I know that this is a big deal to me, maybe not to you. There is a lot to know and so this book is one of the first things the doctor gives to you. The good news is that I am not going to subject you dear readers to a lot of facts and figures about something you may never experience in your lifetime. There were however some either extremely interesting factoids or things that are universal that I want to talk about today.

I was in line at a local store the other day. The woman behind me said in a loud voice ‘how does someone take chemo and not lose their hair’? I didn’t recognize the voice and resisted the urge to whip around. The cashier said ‘you probably have to read the story to find out’. I slowly turned to try and see what was the specific subject. I couldn’t and I had something to say but I just didn’t want to get into it.

What I learned from reading the book was that losing hair from chemo is a form of alopecia. Doctors don’t actually know the reason or cause for most alopecia but it is thought to be an auto-immune problem. Trigger for those can be stress or environmentally induced. I am pretty sure that chemo covers both of those situations.

The second thing and probably the most surprising thing I learned about this process is that it is a reboot of the immune system. When I say reboot, I do mean reboot and all of the learned immune protection is wiped out. When I say that, this also includes vaccines. If you have kids in the millennium then you will be aware that children are getting twenty some vaccines these days. You need to do them all. I see a lot of sickness in the future.

I also read something that I have never heard before. As I said in the podcast that only people who had insurance cover the process would get it. The book talks about some strategies to raise money because apparently some health systems will work with the patient, not ours.

Get this, apparently there is a way to cash out term life insurance before you are actually dead. It seems that if death is inevitable you can work with at third party to pay the insured less than face value. They have to buy out the policy so this is one and done. I suspect that this is something more akin to a payday loan or an estate advance. But, it is an option if the straights get dire enough.

The book itself was interesting enough. I enjoyed reading the historical evolution of the process. It definitely seems much safer, successful and refined than it was seventy years ago. That is a good thing. I call it a thriller because after reading the book, it is much clearer what was going to happen but not necessarily before that.

End Your Programming Routine: I didn’t need to go through this process to learn that you have to be your own advocate in the system. This time just reminds me how that is true. You cannot be your own advocate if you do not understand how it is supposed to go. Next time, I want to skip the thriller and have a love story instead. But, I don’t always get to choose the books to read.