The Rebel Patient book is dedicated to Amy Reed, MD, PhD, and her advocate husband, Hooman Noorchashm, MD, PhD, for being tireless voices for patient safety, women's health, and advocacy for those who either lost their voices or weren't being heard. They spearheaded a compelling fight for patient safety that was waged by the power morcellator medical device used in routine gynecologic hysterectomy.

Sparked and glittering with lots of God's light amidst the suffering, Amy just celebrated Mother's Day AT HOME with her six beautiful children!

During laparoscopic surgery, the morcellator device was inserted through small abdominal slits, to chew up, grind up, and then unavoidably splat the abdominal wall with potential cancer cells. And in Amy's case, cancer is cancer and the statistics don't matter if it happens to you. No statistic is worth the iatrogenic up staging of cancer to a 'metastatic' spread of impending doom. Yet Amy, most thankfully to God, is a survivor who has lived to tell more than just a tale of patient safety, women's health advocacy and medical marvel.

The story of these brave and relentless people is one of love and morals. Besieged with a fateful blow after going in for routine gynecologic surgery, up staged with aggressive cancer that was inflicted by the surgeon(s) who did her case, then denied medical standards in place to prevent future deaths by morcellation, her story still wasn't over. She won't stop fighting. Her husband won't stop advocating. And we are so grateful for that!

A love story and patient battle rages on, in a frequently-updated Change.org petition that we have been promoting for three years.

The Rebel Patient will donate a portion of book sale proceeds to SlaySarcoma.com, for research on the aggressive leiomyosarcoma. Their site says,

"Together, we can make a difference.

In October of 2013, Amy Reed, a physician and mother of six underwent surgery for what her doctors believed were uterine fibroids. Eight days later she received a call no one ever wants to get. "The pathology came back—you have cancer." Amy was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma just a year after the birth of her youngest child. This cancer, which can masquerade as a fibroid, is aggressive, and often resistant to common cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation."

YOU CAN HELP:

You can donate to slay sarcoma here.
You can sign the Change.org Petition here.
You can Join The Good Doctors' thank-you to those who saved Amy's Life by performing CPR for 50 minutes, putting her on a bypass machine, operating on a large abdominal tumor and resuscitating from bleeding (see dedication video here), then recovering her in the UPenn SICU so that she could:

...defy all odds and Celebrate Mother's Day 2017 with her Six Beautiful Children!

What a Reminder:

Never Underestimate the Power of God!

Go to June 17, 2017 Luncheon to Benefit Cancer Research via SlaySarcoma.com!

SLAY SARCOMA!

And Slay Sarcoma!
Oh! And tell all your friends NOT TO USE THE MORCELLATOR for gyn surgery, because it's not worth the risk to lose your life like other women have!