Keeping What Matters: Organ-Sparing Rectal Cancer Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe organ-sparing care for rectal cancer, where people whose tumours responded strongly to treatment were watched closely instead of going straight to major surgery. Many first noticed blood or mucus and were told, or told themselves, it was piles, a new baby or nothing at twenty-two. Writers include a surgical nurse who had changed a thousand stoma bags, a lobster fisherman of fifty years, a litigator who worked through treatment, a guitarist with numb fingertips, a trans man looking for care that saw him, a survivor of childhood abuse facing examinations and a pastor wrestling with his insurer. They write from Manchester to Pune, São Paulo, Quezon City and a sheep farm four hours from the cancer centre. Treatments include chemoradiation, immunotherapy infusions, a single week of radiation, a small operation instead of a big one, four short treatments with a little X-ray tube, a clinical trial and a tattoo dot inside the rectum, then scopes, MRIs and the nine days of counting before each scan. Families drive, raise money through harambee and fill waiting rooms. Not every path held: one tumour shrank by half and stopped, a regrowth appeared after two clear years, immunotherapy turned on one man's gut, and several writers had the operation after all or live with a bowel that has opinions.

Who it's for

For anyone with rectal cancer weighing major surgery against close watching, for those living from scan to scan, and for the families who drive them to every appointment.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 255 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.