Cancer Crossings
A Brother, His Doctors, and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood Leukemia
by Tim Wendel
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Pub Date Apr 15 2018 | Archive Date Apr 15 2018
Cornell University Press | ILR Press
Description
When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a "Cancer Moonshot," this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research.
The author’s daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this amazing success story. Tim Wendel soon discovered that many of the doctors at the forefront of this effort cared for his brother at Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York. Wendel went in search of this extraordinary group, interviewing Lucius Sinks, James Holland, Donald Pinkel, and others in the field. If there were a Mount Rushmore for cancer research, they would be on it.
Despite being ostracized by their medical peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. Part family memoir and part medical narrative, Cancer Crossings explores how the Wendel family found the courage to move ahead with their lives. They learned to sail on Lake Ontario, cruising across miles of open water together, even as the campaign against cancer changed their lives forever.
Advance Praise
“For as long as I have followed his work, Tim Wendel has always chosen a distinct path of intimate stories within big topics, those subjects revealed by his superb way of getting at the particular. This riveting book is no different. Bravo!”—Ken Burns
“Buttressed by his years as a journalist, Wendel weaves the skill of an investigative reporter with the artfulness and honesty of a memoirist.”—Cathy Alter, author of Crush
“It’s amazing when an author can plumb the pain of his personal past and find in it a story of historical significance. [Wendel] found that the doctors who treated his brother were the very men who, at the very time, were pioneering the treatment of leukemia that virtually robbed the disease of its terrible, killing power.”—David Granger, former editor in chief, Esquire magazine
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781501711039 |
| PRICE | $24.95 (USD) |
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Featured Reviews
Librarian 471909
Childhood recollections and doctor interviews are used to revisit a younger brother’s experience with leukemia. Overall, it is an oddly pleasant book about cancer.
Suzanne S, Reviewer
Wendel’s usual fare is the world of sports. In this departure, he interweaves family memories with scientific history to tell the story of the early days of treatment for children’s leukemia. His brother, Eric, died of leukemia at the age of 10, but outlived his prognosis by years thanks to the innovations and discoveries of a group of US doctors who called themselves the Acute Leukemia Group. This history is not as dramatic as some other scientific tales, but I appreciated learning about the foundations of one of the success stories of cancer care in this personal way. (Childhood leukemia had a mortality rate of 96% and a life expectancy of 18 months when Eric was diagnosed; the 5-year survival rate now is 85%.)
Read if: You enjoyed the mix of the personal and the scientific in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for some more great reading in exchange for honest reviews.
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