Book: It’s Not About the Bike – My Journey Back to Life

Author: Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins

Lance Armstrong, the man who has survived the cancer with the help of doctors and the killer chemo cycles at his age of just 25, has wonderfully explained the tale of his journey back to life in his autobiography. For all his adventurous and miraculous come back, Armstrong prefers the science and technology, will power, to the spirituality. Not that it matches with my point of view, but the way he has justified it convinced me enough.

Having been a teenage-mother, Armstrong’s mom has been through it enough to have her baby. Ever since his birth they both have grown up together, one as a friendly mom and the other as her lover-boy son. He says, he never had to lie his mom. That’s how she nurtured him right since the beginning and that’s how they both have grown up for each other.

Once the cancer was diagnosed it was the friends of him who did it all first of all. However, no matter how the world takes care of you, a mom is a mom and her love is the strongest. His decision to get operated at one of the two preferred hospitals was explained interestingly. Hardly having had any chances to live back he and his team handled the situation incredibly. Now I know, its important to be educated about the disease with which one is supposed to battle his heart out.

My goodness, I did never care to know what chemotherapy was about! So did I for the cycle racing and the famous Tour De France. I read somewhere, to get familiar with anything, read a minimum of three books but I guess Lance Armstrong’s this book has made me enough contented of these topics with just one read. And on the sponsorships, I’m now sure better than before of how sponsors pay for the legs and hands of the players.

Going through the pages one would feel the never deniable dependency of human life on friends, parents and most importantly the life partner. Either to go for it or to hit a comeback!

Mr and Mrs Armstrong’s married life, their decision to go with the IV treatments, the way his best half had lectured him ensuring he was not being hurt, which ultimately brought him back to racing track with full determination, have been written so amazingly that you would not mind giving the whole story a single sitting to be done with.

All in all an interesting, inspiring and intellectual read it was. Even since i’m back in with touch with books I’ve been going through the awesomeness. I’m happy for the same.

At any phase of your life, either you yourself or your relatives/friends have to face a life threatening disease, and feel completely low on coming back to life, I recommend you to get or gift this book. I know, book reading, especially amidst such horrifying circumstances, is not practically possible always. So, better read it now and be prepared to face it, be it any worst! Not a bad idea either!

PS: Next would be the post on Lance Armstrong’s next book, the sequel to the one explained in this post. I read them back to back.