Receiving a life-altering diagnosis can cause tremendous emotional and spiritual upheaval but you still have to figure out the mundane details of getting the care you need and arranging your life to accommodate this new reality. This book focuses specifically on the practical aspects of what you have to do after you get a serious diagnosis, though it is written with an appreciation of the emotional turmoil you may feel.

People have the right to understand what is going on in their body, be given a realistic sense of how treatment might affect it, and the responsibility to make decisions informed by that knowledge. We are, after all, the ones who will live with the consequences of our choices.

Science gives us the best shot at certainty about how the body works and thus gives us the best guidance about the onset, progression, and treatment of disease. Science, while imperfect, offers objective, systematic approach that can correct its own errors. I put my faith in this approach over anecdotes as the basis of disease treatment any day.

Medicine is part science and part art. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals have training and experience that gives them the ability to tailor population-based research and risk ratios to one person’s situation. While some are better at this than others, health professionals are key to capturing the full value of hard-won scientific knowledge in finding the right approach to treating you.

There are many ways to find the care you need immediately after a diagnosis, even though you are under considerable stress. The experiences of how others figured this out can increase your confidence that you are heading in the right direction and reduce some of the uncertainty you feel as you make your way forward.

Most people are doing the best they can at any given time. This includes doctors and nurses and hospital administrators and the people who answer the phones at your health plan provider. But there are competing interests that may interfere. Sometimes those interests are a sick kid at home, sometimes they are the demands of too much work in too little time and sometimes they are things like the need to make payroll or serve shareholder interests. This book is not a critique of health care in the United States. Rather, it provides guidance about how to cautiously negotiate a confusing, complicated network of institutions and services.

While serious illness can shatter your sense of a well-ordered life, it does not mean that the strength and wisdom of your years are irrelevant to the challenge you face. No matter what your condition, you have choices. They aren’t always the choices you would like, and sometimes it may feel like you are unprepared to weigh all the options and make the right decision. But you know yourself. You know what you need to be comfortable, and you know generally what you want. The challenge will be to understand and make those choices with confidence that they are the right once for you.

Receiving
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