You Can Be Beautiful Beyond Breast Cancer


Book Description

Offers guidelines for implementing a diet and exercise program during and after breast cancer treatment, based on the author's battle with the disease while training for a figure competition.




Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy


Book Description

“A bold memoir” of one young woman’s courageous battle with breast cancer—the basis for the Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie starring Sarah Chalke (People). Having recently graduated from Columbia Journalism School and landed her dream job at 20/20, the last thing twenty-seven-year-old Geralyn expects to hear is a breast cancer diagnosis. And there is one part of the diagnosis that no one will discuss with her: what it means to be a young woman with cancer in a beauty-obsessed culture. Trying to find herself while losing her vibrancy and her looks, Geralyn embarks on a road of self-acceptance that will inspire all women. Although her story is explicitly about a period of time when she was driven by fear and uncertainty, Geralyn managed a transformation that will encourage all women under siege to discover their own courage and beauty. The important and outrageous lessons of Why I Wore Lipstick come fast and furious with the same gusto that Geralyn has learned to bring to every aspect of her life.




Nine Essential Things I've Learned about Life


Book Description

"Kushner distills nine essential lessons from the sum of his teaching, study, and experience, offering a lifetime's worth of spiritual food for thought, pragmatic advice, inspiration for better living, and strength for trying times. With ... insights into everything from belief ('there is no commandment in Judaism to believe in God'), to conscience (the Garden of Eden story as you've never heard it), to mercy ('forgiveness is a favor you do yourself, not a favor to the person who offended you'), grounded in Kushner's ... readings of Scripture, history, and popular culture, [this book] is a capstone addition to Kushner's oeuvre"--




Prevention The Ultimate Guide to Breast Cancer


Book Description

We've all heard the statistic: 1 in 8 women will get a breast cancer diagnosis at some point in her lifetime. But there's another just-as-relevant number that isn't as widely broadcast: 76 percent of those women will be alive 10 years later. This guide from America's most trusted health magazine helps women navigate treatment, medical costs, and lifestyle changes and emerge with their physical and mental health intact. Organized to take readers from diagnosis to survival and all the steps in between, Prevention The Ultimate Guide to Breast Cancer offers relevant information in technical yet accessible language, including: Supplements and recipes that stimulate appetite, ease treatment side effects, promote recovery, and help prevent a recurrence Complementary and alternative treatments and medicine that can be beneficial Real-life advice from women with breast cancer on issues such as processing the emotions that accompany a diagnosis and what to expect as a cancer survivor This guide will help any woman who has been diagnosed feel organized, informed, hopeful, reassured, and focused on becoming well, increasing her chances of landing in that healthy 76 percent.




False Hope


Book Description

In the late 1980s, a promising new treatment for breast cancer emerged: high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or HDC/ABMT. By the 1990s, it had burst upon the oncology scene and disseminated rapidly before having been carefully evaluated. By the time published studies showed that the procedure was ineffective, more than 30,000 women had received the treatment, shortening their lives and adding to their suffering. This book tells of the rise and demise of HDC/ABMT for metastatic and early stage breast cancer, and fully explores the story's implications, which go well beyond the immediate procedure, and beyond breast cancer, to how we in the United States evaluate other medical procedures, especially life-saving ones. It details how the factors that drove clinical use--patient demand, physician enthusiasm, media reporting, litigation, economic exploitation, and legislative and administrative mandates--converged to propel the procedure forward despite a lack of proven clinical effectiveness. It also analyzes the limited effect of technology assessments before randomized clinical trials evaluated decisively the procedure and the ramifications of this system on healthcare today. Sections of the book consider the initial conditions surrounding the emergence of the new breast cancer treatment, the drivers of clinical use, and the struggle for evidence-based medicine. A concluding section considers the significance of the story for our healthcare system.




My Guru Cancer: You Don't Have to Fight to Find True Freedom from the C Word


Book Description

Three words Bethany never thought her 34-year-old, healthy, organic-eating, wellness-teaching yogini body would ever hear? "You have cancer." Even more shocking? She was excited. A compassionate companion for anyone facing the C word, My Guru Cancer is the inspirational story of a woman who dares to drop the fight, welcoming breast cancer into her life as a wise teacher of self-growth, love, and gratitude. In this down-to-earth, funny, and heartfelt confessional, join Bethany on her two-year journey into remission as she applies the practical tools of inquiry to meet each challenge: diagnostic testing, treatment, losing body parts, finances, relationships, emotional exorcisms, and the fear of death. Go beyond simple positive thinking and learn how to cultivate a healing mindset that transforms any nightmare into a blessing, creating a life of laughter and peace. True freedom from cancer is a state of mind. And you don't have to go to war or wait until you're pronounced "cancer-free" to find it.




Living Beyond Breast Cancer


Book Description

Discusses support groups, reconstruction, pain management, menopause, and financial issues




Beyond the Pink Moon


Book Description

In this touching, frank and informative memoir, Nicki Boscia Durlester intimately chronicles her transformational journey after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Her story begins with her mother, who was diagnosed with the disease in 1962: a time when breast cancer was only discussed behind closed doors, and long before women took an active role in their diagnosis and treatment. Nicki provides unique insight into being part of a large Italian-American family afflicted with the BRCA2 gene, and shares poignant stories about her mother and aunts who faced breast and ovarian cancer with extraordinary grace and courage. Nicki writes candidly about her frustration in finding the right team of doctors as well as the highs and lows of her journey, sharing humor and heart along the way. She puts a human face on statistics ranking breast cancer as the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women in the United States. This deeply moving story of legacy, loss and ultimately survival is told through the eyes of a daughter who shared an unbreakable bond with her mother. As she travels the scary, unpredictable road through her own diagnosis, treatment and recovery, Nicki discovers the most difficult challenge she faces becomes the most spiritually transcendent experience of her life. This Special Edition of Beyond the Pink Moon includes an Afterword from the author. A portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to breast cancer research.




Living Well Beyond Breast Cancer


Book Description

What do I do now? Why am I still so tired? Am I really cured? How do I reduce my risk of recurrence? Is it safe for me to get pregnant? How do I get rid of the hot flashes so I can sleep? This fully revised and updated second edition contains crucial information about these issues and more—including the revolutionary medical advances in follow-up testing, ongoing treatments, and recovery. With answers for everything from how to deal with hair loss and weight gain to finding online support groups and understanding healthy foods and supplements, Living Well Beyond Breast Cancer contains a greater depth and breadth of information in its enhanced chapters—plus all-new chapters that cover current treatment options and preventative tips for those at high risk for developing breast cancer. Enhanced Chapters: • Tests: Peer, Poke, and Prod • After Mastectomy: Re-creating a Breast with or Without Surgery • Intimacy, Sex, and Your Love Life: Relieving Discomfort and Increasing Libido • A Child in Your Future: Fertility, Pregnancy, and Adoption • Reducing Your Risk: Living Well All-New Information: • Pre-Survivors: Risks and Prevention • Thinking and Remembering: Clearing the Fog and Sharpening Your Mind • Bone Health: Weakness Explained and Strengthening Exercises • Sleep: Restoration and Renewal With this book as your guide, you’ll have the tools not just to live beyond breast cancer, but to live well and well beyond this challenge in your life!




The Long Goodbye


Book Description

"Anguished, beautifully written... The Long Goodbye is an elegiac depiction of drama as old as life." -- The New York Times Book Review From one of America's foremost young literary voices, a transcendent portrait of the unbearable anguish of grief and the enduring power of familial love. What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.