When we hear that someone close to us has cancer, we want nothing more than to help. But sometimes we don’t know what to say or do, and don’t feel comfortable asking. With sensitive insights, thoughtful anecdotes, and sometimes, gentle humor, Help Me Live provides a personal yet thoroughly researched account of words and actions that comfort and heal. Based on the author’s own experiences with cancer, and interviews and surveys with scores of other survivors and health care professionals, each chapter tells intimate stories about one of the 20 most important messages people with cancer want to convey, such as “I need to laugh - or just forget about cancer for a while”; “I want you to understand if I don’t call you back”; and “I want comfort, not advice.” 

The new, updated and expanded edition of Help Me Live (originally published in 2005), contains 25% new material, including:

• a new foreword by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
• new sections on gender and cultural difference, and young adult and childhood cancer
• a new survey of more than 600 cancer survivors
• new statements about what survivors want friends and loved ones to know
• a new “Quick Guide to Cancerquette”
• a new section on how to keep hope alive through cancer and beyond