The Cancer Journey – by Dr. Chadi Nabhan
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After a brief introduction of what cancer actually is and what causes it, the layout of the rest of the book is in chronological order of patient experience, that is to say, what to expect during the journey from screening and diagnosis, to one’s first oncology visit (the author being an oncologist himself), how cancer staging works, getting second opinions, and a chapter-by-chapter review of many different treatment options, ranging from surgery and chemotherapy, to radiation and hormonal therapies, and even more modern targeted therapies, immunotherapy, cellular therapies, and yes, complementary and alternative therapies, amongst others we haven’t listed for the sake of brevity.
He doesn’t leave it there though; he also talks managing side effects, monitoring for recurrence, and even caring for the caregiver(s), along with eventual survivorship and that emotional journey, or if it comes down to it, palliative and hospice care.
Finishing on a hopeful note, he also brings attention to novel approaches that are being trialled presently, and the prospects for the near future of cancer care.
The style is very human and readable, notwithstanding that the author has hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to his name, the content here is presented in a much more approachable, less clinical way, while still conveying all the information that needs to be conveyed.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one is facing cancer, this book will be an invaluable resource.
Click here to check out The Cancer Journey, and understand each part of it!
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How to Find Happiness In Yourself – by Michelle Mann
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A lot of books about happiness tell you what to pursue, generally. What things to focus on, and that’s good, but incomplete. This book does cover those things too (complete with academic sources to back up what really works), but also goes further:
Michelle Mann gives 25 key habits that will cumulatively build happiness, which is what it’s really about. After all:
- If you watch your favourite movie, you’ll be happy for 90 minutes (or 9 hours if it’s The Lord of the Rings).
- If you build daily habits that add happiness to you, your surroundings, and those around you, you’ll be happy for life.
They do also cover happiness while going through difficult times, such as divorce, job loss, illness, or bereavement.
Sometimes, knowing what we “should” do in theory is the easy part. Where Mann excels here is in providing explanations of each habit. This means that rather than it being some platitude, the principles underlying it are truly understood… and thus motivate us to actually apply the advice and build the habits into our life.
While the explanations are therefore the greatest value of the book, we do recommend copying out the 25 habits (which are effectively subchapter headings) and putting them somewhere to read often.
Bottom line: we recommend getting yourself (and/or your loved ones!) a copy of this book. You (and/or they) will be happy you did!
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Unleashing My Superpowers – by Dr. Patience Mpofu
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Dr. Patience Mpofu is on a mission to provide women and girls with the inside-information, knowledge, resources, and strategies to break through the glass ceiling. She writes from her experience in STEM, but her lessons are applicable in any field.
Her advices range from the internal (how to deal with imposter syndrome) to the external (how to overcome cultural biases); she also explains and illustrates the importance of both role models and mentors.
While a lot of the book is half instruction manual, half memoir of her incredible life and career (to illustrate her points), and is well-worth reading—and/or perhaps worth gifting to a girl you know with ambitions in STEM?
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Simple Wall Pilates for Seniors – by Grace Clark
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While the cover illustration makes this look a little too simple, in fact there’s a lot of value in this book, with exercises ranging from things like that on the cover, to the “wall downward dog”. But the actual exercises (of which there are 29) themselves are only a part of the book (taking about 70 pages of it with clear illustrations).
There’s also a lot about important Pilates principles to apply, such as breathing, correct body alignment (if you don’t already do Pilates, you will not have this, as Pilates alignment is quite specific), flexibility, balance, stability, coordination, range of motion, isometric exercise considerations, endurance, and more.
Unlike a lot of “…for seniors” books, this is not a watered down barely-does-anything version of the “real” exercises, but rather, would present most the same challenges to a 20-year-old reader; it’s just that the focus here is more on matters that tend to concern an older rather than younger demographic. That 20-something may be busy building their butt, for instance, while the 80-year-old is building their bones. No reason both shouldn’t do both, of course, but the focus is age-specific.
The author guides us through working up from easy things to hard, breaking stuff down so that we can progress at our own pace, such that even the most cautious or enthusiastic reader can start at an appropriate point and proceed accordingly.
She also talks us through a 28-day program (as promised by the subtitle), and advice on how to keep it going without plateauing, how to set realistic goals, how to tailor it to our abilities as we go, track our progress, and so forth.
The style is clear and instructional, and one thing that sets this apart from a lot of Pilates books is that the education comes from an angle not of “trust me”, but rather from well-sourced claims with bibliography whose list spans 5 pages at the end.
Bottom line: if you’d like to progressively increase your strength, stability, and more—with no gym equipment, just a wall—then this book will have you see improvements in the 28 days it promises, and thereafter.
Click here to check out Simple Wall Pilates For Seniors, and experience the difference!
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Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer – by Dr. Patrick Walsh & Janet Farrar Worthington
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Prostate cancer is not glamorous or fun, and neither is this book.
Nevertheless, it’s a disease that affects 12% of men in general, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing every year after that.
So, if you have a prostate or love someone who has one, this book is worthwhile reading—yes, even as a preventative.
Like many cancers, prostate cancer is easy to treat if caught very early, becomes harder to treat as it goes, and almost impossible to cure if it gets as far as metastasis (i.e., it spread). Like all cancers, it’s better off avoided entirely if possible.
This book covers all the stages:
- How to avoid it
- How to check for it
- How to “nip it in the bud”
- Why some might want to delay treatment (!)
- What options are available afterwards
This latter is quite extensive, and covers not just surgery, but radiation, thermo- or cryoablation, and hormone therapy.
And as for surgery, not just “remove the tumor”, but other options like radical prostatectomy, and even orchiectomy. Not many men will choose to have their testicles removed to stop them from feeding the prostate, but the point is that this book is comprehensive.
It’s asking whenever possible “is there another option?” and exploring all options, with information and without judgment, at each stage.
The writing style (likely co-author Worthington’s influence; she is an award-winning science-writer) is very “for the layman”, and that’s really helpful in demystifying a lot of what can be quite opaque in the field of oncology.
Bottom line: absolutely not an enjoyable read, but a potentially lifesaving one, especially given the odds we mentioned up top.
Click here to check out Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide To Surviving Prostate Cancer, and be prepared!
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Unlimited Memory – by Kevin Horsley
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Premise: there are easily learnable techniques to rapidly (and greatly) improve one’s memory. We’ve touched on some of these methods before at 10almonds, but being a newsletter rather than a book, we’ve not been able to go as deeply into it as Horsley!
Your memory is far, far, far more powerful than you might realize, and this book will help unlock that. To illustrate…
Some of the book is given over to what are for most purposes “party tricks”, such as remembering pi to 10,000 places. Those things are fun, even if not as practical in today’s world of rarely needing to even know the actual digits of a phone number. However, they do also serve as a good example of just how much of “super memory” isn’t a matter of hard work, so much as being better organized about it.
Most of the book is focused on practical methods to improve the useful aspects of memory—including common mistakes!
If the book has any flaw it’s that the first chapter or so is spent persuading the reader of things we presumably already believe, given that we bought the book. For example, that remembering things is a learnable skill and that memory is functionally limitless. However, we still advise to not skip those chapters as they do contain some useful reframes as well.
Bottom line: if you read this book you will be astonished by how much you just learned—because you’ll be able to recall whole sections in detail! And then you can go apply that whatever areas of your life you wanted to when you bought the book.
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What Your Hands Can Tell You About Your Health
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Dr. Siobhan Deshauer tells us what our hands say about our health—she’s not practicing palmistry though; she’s a rheumatologist, and everything here is about clinical signs of health/disease.
The signs include…
“Spider fingers” (which your writer here has; I always look like I’m ready to cast a spell of some kind), and that’s really the medical name, or arachnodactyly for those who like to get Greek about it. It’s about elongated digits. Elongated other bones too, typically, but the hands are where it’s most noticeable.
The tests:
- Make a fist with your thumb inside (the way you were told never to punch); does your thumb poke out the side notably past the edge of your hand, unassisted (i.e., don’t poke it, just let it rest where it goes to naturally)?
- Take hold of one of your wrists with the fingers of the other hand, wrapping them around. If they reach, that’s normal; if there’s a notable overlap, we’re in Spidey-territory now.
If both of those are positive results for you, Dr. Deshauer recommends getting a genetic test to see if you have Marfan syndrome, because…
Arachnodactyly often comes from a genetic condition called Marfan syndrome, and as well as the elongated digits of arachnodactyly, Marfan syndrome affects the elastic fibers of the body, and comes with the trade-off of an increased risk of assorted kinds of sudden death (if something goes “ping” where it shouldn’t, like the heart or lungs).
But it can also come from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome!
EDS is characterized by hypermobility of joints, meaning that they are easily flexed past the normal human limit, and/but also easily dislocated.
The tests:
- Put your hand flat on a surface, and using your other hand, see how far back your fingers will bend (without discomfort, please); do they go further than 90°?
- Can you touch your thumb to your wrist* (on the same side?)
*She says “wrist”; for this arachnodactylic writer here it’s halfway down my forearm, but you get the idea
For many people this is a mere quirk and inconvenience, for others it can be more serious and a cause of eventual chronic pain, and for a few, it can be very serious and come with cardiovascular problems (similar to the Marfan syndrome issues above). This latter is usually diagnosed early in life, though, such as when a child comes in with an aneurysm, or there’s a family history of it. Another thing to watch out for!
Check out the video for more information on these, as well as what our fingerprints can mean, indicators of diabetes (specifically, a test for diabetic cheiroarthropathy that you can do at home, like the tests above), carpal tunnel syndrome, Raynaud phenomenon, and more!
She covers 10 main medical conditions in total:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to read more?
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of ← because collagen comes up a lot in the video
- How To Really Look After Your Joints
Take care!
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