Review of Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope into Action; A Memoir, by David Fajgenbaum

David Fajenbaum was, by his own admission, an ordinary kid.
He wasn’t especially talented academically or athletically, but he did have an
almost autistic-like hyper focus which allowed him to spend hours watching game
films after his football teammates had already gone home. It allowed him to
power through study sessions when other friends had wandered off to watch TV.

It was this hyper focus that allowed Fajenbaum to play
football at a Division I school, despite a broken leg his senior year in high
school. It was his hyper focus that he relied on when his long-time girlfriend
said she didn’t feel like he was making her a priority, and they should take a
break. “Fine,” he said. “We’ve got lots of time.”

But as this young med student pressed into his studies and
gym workouts, he experienced an unexplainable fatigue, enlarged nodes, and
blood moles. What was this? Fajenbaum’s organs began to shut down and doctors
could not identify the problem. In the ICU on the brink of death Fajgenbaum
insisted on a test for cancer. When the nurse came back with the results of no
cancer, but something called Castleman Disease, she thought she was bringing
good news. Not so.

What could Fajgenbaum, a young doctor, do stop his body from
succumbing to this little known disease? Could he find a cure in time to save
himself?

This is a true medical thriller, being played out in real
time for some Castleman patients. Find out what happened to Fajgenbaum, and if
there is any hope for others diagnosed with Castleman disease.

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