Healing Lessons

by Sidney J. Winawer, Nick Taylor

A self-professed traditional physician, Dr. Sidney Winawer had never recommended alternative treatments to his patients. Then his wife, Andrea, was diagnosed with cancer, and even the most advanced tools of medicine could only offer her less than a year to live. Motivated by the desperation this bleak prognosis triggered, Andrea decided to explore the world of alternative medicine and her distraught husband, faced with the imminence of his beloved wife's death, followed close behind.Dr. Winawer is our guide through this exploration, and we watch as he undergoes a personal transformation, both as a husband and as a physician. Though cancer ultimately took Andrea's life, alternative medicine extended it for many precious months. The healing lessons that Dr. Winawer learned in his role as husband to a cancer patient clarified for him both what he had always found suspicious about alternative practices, and what he now understands are the limits of traditional medicine.

Audio Cassette

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[ásya p · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book accurately portrays what true love should be and what it looks like. It explores the confusing realities and undeniable certainties of what the future holds for you and emphasizes the importance of being prepared to let go when the time comes.

Rest In Peace, Andrea.

"I believe that Andrea achieved this inner peace. She was at peace with herself. She felt that her mission in life was to come on to this earth and to have three wonderful children and experience love with them and with me and to experience love herself and to give to the family. She felt she did this. She felt she accomplished her mission in life. In the end she said she would not trade her place with anyone. She was not envious of anyone. She was at peace. Yes, she wanted more time, but for herself, not to become anyone else.

In the end it was love that was the most important thing for her. She felt that and I felt that. Without love there is nothing. Love for another, love for the present, for the moment, love for ourselves and our mission. The experience of love is forever. We all want it to last forever. For Andrea and me, it was a feeling that came from a place of existence that is timeless. It is a feeling that will go on timelessly forever, no matter what physical and spiritual state we are in. We can only journey to other realms of existence from a place of knowing who we are and with love for each other. With love, we can never be separated."

[Rachel]

Read in 1999; my review from then: A doctor's wife gets cancer, and he gets to see the other side of his usual doctor's perspective. He learns a lot. Very readable.

[Ruzzo]

dolce è la tua voce (titolo italiano)