The First Cell

And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last

By: Azra Raza

Narrated by: Sheherzad Raza Preisler

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

A world-class oncologist's devastating and deeply personal examination of cancer

We have lost the war on cancer. We spend $150 billion each year treating it, yet - a few innovations notwithstanding - a patient with cancer is as likely to die of it as one was 50 years ago. Most new drugs add mere months to one's life at agonizing physical and financial cost. In The First Cell, Azra Raza offers a searing account of how both medicine and our society (mis)treats cancer, how we can do better, and why we must.

A lyrical journey from hope to despair and back again, The First Cell explores cancer from every angle: medical, scientific, cultural, and personal. Indeed, Raza describes how she bore the terrible burden of being her own husband's oncologist as he succumbed to leukemia. Like When Breath Becomes Air, The First Cell is no ordinary book of medicine, but a book of wisdom and grace by an author who has devoted her life to making the unbearable easier to bear.

©2019 Azra Raza (P)2019 Recorded Books

Unreal

When my mother was diagnosed with inflammatory Breast cancer in March of 2019 the rugged was pulled out from underneath me. That first appointment stung. The diagnosis left me with knots in my stomach. I knew based on the size, the time that had past from my moms original discovery of the mass, to it’s leaking from her breast that she was not in for a battle but slow churn toward death. I wish I had Raza’s book during my long walk alongside my mother. This boon would have provided great perspective and understanding throughout the process. My mother passed away eighteen months later. The first cell has given great comfort to know that i did what any daughter or friend would have done: I listened, fought for and with, and held her hand until the end. I could do nothing more.

Compassionate and Sobering Look at Cancer

The First Cell is a refreshingly disturbing take on cancer that spares no details on real life suffering and the degradation and death wrought by the disease that kills hundreds of thousands in the US alone every year. Raza is both a brilliant scientist and a deep thinker who can deftly navigate precise scientific details and the emotionally vibrant literature of the humanities. Such a combination is a true rarity. The book lays out the paradoxes of life and the day to day realities of living as a mortal being as it also forwards a potent critique of the established paradigm of cancer research and its failings in both treatment, financial burdens, and improving quality and length of life. Her incites and driving thesis on a need for change toward the preventative direction, if heeded, surely would bring about a more compassionate and scientifically effective paradigm. The narration of the work by the author's daughter, Sheherzad Raza Preisler, brings a personal touch and an evident emotional connection to the stories such as Harvey's (Raza's a husband and Preisler's father) who endured the cruelty of cancer's worst assaults. In my view, any critique of the narration is unfounded, but to each their own.

Hope someone is listening

One can only hope someone making the necessary decisions is listening and does what's right

Story good, narration not so much

The book is really good but the narrator mispronounced many words including even basic ones like lymphocytic. It was very distracting for me. Maybe get a narrator who knows medical words?

Excellent Book

The narrator needed gravitas, maturity, authority.
A travesty for a book of such importance to be read by an individual too young, too tinny. too annoying.
Proves nepotism serves no one.

Wish there were less stories and more focus on fac

I was hoping for a more factual based focus. Although I know the human impact is significant, I was hoping to learn much more specifically which companies and entities were overly profiting from cancer treatment and preventing the progress of a cure.

Book great, narration terrible

Whoever the narrator is has a high pitched nasal voice that makes this recorded book as unpleasant to listen to as nails on a chalkboard

An Excellent Call For Action

Azra Raza introduces her readers to “the Mouse in the room of cancer research” and then carefully and compassionately explains why and how current and future cancer patients would greatly benefit from a paradigm shift away from animal-model research toward finding methods of very early cancer detection and treatment in humans.

Felt like a high school essay

Too much focus on a good sounding prose. Too many quotes from poets and other literary references. Did not enjoy the Hindi readouts, as well as their translations. Felt more like a high school essay than an actual non-fiction science book.