“If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell.”
Lance Armstrong

Being an eighteen year survivor of breast cancer, there are a few things that I usually avoid. One is letting October and Breast Cancer Awareness month get to me. Another is dwelling on illness in general and cancer, specifically. That being said, I read a preview of a new book that intrigued me and subsequently requested and received a copy from the publisher to read and review (all of the words and opinions of this book are my own). Carrie Host’s “Between Me and the River” was a refresher course in why I love life and why I hope to never have to spend time at a doctor’s beck and call again.

The Story

Carrie Host is a writer, poet, and artist in Colorado who suddenly became the main character in her own book. She began having severe abdominal pain in the last few weeks of her third pregnancy, which vanished only to reappear a year later. After a trip to an emergency room where her appendix was removed and her abdomen was found to be filled with small but lethal carcinoid tumors, she followed that by visits to her OB/Gyn, a second Ob/Gyn, an Oncologist, researched doctors across the country and finally landed at the Mayo Clinic where they give her their best shot. Six years and several surgeries later, she is here thankfully, to tell the tale.

The Characters

As the mother of three kids and wife of an incredibly supportive husband, Host is also one of six siblings and friend to many. Everybody reacts in their own way when a friend or family member gets sick. Host finds that though many of the people in her life stepped in to help out, some did not and this is not a time for judgment because each person has their own fears, biases and questions that may cause them to walk away during an intense situation.

The Setting

This story moves from home to hospital and back; as well as from within her internal landscape to the outer world. Having spent three months in hospital one time, her descriptions of the doctors, hospitals, and especially nurses was very reminiscent. The nurses in my life have frequently been heroes just as hers were. They are there so often for the nitty gritty details of life and know just what to do and say.

What I Liked

This story could have just been a dry recitation of facts and data – dates, diagnoses, healing plans, and obstacles, but what makes this book indispensable for anyone facing the cancer specter is Host’s explanations of how she was feeling and what she was thinking all along the way. There are always episodes of anger, bitterness, self-pity, sadness and worry when someone gets seriously ill, but what touches us the most are the fears, the guilt, the things that we don’t want to burden our friends and families with. These are the feelings that if kept inside, push our loved ones away. They are the thoughts that our families don’t understand and worry that they’ve caused. They are the secrets we keep because we think if we said how we’re really thinking, our dear ones will either think we are ready for a loony bin or think we are no longer worth loving. They are the mind games we play in the middle of the night when we should be getting healing rest.

What I Didn’t Like

For me this was like walking back through the looking glass with some medical professionals who don’t listen or are arrogant enough to think they are God. I felt her nausea and I swear I began to run a fever in sympathy. Readers who are squeamish about pain will need to skip parts of the telling.

Final Recommendation

In “Between Me and the River,” Carrie Host tells it like it is. She lays bare some of the ickiest thoughts and feelings sick people harbor and hide from their loved ones in order to spare them the pain and worry living inside. Anybody who is looking at a cancer diagnosis for themselves or a loved one will gain a lot of insight by reading this book.

2009 © Susan K Barton