It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong

Metastasis: (12): the spread of a disease-producing agency (as cancer cells) from the initial or primary site of disease to another part of the body.

Torsion: (10): the twisting of a bodily organ or part on its own axis.

APPEALS
"I want to die at [100] years old with both an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent at 75 mph" (1). This is an emotional appeal because it starts the book by shoing how intense he is and how patriotic as well. It makes you feel like he's a hero right off the bat.

"And then, at that moment it occered to me: I might lose my life, too. Not just my sport" (15). This is a logical appeal, for Lance, since it uses a fact (he just realized hecould die) and an emotional appeal for readers because they realize how close he was to death.

"My chest looked like a snowstorm" (12) In an X-ray, white is bad, black is good. He could have described his chest as "all white," but snowstorm just provides a good mental picture.

QUOTE
"Cancer would change everything for me, I realized; It wouldn't just derail my career, it would deprive me of my enire definition of who I was" (14) I really liked this quote because it shows how signifigant cancer can me, as well as how insane it was that he came back.


THEME
I think the theme so far is that even the toughest people can be weakened, because Armstrong was so strong and all of a sudden he was down.