Chasing Hope
A Patient's Deep Dive into Stem Cells, Faith, and the Future
-
- 11,99 €
-
- 11,99 €
Descripción editorial
After more than four decades living with multiple sclerosis, New York Times bestselling author Richard M. Cohen finds a flicker of hope in a groundbreaking medical procedure.
Richard Cohen struggles with failing limbs and is legally blind. He has survived two bouts of colon cancer and a life-threatening blood clot in his lungs. After enduring decades of harsh treatments and invasive therapies, Cohen decided to trade in his life as a patient.
In 2012, Cohen and his wife, Meredith Vieira, were invited to host and chair an adult stem cell conference at the Vatican. Scientists would be gathering in Rome to discuss stem cell therapy for autoimmune diseases, including MS. A believer in the power of denial and determination over faith and hope, Cohen was caught off guard by what he learned. Medical technology had advanced further and more quickly than Cohen had known. Could there be a chance his health could improve? Could MS be cured? As Cohen took part in a pioneering stem cell protocol, he opened himself to the possibility of hope for the first time in his adult life.
Cohen's deep dive into the cutting-edge world of stem cell research and his journalistic investigation of hope includes interviews with doctors, scientists, and religious leaders, as well as conversations with others living with chronic conditions, all with the goal of understanding a hope that is both elusive and alluring.
As drily funny as it is emotionally vulnerable, Chasing Hope navigates the fascinating and ever-changing intersection between illness and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former TV news producer Cohen charts his search for hope in a light but generally tepid medical memoir. Diagnosed with MS in 1973 at age 25, Cohen realized that his coping mechanisms of denial and withdrawal (which he discussed in his memoir Blindsided) resulted in isolation, frustration, and family rancor. "I had to find a way to rise above the daily grind of illness," he writes. While hosting a stem cell conference in 2012, he began to entertain hope for a healthier future, despite having undergone "almost forty years of fruitless treatments." A funny, straightforward narrator ("That doctor had the people skills of a prison guard, minus the charm"), Cohen pursues hope as an intellectual inquiry, interviewing scientists, people who have experienced loss, and diverse religious thinkers. The relationship between hope and faith is an intriguing one, but Cohen dedicates a disproportionate amount of time to it while giving short shrift to themes of regaining lost hope, and how doctors can foster hope in patients. Cohen describes his own stem cell treatment and life-threatening blood clot; however, readers get little sense of how hope helps him deal with these new medical issues. Cohen's journey is entertaining, but it lacks substance.