Tommy Johnson Sr. remembered the day he sat in his truck, paralyzed with the news delivered just an hour earlier. Never in a million years would Johnson, then a competitive player in the mail order parts business, have ever believed his cancerous death sentence would one day lead to his greatest triumph and serve as the inspiration to author a book written about the experience.

Johnson’s book, titled simply CANCER: The True Story of How I Survived Absolute Terminal Cancer, recently hit the marketplace and while the self-published book doesn’t share the same glossy look as those on Amazon.com, he believes the message inside is more than enough to make the average person do a double-take at their everyday life. A strong message of survival is the key selling point.

“If I can save just one life, then the last ten years in making this book a reality has been worth it,” said Johnson, father of current nitro racer Tommy Johnson Jr. “I want everyone who buys the book to pass it on to someone else.”

Johnson’s book focuses on his life in April of 1999, when a misdiagnosis of anemia led him to seek a second opinion, where it was determined that he had a large, bleeding tumor in his colon. The doctors, convinced they had captured the full tumor, also put Johnson on a six month chemotherapy plan in hopes of eradicating any of the cells that might have escaped surgery.

Three months into the chemo treatments, Johnson was given a call from the doctor’s office. He had felt weak as of late, but mostly attributed this lack of energy to the treatments.

“I initially told her I was really busy because the afternoon is the time when the mail order parts business gets busy,” Johnson recalled. “She made it clear that I needed to drop what I was doing and get to the doctor’s office immediately.”

The nurse informed him that they were ceasing chemo, which he initially considered to be good news.

“She told me, ‘no, you’re done, this is the last time you’ll visit this office,” Johnson recalled.

The next piece of advice that Johnson faced was if he had a will, he needed to get it in order. He wouldn’t be around by Christmas.

“I was 54 years old, and bawling like a baby,” Johnson recalled of the moment he returned to his office in Ottumwa, Iowa. “I didn’t have the courage to walk in and tell my wife that in less than three months she was going to be a widow.”

In the days that followed, Johnson pointed out that a whirlwind of emotions crossed his mind, including evening the score with those who had crossed him in life as well as extreme spending sprees. He pushed those thoughts aside and instead prepared for the inevitable.

He had all but given up when at a car show, he crossed paths with a lady, who had heard of his prognosis and strategically turned him onto a book that described how alternative vitamins could actively combat and cure cancer.

Johnson read the book, cover-to-cover, studied the internet along with the help of former nitro tuner Tim Kushi, for vitamins aimed at combating cancer. He created a daily regimen of natural remedies and by the time he was supposed to die, doctors were stumbling over themselves seeking an answer to how he’d been able to fend off the deadly disease.

A revitalized Johnson shared his story with anyone who would listen and the self-proclaimed original blogger included his testimony inside an ad for his Tommy Johnson’s Mail Order business. The incredible response to his ad, not for the parts he had for sale, but the listed remedy, was enough inspiration to look into the feasibility of publishing a book on his experience.

“There were quite a few people who were aware that I had survived cancer,” said Johnson. “They asked me what I took and it must have been about three years afterwards, everyone kept asking me what I took. In my ad in National DRAGSTER, I used to have this section called Tommy’s BS … which was one of the original blogs … I listed all of the vitamins I took.”

Over ten years since his cancerous death sentence, Johnson still remains living proof that cancer can be beat.

The response was overwhelming, Johnson confirmed, with letters coming from as far away as Europe.

“Everyone kept pushing me to write a book to tell my story,” Johnson said. “They wanted to know what I took, how much I took and where to get it. That was part of my motivation.”

The book took nearly ten years to complete and went through two writers when Johnson finally took over the author’s role. He felt a sense of urgency to complete the book primarily to save lives and additionally to get the word out of the unorthodox treatment believing the government will eventually shut down his message.

“I’m NOT a doctor,” Johnson said. “I’m NOT practicing medicine. I’m NOT recommending anything. I’m NOT promising or guaranteeing anything. I’m NOT selling or promoting anything by my book. This book tells my true life story about my battle with cancer, the emotions I went through and what I believe put it into full remission when there was no hope for me.”

And that, Johnson believes, is a story that no one could ever put a price on.