Happiness in a Storm: Facing Illness and Embracing Life as a Healthy Survivor
Author: Wendy Schlessel Harpham
Harpham, a doctor and cancer survivor, offers an approach to illness that promotes physical healing and joyful living.
Award-winning author Wendy Schlessel Harpham, M.D., offers her program to getting good care and finding happiness when you are sick. Having coined the term "Healthy Survivor" while dealing with her own chronic lymphoma, Harpham encourages people dealing with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or any prolonged illness to simultaneously do all they can to overcome disease and live life to the fullest. Happiness in a Storm shows you how to set the stage for the miracle of physical healing by making the best treatment choices for you, nourishing realistic hope, and taking action. But when it comes right down to it, what good is surviving if you are never happy? Harpham opens your eyes to the opportunities for happiness in life despite medical problems and even because of illness. You'll see how becoming a Healthy Survivor does more than increase your chances of a good outcome: it frees you to pursue happiness.
Publishers Weekly
In 1990, Harpham, a physician with three young children, was diagnosed with chronic lymphoma. She has lived through reoccurrences, undergone a variety of therapies and is now in her sixth year of remission. In her latest book, she shares here the guidelines she has developed for becoming a healthy survivor: a patient who gets good care and lives as fully as possible. Harpham (After Cancer: A Guide to Your New Life) is no Pollyanna and fully acknowledges the devastating physical and emotional toll diagnosis and treatment take. Harpham advocates first choosing a treatment that is based on current scientific knowledge, rather than alternative approaches. Even for chronic conditions, she says, an appropriate plan of action can help control the disease and pain, and provide a sense of empowerment and optimism. The author offers a wealth of suggestions on nourishing hope, and her advice on managing family and financial stresses related to illness is particularly well founded on her own experience. Rather than a rigid program, this is a sensible and realistic compendium of techniques that will help survivors cope with serious illness while embracing times of happiness. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Doctor, cancer survivor, tireless lecturer, and award-winning author, Harpham has what it takes to teach those who are ill how to find happiness. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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Heart Disease Breakthrough: What Even Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Preventing a Heart Attack
Author: Thomas Yannios
What are subclass A and subclass B—and what do they mean for your heart health? In The Heart Disease Breakthrough you'll find out it's not just your cholesterol count that matters. . . .
You can prevent heart disease, but what you have to know and do to achieve such safety is dependent on your individual mix of risk factors. You have to know what your risk factors are and what you can do to reduce their power over your life. That's what The Heart Disease Breakthrough will tell you, and it can make the difference between healthy longevity or early death from heart disease. This book presents for the very first time the newest, cutting-edge information now being taught to doctors; it is information essential to anyone interested in preventing a heart attack or recovering from one.—from The Heart Disease Breakthrough by Thomas Yannios, M.D.
You may think you already know everything there is to know about preventing heart disease. You count your total cholesterol, monitor your fat and sodium intake, and even do some moderate exercise each week. But consider these alarming facts: Many people who have heart attacks have cholesterol counts under 200. Low-fat diets can actually raise the heart attack risk in some people. And heart disease begins its onslaught on the body in childhood. But you can do something about it—and this book shows how.
Your true heart disease risk factors include far more than a simple total cholesterol test. New research has made substantial progress in unlocking the secret code of heart disease. The real risks are a combination of factors that you—and even your doctor—may never have heard of. Your risks aredetermined not only by how much cholesterol has accumulated in your bloodstream but by how big and sticky each particle of cholesterol is, your LDL subclass (A or B), and the levels of homocysteine and fibrinogen in your body. Your family heart health history provides the background for all these factors.
The Heart Disease Breakthrough is the first book to bring this array of startling new findings to lay readers. Packed with surprising, often alarming information and case studies of patients, it combines state-of-the-art medical research and the science behind the latest breakthroughs with a straightforward 10-step program to attain optimum heart health. Dr. Thomas Yannios walks you through the process of determining each of your risk factors and formulating a customized action plan.
The Heart Disease Breakthrough will inform you of the wide range of new medical tests that are available and what you need to do to counteract your individual risk factors. Filled with research-based information revealing everything from the nutritional pros and cons of everyday foods to the benefits (or ineffectiveness) of certain kinds of exercise, The Heart Disease Breakthrough gives you and your loved ones immediate access to the latest groundbreaking research. This is a book that can save your life.
Library Journal
Yannios, associate director of critical care and nutritional support at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY, here describes the smallest components of cholesterol, which can do more damage to the heart than the overall LDL levels that concern so many of us. He details the various particles that make up cholesterol, explains how these particles can help or hurt the body, and lists ten precautionary steps, including blood tests for LDL subclasses and HDL profiles, diet and exercise changes, and medications to lower cholesterol. Yannios warns that a low-fat diet may harm rather than help and advocates a strenuous exercise program, warning only that people in certain health categories should check with a physician first. No attention is given to the patient/ physician relationship or consultation, how to request tests, or how to discuss health plans and information with ones doctor. Thought-provoking but possibly hazardous for the unsophisticated; a dubious purchase.Janet M. Schneider, James A. Haley Veterans Hosp., Tampa, FL
Kirkus Reviews
For those seriously concerned with preventing heart disease, this is your guide: detailed, current, strongly worded guidelines. Yannios, associate director of critical care and nutritional support at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, N.Y., isn't interested in cushioning the facts or the remedies in a feel-good framework—his horrifying case stories are successfully designed to propel readers into action, and he backs them up with the grim facts: most Americans already have well-advanced atherosclerosis by their 20s; low-fat diets "can actually raise cholesterol and increase risk in certain groups of people"; more than half the people who have heart attacks have total cholesterol levels under 200. So the remedy for those in peril, according to Yannios, takes some real work: assess your own risk; then, with the help of a physician, take advantage of the newest blood tests and make a stringent action plan—guidelines are set out here—involving diet, weight control, exercise, and medication. Yannios doesn't let readers off easily, but that doesn't mean he can't offer realistic help: for instance, "practically every cardiac risk factor can be countered by exercise"—it just has to be the right type of exercise. Heart disease prevention is among the fastest-advancing medical research areas, with new, often conflicting recommendations being published daily. For those at serious risk, this is an understandable, serious, and worthwhile approach.
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