RUSTIN PETRAE   AUTHOR | GRAPHIC DESIGNER

This volume is probably the hardest one for me to write. Talking about cancer and its impact on my life is relatively easy, but what happened to me after my initial surgery was, to be completely honest, an absolute nightmare. There has never been a time in my life where I legitimately thought I was going to die. Going into that first surgery to remove the tumor had me scared, true, but my level of fear that I would "die on the table" was pretty low. It was mostly just nerves.

Cancer feels like a sort of never-ending presence in my life now. It hangs like a shadow over almost everything but not necessarily to a degree that it impacts my life. I just recognize it now. I acknowledge it. Before, it was something far away. A thing that I knew of but not a thing that directly interfered with me or with what I want to do with my life. There are still certain times when I get hit with side-effects of the radiation (despite it being a good four-to-five mon

One of the biggest reasons why I am doing this series is awareness. You might say you know about something but trust me, you don't unless you lived through it. I lived through it and want to share my knowledge with others in an effort to help. For me, I let my symptoms go unchecked for 2+ years because I just didn't know enough. Like I mentioned in volume 1, I thought it was pretty much EVERYTHING else BUT cancer. If you read this and you have persistent symptoms that don't s

I decided to start a new segment on my blog. I call it Another Face in the Crowd because to the larger world, that's really what I am. I'm an average guy. Just another face in a crowd of billions who is pursuing all the ambition and dreams my little heart can come up with. Currently that is being as great a father as I can be, excelling at my current position with a fantastic non-profit organization that helps children, and, of course, becoming a bestselling author. The bests