Not the Last Goodbye: On Life, Death, Healing, and Cancer

David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD

Nov 2011 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

At the start of this intimate and moving memoir, Dr. David Servan- Schreiber is returning by bicycle to his Paris home from an unsettling appointment. Following several months of fatigue and fainting spells, he had scheduled an emergency MRI. The results confirm his worst fears: the return of the cancer that he was first diagnosed with nineteen years earlier.

Fully aware of what the prognosis means, he redoubles his commitment to an Anticancer diet, and complements his chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and vaccine protocols with acupuncture and yoga. At the same time, he undertakes a close assessment of his own life, realizing that he has neglected a key piece of Anticancer advice-to create a stress-free life; instead he had embarked on an international tour to take his message to the public. Nevertheless, he concludes that he would not have done it any differently.

In this book, Servan-Schreiber raises many of the most complex and personal questions about how we live and how we prepare for death. Powerful, honest, and inspiring, he continually surprises with his thoughts on what's important in life and the meaning of death.

About the author

David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and cofounder of the Center for Integrative Medicine. He codirected an NIH laboratory for the study of cognitive neuroscience and published more than ninety articles in scientific journals. His pioneering book Anticancer: A New Way of Life became an international bestseller and was translated into more than forty languages. He is also the author of The Instinct to Heal and Not the Last Goodbye. Following a yearlong battle with a relapse of brain cancer, Servan-Schreiber died in July 2011.