Wild Ride: A Memoir of I.V. Drips & Rocket Ships

The youngest American to ever orbit the earth—cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux—shows us all that when we face our fears with hope and faith, extraordinary things can happen.

“It may be hard to believe while I’m gravity-bound on my bedroom floor, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time on Earth, it’s that as long as you keep saying yes, everything is possible,” says author Hayley Arceneaux.

Arceneaux's power comes from her faith and her ability to look forward in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Before she became the youngest American to go to space, she had packed a lifetime’s worth of experience into her twenty-nine years. She went to Spain to practice her Spanish and worked medical mission trips in Nicaragua and Peru, checking off five continents on her travel list before she was invited on the ultimate ride, farther than she ever dreamed she'd go. And she's done it all with a titanium prosthesis in her leg—courtesy of treatment for bone cancer at St. Jude nearly twenty years ago.

In this riveting and deeply personal memoir, with heart and humor, Arceneaux shares the details of her Wild Ride, from the cancer experience that inspired her lifelong dream of working with childhood cancer patients to the exhilaration of being asked to join the first civilian space flight as a representative of St. Jude. From training to launch to splashdown, in never-before-told stories, Arceneaux details what it was like to climb Mt. Rainier in the snow, train in a fighter jet, battle G-forces, fly in a Dragon to space, and drink her morning cold brew while circling the globe once every ninety minutes.

Arceneaux’s uplifting story is the inspiration we all need today. She offers wisdom and courage to anyone fighting against the odds. And through it all, she reveals how resilience and faith can help us grab hold of the life we’ve always wanted and live it to the fullest.

About the Author

Hayley Arceneaux is a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital physician assistant, a career she committed to at age ten, after surviving pediatric bone cancer. She is also now a member of the SpaceX medical team, where she helps medically train commercial astronauts. She joined SpaceX's first private spaceflight, Inspiration4, on September 15, 2021, and successfully water-landed three days later. At age twenty-nine, she became the youngest American to orbit the earth, the first pediatric cancer survivor in space, and the first astronaut with a prosthetic body part.

Author Residence: Memphis, TN