What Cancer Can Do to Body and Soul

Suffering from cancer is probably the hardest stumbling block to faith-even more so the suffering and death of children. This book is very honest about it and does not hide the truth about cancer and what it does to the body. But the second half of the book deals specifically with the question of how faith can help us to cope with cancer. It addresses the question of what good could ever come out of suffering with cancer for our souls-even out of a child's suffering. There is no other book on the market that discusses what we know about cancer and about the suffering cancer victims go through in the context of religion. The Catholic contribution to this discussion is the emphasis on the human person, a unity of body and soul. Does the person die when the body dies, or does the soul survive? Yet, most of what is written about cancer ends when the patient dies. That's not a promising perspective for people who were stricken by cancer. True, there are some great advances in cancer research, as the book explains, but what to do when the medical approach has been exhausted, as happens so often? The book tries to also reach non-Catholics by leading them carefully to an opening for the religious dimension of suffering. All of this is tied together with the true story of Allyson, who died of cancer when she was only 11 years old. She is the connecting thread between all the chapters. She shows us through the story of her short life on earth how her courageous battle with cancer only seemed to be a lost battle, but did end up to be a victory of a different kind. She suffered her illness with the sweet bewilderment that only children can exhibit, and yet her battle is an example and model for adults too. Many who read about Allyson's story will be deeply moved and hopefully see their own suffering now with different eyes.