David Farmer’s The Cancer Diaries: A Journey Through the Crucible is the moving and intimate story of how cancer affected his family. 

In 1998, Carol Farmer, a mother and active, vibrant woman, received a diagnosis from her doctor that is every woman’s worst nightmare:  You have breast cancer.            

David, Carol and their two children, Cherise and Danielle, lived an ideal life in the beautiful countryside of Pennsylvania before this disease turned their “normal” existence into a frightening and confusing one.  After the family recovered from the initial shock, their day-to-day activities went from worrying about schedules and school to sorting out the complexities of breast cancer.   

While they were processing the enormous amounts of information on the subject, consulting with doctors and determining the best course of treatment, each began journaling their experiences, their deepest fears and the rollercoaster of emotions one goes through.  Each was unaware that the others were doing so. 

This narration is a compilation of four different diaries.  From four different points of view, the reader is drawn into a four-year period of the family’s experiences, from diagnosis through the surgeries, chemotherapy and recovery. 

This personal and powerful story of a family’s battle with illness not only focuses on the disease but on the psychological, social, economic, emotional and financial aspects.  It is a story of faith, hope, recovery and how each one escaped from and dealt with what David Farmer refers to as “the dragon.”

About the Author

David Farmer is an author, former high school teacher and entrepreneur, and currently teaches online college-level courses. Mr. Farmer has published The Learning Book: The Best Homeschool Study Tips, Tricks and Skills, and is currently writing two fiction novels. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Pennsylvania.