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My tale chronicles an isolated case of one persistent, life-threatened patient (that would be me) and his scientist wife; their at-first-skeptical, but eventually-cooperative lead physician; and the collaboration between them that enhanced the likelihood of successful treatment and led to modifications in “protocols” (treatment procedures) that benefited him and could benefit many other patients as well. I admit that this sounds like the script for a typical hospital sitcom:

Busy but contented professional middle-aged man receives life-shattering diagnosis and then must confront daunting and rigid medical system, endure painful and dangerous treatments, and grapple with many barriers within the hierarchical medical community. Man faces bleak outlook and then —Eureka! —his dogged persistence and an enlightened doctor lead to a happy ending after all, and their cooperative efforts improve treatment for other patients as well.

If there are any high-roller TV or movie agents out there who want the rights to this real-life melodrama, I’m game! However, any studio would probably cut out my accounts of the problems with conventional medical statistics, the lack of subjective probabilistic reasoning used by most doctors, and the relative scarcity of individualized testing and protocols that I believe could substantially improve outcomes, and these are the most important messages of my story. I am confident that these messages will likely prove to be important at both the individual (patient) and institutional (medical establishment) level.

This story will report how a non-doctor can help design his/her own treatment, and I hope that other sufferers of serious illnesses and their friends, families, and/or professional advocates will use this book as a tool for working with their doctors to do just that. I’ll explain how to negotiate better with doctors and become a full partner in your treatment design, how to seek better treatments that may not fall within standard practice, how to survive difficult hospital procedures, and how to obtain access to non-standard, individualized pre- or post-treatment diagnostics—one of the most critical and too-often lacking elements of cancer treatments around the world.