Childhood Leukemia A Guide for Families, Friends & Caregivers 4e (Patient-Centered Guides)

By Nancy Keene

Book Overview

This most complete parent guide covers not only detailed and precise medical information about leukemia and the various treatment options, but also day-to-day practical advice on how to cope with procedures, hospitalization, family and friends, school, social and financial issues, communication, feelings, and, if therapy is not successful, the difficult issues of death and bereavement. Woven among the medical details and the practical advice are the voices of more than 150 parents and children who have lived with leukemia and its treatments. As many parents have already found, advice from "veteran" parents can be a lifeline. Obtaining a basic understanding of topics such as medical terminology, common side effects of chemotherapy, and how to interpret blood counts can help improve quality of life for the whole family. Learning how to develop a partnership with your child's physician can vastly increase a family's peace of mind. Hearing parents describe their own emotional ups and downs, how they coped, and how they molded their family life around hospitalizations is a tremendous comfort. Just knowing that there are other kids on chemotherapy who refuse to eat anything but tacos or who have frequent rages makes one feel less alone. Parents who read this book will encounter medical facts simply explained, advice to ease their daily life, and tools to be a strong advocate for their child. This fourth edition contains significant updates to the information on treatments (including tailoring treatments to children's individual genetic profiles), chemotherapy drugs, stem cell transplants, coping with side effects, and resources. It also contains a personal treatment summary and long-term follow-up guide for your child to keep as a permanent record.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1449380433
• ISBN13: 9781449380434
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 503 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Most informative book I have read regarding Leukemia.

My family and I have been trying to cope with our 4 year olds diagnosis with Leukemia. This book describes from the diagnosis to the outcome and everything in between. I have shared this book with my whole family and even my daycare provider. I would recommend this to any family who has come in contact with this deadly but curable disease.

The one book that you need to get you through leukemia.

Every family that has a child with leukemia should own this book. It helped our family immensely when our 6 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. This book covers every aspect of what you will be dealing with on the road to remission and recovery. No other book on leukemia covers the subject with the depth and warmth of this book. The author's daughter is a childhood leukemia survivor. The book is written in a very easy to read style, and gives many helpful suggestions in dealing with the day to day, and long term problems that come up in dealing with childhood leukemia. Our oncologist read it and was overjoyed to finally see a book out that lays out all of the information so concisely.

Essential Book for Parents of Children with Leukemia

"Childhood Leukemia" is an essential reference for a parent of a child with leukemia. Packed with information and resources, it is also very readable. The inclusion of excerpts of stories of parents who've "been there" lends the book a friendly yet personal atmosphere. I am the parent of a child with leukemia, and Nancy Keene's work is more than just a book to our family, it's more like a Bible, if I may! I have found other sources of information, yes, but not altogether in one place. The book not only informs us on the medical aspects of the disease and treatment, it also helps us deal with emotional and financial issues. I would recommend this book not only to parents of children with leukemia, but other childhood cancers as well, since many of the treatments overlap. I would also recommend it for the extended family and friends, so that they can more fully understand what the family is going through.

"Childhood Leukemia" - best practical guide for parents

Nancy Keene's book, "Childhood Leukemia", is the best book in print for parents and other caregivers who have a child facing the arduous but very successful treatment for a once incurable disease. "Childhood Leukemia" bridges the gap between the hoodoo of inspirational books and the voodoo of medical texts. Using her background in biology, Nancy dispels the terror that the word cancer engenders - a terror that needn't be, now that over 85 percent of children with leukemia are cured -- by describing medical terms and procedures in lay terms, and offering practical methods for coping with pain, boredom, depression and uncertainty, as well as childhood development after cancer. This book is organized so that one can read and assimilate only what's meaningful and absorbable at a given stage, yet its comprehensive scope insures that this will be the book you check first to find the answers you need. Nancy pays special attention to the emotional aspects of coping with childhood cancer, merging many first-person accounts from parents who have found unique ways to handle each obstacle that has arisen. Indeed, this book would serve well as a reference for anyone coping with any childhood cancer.