Retired teacher Torie Peeks Anderson first became friends with May Lin, a Chinese-American translator, while on a trip to Asia to facilitate education conferences.

As a close friendship between the two women grew over the next seven years, Torie had no idea that May Lin was about to receive a grim cancer diagnosis that would change everything.

In an inspirational narrative based on email exchanges and phone calls between the two friends over the course of a year, Torie chronicles the experiences of May Lin in her arduous journey to overcome the cancer that invaded her uterus, her female organs, and the intestine leading to her rectum, leaving her with a small chance for survival.

While detailing May Lin’s struggles amid surgery and subsequent chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Torie also shines a light on how the power of prayer and the healing benefits of storytelling helped create a miraculous recovery that allowed May Lin to joyfully celebrate overcoming the most difficult challenge of her life.

Surviving Cancer examines how friendship, faith, and prayer overturned a no-hope diagnosis into one of great hope and a cure not found in an IV tube.