Somers - Knockout

To Alan Hamel, my great husband and partner in life and in business for the last forty-two years; your fierce love and protection during this frightening episode was deeply moving. Knowing you wanted to go with me if I had to depart spoke volumes. Thank you for always looking out for me, loving me so much, and keeping the wolves away from the door.

To my loving and darling son, Bruce Somers, for all weve been through together; my stepson, Stephen Hamel; and my two inherited daughters, Caroline Somers, my daughter-in-law, and Leslie Hamel, my stepdaughter, whom I adore and love like my own; and to my best friend, Barry Manilow; you are the people in my life, along with my husband, who were there when I needed you most. In my valley of fear, my darkest hour, you never left my side, never let me down. This loyalty and show of love is the greatest gift in my life and I will always be grateful to all of you.

So many people are instrumental in putting together a book of this magnitude: the girls in my office; my executive assistant, Julie Turkel, making sense of an impossible schedule, tracking down and landing my interviews with these incredible professionals; and my darling other assistant Jordyn Goodman, who lights up the office, making sure I had everything I needed to pull this off; and Marsha Yanchuck, my editorial assistant of thirty-six years who singularly put together the entire resource section (which is no small feat)all the phone calls and fact-checking. Thank you, Marsha, from the bottom of my heart.

My cool and calm editor, Heather Jackson, who in a very short period of time was able to help me pull this together and make sense of a whole lot of information. Now we can share that bottle of wine.

Marc Chamlin, my literary attorney who has been with me for the last thirteen booksI call him the closer and he does that so well.

To David Vigliano, my literary agent and friendthank you for your support and loyalty and the great fun we have together.

To Sandi Mendelson, my publicist of many years and many books, and many more in the futuremy deepest thanks for always being on top of it.

To Julian Whitaker for his eloquent and courageous foreword. His perspective and wisdom are evident in every word.

To Bill Faloon and the Life Extension Foundation, for giving me unwavering support and scientific backup to verify and validate the information presented in this book. Thanks to Dr. Steven Joyal, who along with Bill Faloon, sent me constant scientific backup to make these points.

Thanks to Dave Henson, my computer guy, for being available at all hours, helping me keep everything in order, finding lost pieces when I found impossible ways to file them in some way-out cyberspace.

Thanks to Cindy Gold and her great crew for the beautiful cover photo, and to Danielle Shapiro, who along with my daughter-in-law, Caroline Somers, designed the beautiful and strong cover of this book.

A huge thank-you to Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, Dr. James Forsythe, Dr. Julie Taguchi, Dr. Jonathan Wright, Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Stephen Sinatra, Dr. Michael Galitzer, Dr. Janet Hranicky, Dr. Steve Nelson, Dr. Steve Haltiwanger, Dr. Robin Smith of the Neo-Stem Company, Burton Goldberg, David Schmidt of LifeWave, Ralph Moss, Ph.D., and Cristiana Paul, M.S., who did so much extra work for the resource section and for her excellence.

All of you made this book you inspired and taught me, but most of all took away my fear of cancer. Thank you. I am deeply appreciative of all of you.

To my publisher, Jenny Frost, and her team at Crown, Tina Constable and Philip Patrick, who are not only talented but great fun to hang out with; and to all of the Crown crew who made this book possibleChristine Tanigawa, Amy Boorstein, Lenny Henderson, Linnea Knollmueller, Laura Duffy, Annsley Rosner, and Patty Berg.

To Mooney, for keeping my golden locks, indeed, golden, hip, sexy (but not desperate ha-ha-ha).

And last but not least, Richard Jaffe, Esq., the renegade Texas lawyer who fights on behalf of maverick alternative doctors, for his perspective, experience, savvy, and intelligence. He went over this book page by page, word by word, making it better, protecting, suggesting, making sure I came off well and accurately. The words thank you do not seem enough for all you gave in this effort; inadequate though they may be, I thank you.

Part I

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6:

Part II

Chapter 7:

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Chapter 10:

Part III

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12:

Chapter 13:

Chapter 14:

Chapter 15:

Chapter 16:

Chapter 17:

Chapter 18: