Waves of publicity about promising breakthroughs in treating cancer hit the news stands every year. Barry Riccio, struck by leiomyosarcoma at the age of 38, and his wife, Kathryn Anthony, benefited from these novel treatments. In these pages they tell their story. Running for Our Lives is one of the first books to document this new era of cancer research from multiple viewpoints of the patient, his medical team, family and friends. In gripping detail, it chronicles the authors’ seven-year emotional roller coaster ride across five states and scores of doctors, nurses, and medical staff and explains how their persistence, research, and outreach helped them wage their battle. As one  doctor put it, they were “sitting on a barrel of dynamite.”

Ironically, Barry, a historian, made medical history. His quiet struggle turned public when he was thrust into the national spotlight as an unexpected success story in the Phase One clinical trial of terminal cancer patients and featured in the Time, the Chicago Tribune, NBC Nightly News, and ABC Evening News. Yet each sound bite touched only the tip of the iceberg. Their full story needs to be told.

When faced with adversity, Barry and Kathryn fought back. From one disaster to another, they  rebounded. While Kathryn was on the brink of despair, Barry never faltered. His resilience was contagious. Despite seven surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, photodynamic light therapy, anti-angiogenesis, and 400 blood transfusions, Barry never lost his zest for life.

Running for Our Lives inspires all those facing cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses, the families and friends who care about them, as well as medical researchers, physicians, oncology nurses, hospice providers, staff who work with terminally ill patients every day. It provides a window into the authors’ private world, one where the struggle to stay alive overshadowed all else.