New York, NY: Atheneum Publishers (1994)

In 1984 a large cancer was discovered in Reynolds Price's spinal cord. Here he recounts without self-pity what became a long struggle to withstand and recover from this appalling, if all too common, affliction. He charts the first puzzling symptoms; the urgent surgery that fails to remove the growth and radiation that temporarily arrests it; the trials of rehab; the steady rise of severe pain and reliance on drugs; the sustaining force of a certain religious vision; the discovery of help from biofeedback and hypnosis; and the miraculous return of his powers as a writer in a new, active life.