difficult to remember it all. I have multiple autoimmune diseases and pre-cancer that got me started on the terms. Not only did the author get back on the horse to search for a cure after his manyy relapses but he is also a very strong advocate for others. I love the way that he went with his uncle when his uncle had a sarcoma. Just because the cause may not be shown by genetics or the possible treatments may be expensive is not reason to give up. Always get a second opinion by a person who is best in your disease when given dire results. My hope is that he can continue to be in remission and further the knowledge of this rare and deadly disease. I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the Publisher as a win from FirstReads but that in no way made a difference in my thoughts or feelings in this review. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
"The inspiring memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete who became a champion for people suffering from rare, under-researched diseases--all while battling his own. A former Georgetown quarterback nicknamed 'The Beast,' David Fajgenbaum was also a force in medical school, where he was known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled over a condition they had yet to even diagnose; floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for the equivalent of game day overtime: a second chance. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived, but only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease--an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disease. When he relapsed on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them; instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he proposed to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, his hard work has paid off: a treatment that he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when forces of determination, love, family, faith and serendipity collide"-- Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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At times the book felt weighted down with medical terminology, but Fajgenbaum was able to explain much of it by using football analogies. His monumental dedication to gaining a better understanding of this horrible disease is inspiring. He is a true hero.
Overall, this book offers insight and hope for people suffering from rare and misunderstood diseases as well as elicits sympathy from those of us lucky enough to be healthy.
I enjoyed this book and plan to pass it along to my uncle, who is a nurse. (