ABOUT THOMAS LARESCA
Tom Laresca lives in New York with his wife and three children. Currently working as a foreign stock trader, he attended college at St. John’s University. Laresca enjoys playing sports and weightlifting.
I Want to Help: My Story About Cancer, Depression and God is his first book.
You can visit his website at http://iwanttohelp1225.com.
The Inspiration to Write
This story was written with the purpose to help others who may be going through all kinds of difficulties in their lives. I Want to Help is a short book about three significant trials and tribulations in my life. The first part of the book is about my battle with cancer. I talk about my reactions to the diagnosis, the downtime, and how I was able to physically and emotionally recover. Faced with the possibility of having three months, the cancer had spread to three parts of my body. I explain how my faith, Prayer, and reading the Bible pulled me through.
The second part of the book is about the terrible state of depression that followed. I tell you what that was like and how I got through it with the help of God. I feel that battle was tougher than the cancer. One main reason I say that is with cancer, I had people by my side pulling for me and helping me. With depression, I suffered alone.
The final part is bizarre, and I believe the most important. It deals with death. This incident I wound up in intensive care, and that night I experienced death. This came at the hands of the Florida Police, right in front of my own home. I have never in my 50 years alive, been in trouble with police before or after that day. In my book, I have a copy of the lie detector test I took to help prove what I say is true.
I believe this book can help people, not only those with cancer or depression, but those who are struggling in any area of their life. Also, I believe this book will help me get the truth out. Thetruth is, I was dead. The truth is, God is alive.
ABOUT I WANT TO HELP: MY STORY ABOUT CANCER, DEPRESSION AND GOD
Tom Laresca lived an average life in a quiet American town: a good job as a stock trader, a wife, a family, a beautiful home. Then in 2001, his life changed.
While living in Boca Raton, Florida, Laresca explains, “I was wrongly arrested and abused by the police. I had been an athlete in high school and college, and had never been in trouble with the law before or since in my professional career as a stock trader. I was put into intensive care, due mainly to being maced for thirty minutes while being pinned down, handcuffed and hogtied. These events all happened in front of my own home in an exclusive gated community.”
Following the assault, Laresca says his main focus was to get the charges against him dropped. “For years, I spent time and money on lawyers to make this happen. The police wanted me to sign a pre-trial intervention (PTI) document, which would make the charges go away but with me assuming part of the guilt. But I didn’t want to do that; I wanted them to admit what they did. I spent years fighting the PTI. Even though the charges finally went away, I never found out what happened, and the police were never questioned or investigated. This all took lots of time and money, and I had to miss work.”
During this period, Laresca was diagnosed with cancer in three parts of his body and faced the grim possibility that he might only have three months to live. After his treatment and recovery, he then fought a battle with depression.
“Something told me to write about it.” he says. “I wrote the book in one night, sent it out to publishers, and went with the first publisher who answered.”
The book, I WANT TO HELP: MY STORY ABOUT CANCER, DEPRESSION, AND GOD, is a tiny book which, as Laresca says, “is written with the sole purpose of helping others overcome any struggles they may be going through. Not that everyone will go through something as severe as I did, but I believe that most people at some time are struggling with something.”
“The book begins with me learning I had been diagnosed with cancer in three parts of my body. I recount what it felt like to receive the news from my doctor, coupled with the grim possibility that I may have three months to live. I talk about my hospital stay, my fight to stay healthy, both physically and mentally, but most of all spiritually.
“Next, I tell of going through chemotherapy treatments and on to recovery, only to be brought down by what I can only say was crippling depression. I go on to thank God for getting me through all this. Because the truth is that God brought me through it all, and He is waiting to help you with anything you are going through.”
Laresca remembers that as a child, he read Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. “There were two things that stuck with me: ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ and ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ Those helped me through everything, and I use this [philosophy] every day.”
At twenty pages, I WANT TO HELP: MY STORY ABOUT CANCER, DEPRESSION, AND GOD is so short, Laresca says, because he worked long hours, had three kids, and not a lot of time. Still, he adds, people who have read it tell him that it’s helped them in some way, and that he’s heard that grownups have given the book to their children.
These days, Tom Laresca is much more relaxed, especially now that he’s written the book. “If reading it can help just one person,” he says, “I’ll be happy.”
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