Cancer is a disease that plagues the young and the old, the strong and the weak. About 7,000 Americans were expected to get testicular cancer in 1995, with an estimated 325 deaths. In men aged 15 to 34, it ranks the most common cancer. In the autobiography Lance Armstrong, It's not about the bike, Lance shares with the world how he survived cancer. He wrote this book to give hope to other cancer patients, to show how hope and determination pulled him through testicular cancer. .
The character I identified with was Lance. Being an athlete, I can identify with his many athletic struggles he faced and eventually overcame. When Lance was just 13, he entered a junior triathlon. And without any training at all, he won, by a lot. (p.23) Even at age 13, he was a true athlete. "If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it". (p.23) That quote was much like his fight with cancer. Cancer is a "suffer-fest". Lance is also the kind of man I would like to know and would love to be around. He has a sort of energy and essence. Lance is just a normal guy, who thinks and acts like any other man. People love him for being a hero, for winning the Tour de France after surviving cancer. He not only wrote this book to help others deal with cancer, but he organizes a bicycle race every year to raise money for cancer patients. .
"Your past forms you, whether you like it or not." (p.16) Lances mom was a single mother, and she did her best to teach Lance how to survive life. She had been married, for financial reasons, but Lance never considered any of her husbands as his father. "A lot of my behavior had to do with knowing that my mother wasn't happy; I couldn't understand why she would stay with Terry when they seemed so miserable. But being with him probably seemed better to her than raising a son on her own and living on one paycheck." (p.25) As a single parent, she taught him the rules of life, and how to play it.
