No Such Thing as a Bad Day
By Hamilton Jordan
Foreword by Jimmy Carter
Longstreet Press, $22
ISBN 156352578X

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The scariest word in the English language -- excluding IRS -- has to be cancer. And what if you heard doctors say cancer to you, not once, but three different times regarding three different illnesses?

Hamilton Jordan, former campaign manager and chief of staff for President Jimmy Carter, was diagnosed on three different occasions with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, melanoma, and prostate cancer. He had been given a 25 percent chance of survival, but claims that by taking control of his own treatment, he raised his projected odds to more than 50 percent. That was almost 15 years ago.

"How people react -- emotionally, intellectually, and physically -- to the simple words 'You have cancer' has a lot to do with whether or not they will live or die," Jordan writes. He says that his purpose in writing No Such Thing as a Bad Day is to provide "a practical tool for cancer patients and their loved ones . . . aimed at giving them the information they need to get the finest medical care possible with the best possible chance for being cured." For those who have never had cancer, this book is an insight into the collective horror -- not only for the patient, but also for family and friends.

No Such Thing as a Bad Day is a memoir that ironically tells us little about Jordan, but a great deal about his world. He writes about Vietnam, the pettiness of politics in Washington, irresponsible journalists, J. Edgar Hoover, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, and Presidents Carter, Eisenhower, and Clinton. But mostly, he writes about cancer -- namely, surviving it -- and how fortunate we are to have every moment.

If, as Jordan claims, one out of every two men and one out of every three women will have cancer in their lifetimes, then it is likely that either we, or someone we know, will one day be confronted. The pronouncement "you have cancer" does not have to be a death sentence. The suggestions in this book could make all the difference. It did for Hamilton Jordan. And when the difference is life over death, there truly is No Such Thing as a Bad Day.

Clay Stafford is a writer and filmmaker who lives near Nashville.