One of the many projects I have up in the air these days is a book/workshop/article on dealing with a diagnosis of advanced cancer in today's medical environment.  As part of the process in prepping the book, I'm doing a lot of reading of non-fiction books these days--books centered around change, hope, specific medical conditions and self-help.

This past week, Erik and I did a bit of browsing at Barnes & Noble and I found a little book called AdaptAbility by M.J. Ryan.  I picked up some good ideas for how I would like to format my book both from what Ms. Ryan did and what she didn't do. 

One of the things I particularly liked about the book was the way she included shaded boxes that set apart more complex ideas, anecdotes or exercises that would otherwise be easily lost in text.  I also liked that she had a final chapter called "Twenty Quick Tips for Surviving Change You Didn't Ask For."  That's certainly a concept I can borrow for my book.

If you're looking for a book on facing change, adapting to unforseen cirucmstances or how to increase your agility in today's business world, Ryan's book would be a good choice to work through over a few week period.  Since I was blazing through the book in a few hours (so I could hand it off to Erik), I found the anecdotes to be a bit thick and some of the lessons to be a bit repetitive.  Managed over a space of weeks instead of hours, I imagine these elements would be reinforcing rather than overkill.

I'm also reading a book called The Patient's Guide to Heart Valve Surgery by Adam Pick, himself a double heart valve surgery patient.  I started reading the book at the recommendation of a close friend whose husband is facing heart valve surgery soon.

I'm not as far along in this book (ie, not done with it) but have also picked up some tips from his format.  He's very clear about the purpose of his book and he delineates at the beginning of each chapter (in simple bullet points) what the reader will know at the end of the chapter.  Brilliant strategy for helping readers/patients quickly parse what's worth their time and what they'll save for later.

On the topic of adaptability, I should note that I read Ryan's book the old fashioned way (book, paper, notebook) and I'm readying Pick's book on my Kindle.  Both seem to work equally well and one saves trees.  Hmmm.

On the personal front, this has turned out to be a relatively easy chemo week for me.  We dropped the Oxylaplatin from the regimen to give my nerve endings a break and also dropped the "bolus" (quick infusion of 5FU) this chemo.  I think both have made a huge difference.  My blood counts were nearly normal two days after the first infusion and my vle days have been transmogrified into sle (slightly low energy) days.  Thank God for vacations of every sort.

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