Book Summary

 

Rachel Minkove, a vivacious 24-year-old elementary school teacher, was living in L.A. and deciding on her next career steps when severe itching wouldn’t go away. Her parents suspected bedbugs as the culprit, since she’d bought a used mattress from a friend. A dermatologist found nothing wrong, attributing her itching to “delicate skin” or stress. Then came a slight cough that no medicine would soothe. At her parents’ insistence, Rachel flew home to Baltimore, where she was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. While her friends were out partying, building relationships and careers, “my new goal,” wrote Rachel, “was survival.”

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This intimate memoir, written by Rachel’s mother, Judy Minkove, recounts Rachel’s journey and how it touched her family and community—even as it tested the author’s abiding faith in God and medicine. Rachel would endure months of chemotherapy, only to have the cancer recur in her lungs. An urgent course of a bone marrow transplant, radiation and a flurry of additional treatments followed. During Rachel’s hospital stays, she encountered a kind social worker who would not only become Rachel’s advocate, but a catalyst for a career change. In the face of devastating odds, Rachel stunned her family and caregivers with resilience and irrepressible optimism.

 

This is a story about a young woman who, inspired by her faith, family, friends—and hospital staff—found a new lease on life. At the same time, it’s a testament to the power of patients to move caregivers to new heights of empathy in their work.