Warrior Patient will change how you approach the miracles of modern medicine. Read the stunning, and the surprisingly funny story of someone who recovers completely from a relentless series of medical problems, many resulting from the system designed to prevent them.
Enjoy the stunning, and the surprisingly funny story of someone who recovers completely from a relentless series of medical problems, many resulting from the system designed to prevent them. They include cancer, kidney failure, dialysis, deadly infections, partial blindness, shingles, large open wounds, a hernia and a little amputation. It takes almost three years to accomplish, but the patient now plays tennis, walks, bikes and works out in a gym. Almost miraculously, he recaptures “normal.” Learn how he does it in a spellbinding memoir of survival that will forever change the way you deal with the miracle of modern medicine.
* * * * *
The world we live in has the best doctors and the most advanced medical system that our civilization has ever known.
Still, one hundred thousand patients die, and nine million suffer injuries every year. If they listed medical mistakes as a disease, it would be the sixth leading cause of deaths in America.
In this age of medical miracles, patients continue to sink into the quicksand of “going to the hospital.” Who has not heard about someone who checked into a facility for “normal” surgery ... leading to their death?
A cartoon makes a joke out of it. It shows a doctor in a laboratory. “We don’t need better medicine,” he says to his colleagues, “we need stronger lab rats.”
Reading Warrior Patient, you take an extraordinary, often amusing journey into the quicksand of modern medicine. In the midst of a long list of life-threatening illnesses, you learn to laugh, and you learn how to become a much stronger lab rat, a “Warrior Patient.”
You take advantage of America’s modern medical system. You are not taken advantage of by that system.
The story unfolds with humor and anecdotes that capture characters, times and places, from good doctors to bad ones, from childhood to old age, from Africa to Sweden. In the end, you completely recover. You live again. You have a life.
Enjoy the trip.
Excerpt
Chapter 2: (Illustration of Cancer Cells)
“We’re going to give you a local anesthetic to numb things up and then the doctor will perform the biopsy,” the nurse says. She shows you into a small room at the urologist’s office, with an examination table and a chair and some medical equipment that means nothing to you. “We take pictures as we do it.”
“I’m sorry about the cat pee,” you answer, kicking off your shoes and sliding them under the chair.
“I beg your pardon?” the nurse asks.
“One of our cats took a pee in my loafers, and they stink a little,” you say. “I never smelled it until I was in the car on my way here. Guess I should have gone back and changed my shoes, but I didn’t want to be late for my 45-minute layover in your waiting room.” Her eyes get a little skinny. You consider apologizing for being on time for the appointment. “I think it was Truffles,” you say. “That’s the name of the cat.”
The nurse says. “First we take photos and the doctor takes samples of different areas of your prostate, which we send in for analysis. We’ll know next week.”
“A feral cat invaded our courtyard; that’s what made Truffles do it,” you say. “I’m going to have to toss the loafers.” You focus more on the cat’s territorial rights and bad manners than on the possibility of prostate cancer. You feel fine. They won’t discover anything.
The nurse holds up a black, snake-like ultrasound probe. A biopsy gun gleams on the end of it. The gun will fire a needle through the wall of your rectum.
“The camera,” she says, simplifying the device. You suddenly have no concern about the cat or your loafers. You immediately recognize this ultrasound probe as the spawn of giant pythons invading the Florida Everglades.
“I’ll try to focus,” you say, adding: “You have a very nice waiting room.”
Professional Reviews
KIRKUS REVIEWS
In his humorous debut memoir, Williams envisions his shambolic prostate cancer saga as the education of a “medical dope” into “healthy hope.” A Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist and editor based in Boca Raton, Florida, Williams embarked on an unwelcome medical odyssey after a biopsy revealed he had prostate cancer. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of a three-year comedy of errors.
The radical robotic prostatectomy went well, but it was followed by hernias, MRSA, kidney failure, shingles, and eye troubles. Doctors failed him with a “prescription fiasco” and a canceled surgery. This might all have made for an overwhelmingly depressing litany of suffering were it not for Williams’ winning second-person, present-tense narration.
By recounting his journey like a set of instructions to a hapless new patient, he involves readers on an intimate level and gains wry perspective on his own circumstances. Along the way, he gives readable accounts of bodily processes and treatment history, such as a description of early dialysis.
In one memorable chapter, he also recalls four previous occasions when he faced down death: pneumonia at age 4, two reckless teenage car accidents, and incarceration in a Malawi prison.
“Humor is the best doctor you will ever know,” Williams insists, and he follows his own advice by finding the funny side of every situation. That doctor who caused a prescription snafu—which gave Williams blisters all over his groin and legs—attended “the 10,623rd best medical school in the world.” Even catheterization and erectile dysfunction offer a few laughs, the latter entailing a special class and a penis pump.
Clip art and stock photos heading each chapter and in advertising postcards at the end seem gimmicky, but add color and whimsy. Yet Williams stresses that patients must demand answers and hold their physicians to account.
There are serious warnings here, too, often delivered in short “Warrior Patient rule” aphorisms at the end of each chapter. For instance, “If you need help, get it. Bravery is for dead people.”
Equally sardonic and informative—definitely not your average cancer memoir.
Nordstjernan Magazine
Challenging beliefs and questioning experts is something we should do more often. When did we stop asking “why?” and demand clear understandable answers? We hear a drug will fix things or even work miracles … but we fail to ask about what is really known about all else it does.
People who sell drugs and doctors that prescribe them based on medical reps’ sweet words don’t want us asking how it actually works, how the clinical trials went and what harm the drug might do. It’s all in fine print. WE have to make it larger. Temple does just that and while doing this also succeeds in telling his story with the wit and humor that makes it a joy to read.
Warrior Patient is the partly scary – and educational! – story of one patient; part biography and part love story. Everyone should read it to prepare or understand our medical system. Do it before you need the common sense it brings. --Ulf Barslund Mårtensson, Editor-in-Chief of Nordstjernan
Additional Reviews from Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Funny, Touching, and Empowering.
By
clahain May 18,2015
This review is from: Warrior Patient: A memoir about survival, hope, love & laughter (Kindle Edition)
The story of journalist-businessman Temple Williams's three-year journey navigating the treacherous waters of the modern medical system.
A cancer diagnosis is scary enough. What most of us don't expect is that our lives will be more endangered by the people and methods employed to cure us than by the disease itself. This is exactly what Temple Williams experiences when his prostate cancer leads to a three-year-long comedy of errors that includes massive infection, kidney failure, partial blindness, seeping open wounds, and on and on. Through his experience, Temple transformed from a passive receiver of medical wisdom to an active advocate for his own best interests--a Warrior Patient. His memoir tells his story and in the process offers hope and guidance to others who find themselves victimized at the most vulnerable time in their lives by the very system that is supposed to help them.
Though the subject matter is serious--and the details often raw and graphic--Williams tell his story with a surprising lightness. His rich humor and conversational style draws the reader in and keeps you with him even through the toughest parts of the narrative. And it gets really tough as combination of poor medical practices and inane miscommunication lead Williams to the brink of disability and death.
Chapter by chapter we are taken from a simple fall on the tennis court (that has repercussions that are anything but simple), step by step (or mistake by mistake) through Williams's saga. Interwoven with the main narrative are episodes from his life that show Williams is no stranger to life-threatening situations. As a young journalist in New York City, his undercover investigation of the subway police nearly got him killed. And in Africa, he had a close-up and personal introduction to a Malawian prison. After these close calls and several others, the last place he probably expected to face annihilation was in a urologist's office in Boca Raton, Florida.
Williams's close, quick-paced account reveals how much of patient care both in the hospital and out is arranged for the convenience of doctors and staff rather than in the best interests of the people they are supposed to be curing. For instance, catheterization is normally standard procedure upon admittance to the hospital, though it is often unnecessary and can lead to serious infection. Then there's the reluctance of medical professionals to actively communicate with patients. At its most innocent, this failure to engage can leave people confused and unsure as they struggle to understand the details of their condition. At worst it leaves them ignorant of their full range of treatment options and the possible negative, even devastating, side effects of those options.
Throughout the book, Williams offers tips to turn his readers into Warrior Patients. He demonstrates how vital it is that patients arm themselves with knowledge of their own condition and of the backgrounds of those they are trusting to treat them. Williams emphasizes each patient's right to demand honesty and competency from their medical professional...and to fire those professionals who fall short.
In closing, WARRIOR PATIENT is not only full of humor and riveting drama, it instructs and empowers readers how to--literally--fight for their lives in a medical system that considers those they serve more as economic units than as flesh and blood human beings.
Barnes & Noble: Reviewed by Gisela Dixon
Reviewed for Reader's Favorite May 15, 2015
Warrior Patient: A Memoir About Survival, Hope, Love & Laughter by Temple Emmet Williams is a true story about one man’s fight to survive in today’s medical system, starting with prostate cancer. However, what makes this story unique is the light-hearted, almost humorous way in which it unfolds.
Williams is a journalist and editor based in Florida and writes about how he found out he had prostate cancer. This discovery begins a constant struggle that lasts for the next three years. The story tells how he dealt with it using the support of his family as well as humor. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, Williams underwent a radical prostatectomy. Although successful, the operation’s after-effects led to kidney failure, dialysis, deadly infections, open wounds, a hernia, shingles, and cataracts, all mishaps of our modern health care system.
Throughout this, the author maintains a cheerful, optimistic attitude. With the help of his wife, he beats all the odds. Today he leads an almost normal life again with exercise, social activities, outings, etc. as part of his lifestyle. This book serves as an inspiration to anyone undergoing medical treatment: keep fighting with a smile on your face and hope in your heart. Warrior Patient is an extremely well-written book and, considering the subject matter, very light-hearted almost to the point of being funny. However, the humorous tone of the book in no way detracts from the story that is one of survival.
The writing is engaging and fast-paced, and fascinating to read. The book is full of hope, humor, the will to survive and is definitely worth a read.
Good Advice
By Oracle on May 7, 2015
Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Warrior Patient: A memoir about survival, hope, love & laughter (Kindle Edition)
Anyone who has ever gotten entangled in the web of our Medical system will appreciate this book. The author is not hostile to doctors and Hospitals but shows, in detail, that patients must be their advocate for their own care or suffer the consequences.
I'd recommend it to anyone who will ever need to buck the US Medical Care maze. And that is pretty much all of us.
It should be prominently displayed on the book shelves of every hospital’s gift shop.
By
mojo7books "Mojo"
(aka Marsell Morris - Author) April 19,2015
Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Warrior Patient: A memoir about survival, hope, love & laughter (Paperback Edition)
.... Yes, I know, the phrase “A must read” is tossed around much too frequently in these reviews, but Warrior Patient really is a compelling read for everyone, sick or not. You won’t be disappointed while learning how to become your own, aware, warrior patient.
In my opinion, it should be prominently displayed on the book shelves of every hospital’s gift shop. If you know someone anticipating a medical procedure or in a hospital, and you’re wondering what to give them as a visiting gift, forget flowers, or useless candy, or even an inconsequential mystery or romance novel, do them a great service and give them a copy of this unique, relevant, informative, book. They will love you for it. I know I would.
And invisible to all except those of you with superhuman vision, I have given the book an invisible sixth star awarded because of the courage it must have taken for the author to expose so much extremely personal stuff about himself. I’m not quite sure I’d have the nerve.
A must read. April 19,2015
By
Karon
This review is from: Warrior Patient: A memoir about survival, hope, love & laughter (Kindle Edition)
I have just finished reading Warrior Patient. It's a must read. Extremely informative with a quirky humorous spirit. I believe, Kerstin, (his wife) deserves a medal..She is 5 star all the way! I haven't been a warrior patient in the past- I sure will be from now on after reading this book. Greetings from Sunny Mallorca.
Barnes & Noble: Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan
Reviewed for Reader's Favorite May 15, 2015
Warrior Patient: A Memoir About Survival, Hope, Love & Laughter by Temple Emmet Williams is an informative memoir about the author's medical odyssey after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He recounts his journey as if giving instructions to a new patient and involves readers on a personal level; he also gains insight into his own circumstances.
Readers go on the journey of the author's ordeal and experiences, which are horrifying, and the messages in the book are indeed inspiring. The book challenges beliefs and questions medical experts, and motivates readers to do the same more often in their lives. The book helps bridge the gap between healthcare providers and patients. Though the book speaks about the struggle of patients, the author's sense of humor tones down the harshness of his terrible journey.
The author's advice to use love, laughter, guts and good medical attention is comforting to readers, especially to those who are trying to recover from diseases. The author's words capture characters, times and places from childhood to old age. The book is helpful in looking at medical issues in a lighter vein and, by the time one finishes reading the book, readers will have received training on how to be a Warrior Patient, and how to add extra sunrises and sunsets to their life if they are fighting to survive.
The author's positive energy and will to survive against all the odds is evident. The book also tells readers to listen to their bodies when they are undergoing treatment. An uplifting and helpful read.
Re-Release! No longer back-listed. Return to the Olde Ways. The hustle and bustle of modern day life has brought many of us to a quick fix attitude.This book is for those of you who are fed up; have looked at your life and your loved ones and realize
Re-Release! No longer back-listed. Return to the Olde Ways. The hustle and bustle of modern day life has brought many of us to a quick fix attitude.This book is for those of you who are fed up; have looked at your life and your loved ones and realize
