One minute Jim Zervanos was carrying his one-year-old boy to a baseball game; the next, he was in the ER, where for days he lay in limbo, being strangled from the inside. Teams of the best doctors were stumped by his worsening condition, before telling him there was nothing they could do.

That Time I Got Cancer: A Love Story is about experiencing joy even in desperate times. It’s about the relationships that anchor us, even as they must be entirely redefined. At forty-one, married, with a young son, Jim said goodbye to his family. When a brilliant new surgeon performed a radical operation, Jim was diagnosed with lymphoma, which led to chemotherapy and an uncertain road to recovery. Five years would pass before Jim began to understand what he had endured. Through mortality and back to life, this is the inspiring journey of a man awakened to the full experience of being alive, and being present for it all.