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    BOOK EXCERPTS:
    Lung Cancer
    The Moment
    Brain Tumor Cancer
    The Gamma Knife
    Battle with Lung Cancer
    Cancer Survival

A BOOK ABOUT DEALING WITH LUNG CANCER

Ivan and Verna Acker had a near-perfect life. And then the doctor said the word "Cancer." It had been a word for other people. Now it was a word for them. It was advanced Stage IV lung cancer with metastasis to the brain. The prognosis was poor. Ivan fought the cancer. Ivan and Verna fought together. They laughed and loved. They cried and they prayed for many months. Their friends and family gathered around them. Now "perfect" has a new meaning.

CANCER DOESN'T KNOCK: WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING...
"Meet Ivan, Verna, Taro and their family. Smile, laugh, cry and rejoice with them."

"The reader will discover how to address medical and human challenges. The book applies, not only to cancer, but to other crises in general."

"The story captured and held my interest - yea, until after midnight when my eyeballs would no longer focus! It reads like a novel, not a documentary."

THE PROGNOSIS
Until that day in April, cancer was a word for other people. But it became their word. Cancer crashed through the door of Ivan and Verna Acker's life and nothing would ever be the same.

The first prognosis was for an eight to ten week survival window. "If the initial treatments are successful it is possible to expect six to eight months. In rare cases, some patients have been known to make it as much as a year." So said each of the doctors that were consulted.

Ivan Acker was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer with multiple metastatic brain tumors - non-small cell adenocarcinoma, He endured whole-head radiation, massive doses of chemotherapy, gamma knife surgery, combined chemo and radiation. He lived through a massive deep-vein thrombosis (blood clot), Groshong infections, low-grade pneumonia, and more. At 76 years of age, he was determined to beat the cancer. "If it's going to get me, it's going to have to work really hard!" His persistence and positive attitude will inspire the reader.

THE JOURNEY
This story chronicles the highs and the lows, the joys and the sorrows, the laughter and the tears - all part of his many month struggle to be a cancer survivor.

Told from the caregiver's perspective, "What Have I Learned?" segments are interspersed into the narrative. Emails to family and friends share the medical details and chronicles their thoughts and their feelings as they learned to live with this horrible disease. It is not just their story. It is Verna's journal of the struggles that were public and the struggles that were private. It is a guide. The struggle is compared to a roller coaster ride. Endure the extreme highs and the extreme lows. Take their hand as they try to hold their lives together through the relentless twists and turns of this torturous disease. There is a difference between a roller coaster ride and cancer. The roller coaster has a track. You know where you are going. And you know you will eventually be able to get off and walk away from it. This disease does not hold that promise.

The power of prayer, the support of family and friends - along with personal faith, love and hope take the reader through their struggle to hold onto life as long as they could.

Before the doctor said the word cancer, Verna and Ivan's life together was nearly perfect. Now "perfect" has a new meaning.