Running for Our
Lives
An Odyssey with Cancer
Kathryn H. Anthony
Running for Our Lives inspires those facing cancer and life-threatening illnesses, their families, friends, medical researchers, physicians, oncology nurses, hospice providers, and staff who work with terminally ill patients. Barry Riccio, struck by leiomyosarcoma at age 38, made medical history. His quiet struggle turned public when thrust into the national spotlight as an unexpected success story in a clinical trial of terminal cancer patients featured in Time, Chicago Tribune , NBC Nightly News, and ABC Evening News. As one doctor put it, the authors were “sitting on a barrel of dynamite.”
Running for Our Lives is one of the first books to document a new era of promising cancer research from multiple viewpoints of the patient, his medical team, family and friends. In gripping detail, it chronicles the authors’ seven-year emotional roller coaster ride across five states and scores of doctors, nurses, and medical staff and explains how their persistence, research, and outreach helped them wage their battle. Despite seven surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, photodynamic light therapy, anti-angiogenesis, and 400 blood transfusions, Barry never lost his zest for life. The book provides a window into the authors’ private world, one where the struggle to stay alive overshadowed all else.