Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Keep Climbing: How I Beat Cancer and Reached The Top of the World

Author: Sean Swarner with Rusty Fischer

Publisher: Atria Books

ISBN: 978-0-7432-9205-4

Sean Swarner was the first cancer survivor to climb the summit of Mount Everest. He continues to go on adventures to raise cancer awareness. On every peak that Sean completes, he plants a flag bearing the touching words “Dedicated to all those affected by cancer in this small world! Keep climbing!” What a remarkable man!

Together with the help of Rusty Fischer, he has published Keep Climbing, a biography that grips you from the very first page.

When Sean Swarner was thirteen, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. Doctors expected him to live no longer than three months as this deadly illness was in the last stages. Gradually Sean grew used to the knowledge of his fate, but he refused to give in to the cancer. Spending months bored to tears in hospital beds wasn’t the worst of it. After the chemotherapy, Sean became terribly sick, often throwing up every five minutes. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the thought of wearing a wig to conquer the loss of his hair, either made Sean laugh or cry with horror.

Whenever he tried to joke about his situation, his parents weren’t as enthusiastic. Hodgkin’s disease wasn’t as curable in those days as it is now. If you were unlucky enough to get the disease it was more or less a promise of death.

After many months in and out of hospital, Sean was eventually allowed to return home and a recovery was made. The cancer had gone.

Overjoyed Sean spent his teenage days doing what young men love.  Getting girlfriends, having good grades, laughing and joking merrily with friends. He felt fantastic, he’d well and truly beaten cancer and was going to live every moment as if it were his last.

Then almost like a nightmare, like the devil had put a curse on him, one afternoon in May Sean was staring into an X-ray of himself with a golf-ball-sized tumour on his right lung. This time doctors said he’d live no longer then two weeks. Two weeks? That was even less time then before. His life was once again confined to hospital beds and treatments. Would it ever end? Sean was convinced he wouldn’t make it through cancer twice, he may as well declare himself dead.

Having the last rites read to you at fifteen is a memory that returns and quickly reduces your confidence when you’re told you have cancer once more. But Sean would not let this beat him. He would fight to the end. He was not going to let cancer beat him again. And he certainly didn’t.

If there was ever a walking miracle, Sean is most certainly your man. Not only had he managed to beat cancer once, but twice now! That was when Sean decided he wanted to spend his time helping those with the disease. And not only this, he was going to raise cancer awareness by climbing the highest of peaks and planting a flag at the very top of every one. He didn’t just stop at one mountain, no. He wanted bigger, higher peaks. In fact he wanted the highest he could find: Mount Everest. And so began the warm-up for the mother of all mountains, which touchingly his younger brother Seth helped him achieve. With his brother by his side, he was going to climb Everest!

This is a lovely, wonderful book. Every page was a joy to read but a tear-jerking one at times. I was amazed at the strength Sean found inside himself even when he was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. His story should help give strength to all those that are affected by cancer. He writes with a great style, even trying to make a joke out of something so terrible. The hope and inner strength that Sean found, shines through almost every page. If you’ve never been affected by cancer, this is still one of those books to treasure for a long time. Remarkable and inspiring.

The above review was contributed by: Jessica Roberts: Jessica has been a book reviewer for a newspaper and a national women's magazine and is working on a novel. To read more of Jessica's reviews CLICK HERE 

Click Here To Purchase From Amazon Keep Climbing: How I Beat Cancer and Reached The Top of the World