Breast Cancer Husband: How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) during Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond

Book Description

A unique guide, like none other on the market-packed with medical information, practical tips, psychological insight, and coping strategies-to help men help the women they love through this trying time.When Marc Silver became a breast cancer husband three years ago, he learned firsthand how frightened and helpless the breast cancer husband feels. He searched in vain for a book that would give him the information and advice he so desperately sought. Now this award-winning journalist has compiled just the kind of emotionally supportive and useful resource that he wished he had been able to consult-to give men the tools they need to help their wives, their families, and themselves through this scary, uncertain time.In his years as a consumer journalist and veteran of the News You Can Use staff at U.S. News World Report, Marc Silver learned what kind of information and advice on medical crises readers found most valuable. He draws on that experience as he covers in depth all the issues couples coping with breast cancer will have to face during diagnosis, treatment, and beyond. Highlights include: - The shared experiences of other breast cancer husbands- Guidance from top cancer doctors in the country- Advice on when, how, and what to tell your young children- Tips on coping with radiation and chemotherapy- A candid discussion of sex and intimacy following breast cancer surgeryMore than 200,000 women are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States. At last, with this book, the men who love them have a road map to help them through a difficult and unprecedented journey.

Customer Reviews:

Breast Cancer Husband.......2007-09-26

This book is loaded with practical advice if your wife or loved one is diagnosed with breast cancer. While containing medical information on breast cancer and treatments, it goes beyond that to provide a number of useful suggestions for helping her through a very difficult period. Furthermore, it provides a number of useful suggestions for helping YOURSELF as the supporting partner on this journey.

I found it very useful and recommend it without reservation.

Breast Cancer Husband : How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) during Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond

Breast Cancer Husband review.......2007-09-17

A must read for anyone close to the "survivor". Everything so far has been "right on". Sure helps reduce the "unknown" fears. Husband has read; sister has read; and brother-in-law (me) has read and gained from the knowledge and experience conveyed by the author who we wish to thank.

Breast Cancer Husband's...Get This Book!.......2007-05-07

You'll need this advice one way or another. There are some topics you may not want to deal with, but trust me, you WILL deal with them. Your wife's cancer diagnosis doesn't come with a manual...this book is a great start. (Even though you wish you weren't reading it...once the dust settles...you'll be thankful for it.)

Essential if you have breast cancer.......2006-11-30

Poeple who've had a breast scare (or the full thing) will find this book invaluable. Even if it turns out you don't need treatment, you still need support, and that's what this book explains. Really good.

Helpful for survivors, but not everyone survives........2006-09-04

Silver's book is a helpful journalistic guidebook for spouses and partners of breast cancer victims; Part I is made up of 8 chapters and Part 2, 13 chapters. In the forward, Dr. Frederick P. Smith writes, "the support of a spouse can make a significant difference to the patient."

There is one chapter for those of us whose partners didn't make it: "Facing Death."

The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2000 is the time that we all faced my wife's death. I didn't know what to do. I called a local hospice and they helped us the last couple of days, advice Silver offers on p. 262-263. There are other points that Silver makes that ring true as well.

I cannot bring back my wife Bahjeh so I do "breast cancer work."

The year after my wife died, I began to talk with the clinic where my wife had been a patient about a project for my students. That went nowhere after I could not find an appropriate assignment; there were already plenty of how-to guides for women.

I use breast cancer stamps on my letters. I support breast cancer fundraisers. I click for mammograms at [...]. I advise my women friends to do self-exams and get mammograms. I mention to my students that they need to pay attention to their health. I make the point that early detection is crucial. I have recently started working on an academic article with a colleague who has breast cancer.

What does any of this accomplish? It's hard to tell.

I cannot go back to that initial incorrect diagnosis in 1985 and shake the doctor and tell him "That might be cancer. We need detailed tests right away." At the time I should have been more suspicious, but we seemed young and healthy with two young sons.

Reading Silver's book will not prevent what happened to my family, but it certainly contains some useful advice for the spouses of survivors.

Living Beyond Breast Cancer: A Survivor's Guide for When Treatment Ends and the Rest of Your Life Begins

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Needs to be updated
The Very Best for Metastatic Information!
A comforting guide in the privacy of your home!
Finally, a resource that I can relate to and use!

Living Beyond Breast Cancer: A Survivor's Guide for When Treatment Ends and the Rest of Your Life Begins
Marisa Weiss , and Ellen Weiss
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812930665
Release Date: 1998-09-14

Amazon.com

"Breast cancer is never completely over," says author Marisa C. Weiss, M.D., a radiation oncologist. Even when x-rays are negative and doctors proclaim remission, breast-cancer survivors often suffer from continued health problems along with elevated levels of anxiety, and the specter of recurrence is just a small part of the picture.

Living Beyond Breast Cancer: A Survivor's Guide for When Treatment Ends and the Rest of Your Life Begins has won endorsements from both Bernie Siegel and former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. It deftly and with compassion maps out a guide for going back to a "normal" life: for handling fears of recurrence and worries that family members will develop breast cancer and for managing physical posttreatment problems, including the lingering side effects of radiation, fertility difficulties, changes in sex drive, and feelings of unattractiveness.

Living Beyond Breast Cancer is comprehensive--at more than 500 pages, it has the room to thoroughly cover pain control and medication, genetic testing, weight management, hormone and tamoxifen therapy, alternative treatments such as traditional Chinese medicine, breast reconstruction, and the various tests for recurrence, from PET and CAT scans to MRIs and blood testing for cancer markers. It's also a superb reference for emotional issues, from depression and generalized anxiety to insecurities about reentering the job market and revealing the cancer experience to coworkers. Weiss includes many quotes from breast-cancer survivors, so readers know they're not alone. The extensive resources and excellent index add to this book's immense helpfulness. --Erica Jorgensen

Book Description

"How can I know if I'm really cured?"
"Will anyone ever be attracted to me again?"
"Will I ever get to enjoy sex again?"
"It is safe for me to get pregnant?"
"How do I live well beyond menopause without estrogen replacement therapy?"
"What do I tell my boss?"
"My daughter wants to know if she's going to get breast cancer too.  What should I tell her?"

If you are one of the 2.6 million women in the U.S. living beyond breast cancer, these may be some of the questions troubling you.  You've been through diagnosis and treatment; now you're ready to move from "I have breast cancer" back to "I am leading a normal life."   Living Beyond Breast Cancer will help you understand and manage the tough issues you face as you go on beyond treatment, and well into the future.

You'll learn how to become as healthy as possible for as long as possible by eating right, managing your weight, and finding an exercise program  that works with your lifestyle.  You'll find out what to do if you've got to stop taking hormones or want to start.  You may also need advice on achieving intimacy and having a baby.  You'll also find invaluable guidance on growing older and navigating troubling symptoms of menopause, particularly when they're brought on by chemotherapy or tamoxifen or by stopping hormone replacement therapy.  A normal life includes dealing with job and health care issues and wills. So you'll find in-depth information on these subjects too.

You're a survivor, and you've got a future.  This empathetic book, filled with comprehensive medical information, practical advice, and the voices of survivors who have lived through everything you're going through, will help you celebrate your second chance at living beyond breast cancer.

Customer Reviews:

Needs to be updated.......2006-02-28

There's a lot of good information in this book...for 1998. Breast cancer treatment and survival has come a long way since then; this book should reflect that. Also, was surprised at how much stuff they covered that *wasn't* post-treatment. A lot of what this book covered was in other books for the newly diagnosed and those going through treatment -- I wanted more about actual life after treatment, not more recaps of breast reconstruction.

Disappointing.

The Very Best for Metastatic Information!.......2001-05-07

I've been reading and researching breast cancer on and off for 4 years. A year ago my breast cancer metasticized, and it's hard to find honest information (or any information) about metastatic disease. The title to this book is misleading, because it doesn't mention the fantastic, updated metastatic information. It is by far the most comprehensive, readable treatment of this I've found. I'm ordering several copies to give away.

A comforting guide in the privacy of your home!.......2000-09-04

My daughter was sitting with my husband and myself in the office of my radiation oncologist. She spotted "Living Beyond Breast Cancer" on the bookshelf. She like myself was so lost when we found I had breast cancer. Neither my husband, daughter or myself knew what was going to happen. She began reading the book and could not put it down. When the Dr. came into the room he made comment about the book she was reading. She was so elated with all the facts, which are printed in such simple language that we could understand. The Dr. saw her enthusiasm and offered for her to take it home. Since that time I have not been able to seperate myself from this book. As I progress thru my mastectomy, I find new items of interest. It also helped me understand what my partner, my husband, was feeling. I read one of the chapters to him, at our breakfast table. We sat and cried and agreed that the way he was feeling was as written in the book. I never realized just how much he hurt and how comforting it was to him to know there was a book written that could tell me how he felt.

I have since recommended this book to others. If you cannot get out to support groups or are afraid to go, this book gives you all the support you could ever ask for in the comfort of your home or office. I am 62 years old and a very active business woman. I wondered if my business life was over. The book proved my fears to be very wrong.

For myself and my daughter, it is our lifeline! Thank you Dr. Marisa Weiss and also Ellen Weiss. You have done a tremendous favor to women like me.

Finally, a resource that I can relate to and use!.......1998-04-23

This is the type of book I've been wanting. It offers wonderful support and needed information. The authors are empathetic and straight forward, guiding us to reach beyond (hence the title, of course) the psychological boundaries that women who have survived a bout with breast cancer put on ourselves. It offers clear, concise suggestions for what to do now and for facing the future, which may or may not include a recurrance of breast cancer. There are sections which are not applicable to me, but this is bound to be true when a text is so comprehensive. After checking this book out of the library three times, I have realized that this is a book all women who have had breast cancer need to own for themselves.

Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention--The World's Foremost Authorities on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Offer Advice on Healing

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THE book to start with on Breast Cancer
An invaluable guide for BREAST HEALTH as well as cancer
Reading this book is like having a wise friend by your side

Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention--The World's Foremost Authorities on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Offer Advice on Healing

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: B0002ST9FW

Amazon.com

Medical treatments seem to get more promising every year, but they also seem to get more overwhelming. Faced with a seemingly infinite array of choices in the area of cancer treatment, what's a patient to do when time is of the essence? Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention is both a starting place and a steady companion through the labyrinth of health care. Assembling writing from over 20 experts, including Susan Love, Dean Ornish, and Rachel Remen, this guide intelligently touches on a range of complementary therapies while teaching readers how to choose among the possibilities for optimum results.

Chapters include essays on Chinese medicine, diet, meditation, micronutrients, and guided prayer, which cover issues from scarring and reconstruction to soy and osteoporosis. Each section includes concisely documented research and tips on how to distinguish the genuine healers from the "quacks"; at the end of the book is an excellent contact guide for information on all these topics, as well as nationwide support groups and specialized research clinics. For purposes of either prevention or treatment education, you'll find supremely helpful information that calmly helps navigate the waters of modern medicine. --Jill Lightner

Book Description

Today, more breast cancer treatment options are available than ever before. But how can you determine the course of action that is right for YOU?

Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention is the only single resource that lays out all of the traditional and alternative approaches available today. Assembling a "dream team" of breast cancer experts, the editors of this truly groundbreaking guide encourage readers to work with their practitioners as they consider a variety of approaches, all explained in clear, nontechnical language. Readers will discover

how to find the right caregiver and how to best complement conventional medical treatment with alternative medicine
how to be "healed" without necessarily being "cured"
how to incorporate traditional Chinese medicine -- including herbs, qigong, and acupuncture
the right diet to choose, no matter the form of treatment; the importance of soy products; plus fifteen delicious recipes to sample
the best vitamins, minerals, and natural foods, and the specific benefits -- and possible dangers -- of each
the merits of spiritual treatments, from meditation and directed prayer to the powerful mystery of the "will to live."

The guide features an encyclopedic appendix of websites, and lists of national support organizations, care centers, recommended audiotapes, CDs, and books -- making this the single source to help patients take control of their treatment, assuage their fears, and get them on the road to healing.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at the University of California, San Francisco

Customer Reviews:

THE book to start with on Breast Cancer.......2005-04-30

This book has helped so many people I know when they found out that they or someone they loved had breast cancer.
Since this book has come out, Dr. Mary Tagliaferri and Isaac Cohen have been doing impressive work at Bionovo (http://www.bionovo.com) to discover and develop new drugs for cancer and women's health. I have heard that they will be publishing a book about menopause that uses the same format as this book soon. What a useful book!

An invaluable guide for BREAST HEALTH as well as cancer.......2002-11-11

After my diagnosis, I waded through shelves of library books on alternative health/breast cancer/healing options in order to find some of the information in this succinct literate volume. This anthology by complementary and alternative medical experts addresses both scientific and spiritual approaches for living with breast cancer. A road map to help with diagnosis, surgery, and after care . Excellent website directory.

Reading this book is like having a wise friend by your side.......2002-06-11

This is a book is about integrative medicine, the emerging field of medicine that attempts to integrate the best therapies from both Western medicine and from non-conventional practices.

As Dr. Dean Ornish points out in his forword, the authors of the fifteen books chapters are striving to build bridges between the two worlds. They have all made profound contributions of their own to the medical community, and the expertise they share in this book may help provide patients with new hope and new choices. There is a great richness of material here, covering many perspectives:

Mainstream physicians such as famed breast cancer experts Susan Love and Debu Tripathy share their experiences and how they came to understand that they had to open their minds and look beyond the traditional boundaries of medicine. Bestselling authors Rachel Naomi Remen, John Kabat Zinn and Michael Lerner share their experiences with the mysterious powers of the mind and heart in the healing process. The role of diet is addressed in chapters by lead editor Mary Tagliaferri and by Larry Kushi. Chinese Medicine, Herbs, Supplements and other natural products are treated in several chapters. Controversial subjects such as distant healing are being explored, and the role of support groups in the well-being of cancer patients is analyzed. There is a portrait of a clinic that has become "a healing place for low-income women", and even tips on how to evaluate health information on the internet.

No one book can cover all the possible alternative and complementary therapies that are being used by breast cancer patients. But one would hope that these thoughtful essays will inspire many more physicians and alternative medicine practitioners to build bridges between their worlds and explore the possibilities of collaboration with open minds and hearts.

Average customer rating:

A guide easy on the eye, not mired in confusing medical terminology and a fine primer on risks

Eyeopening, precise, well-researched

Excellent and comprehensive

Breast Cancer Basics and Beyond: Treatments, Resources, Self-Help, Good News, Updates
Delthia Ricks
Manufacturer: Hunter House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book:4th Edition 2005

Be A Survivor: Your Guide to Breast Cancer Treatment

The Breast Cancer Book: What You Need to Know to Make Informed Decisions (Yale University Press Health & Wellness)

Living Through Breast Cancer

The Breast Cancer Survival Manual: A Step-By-Step Guide for the Woman With Newly Diagnosed Cancer

ASIN: 0897934547

Book Description

For most women and their families, a diagnosis of breast cancer is both devastating and confusing. Questions about the disease — its cause, treatment, and prognosis — can be overwhelming at such a difficult time. By gathering together all the latest information available on the subject, Breast Cancer Basics and Beyond helps women better understand their illness and enables them to make knowledgeable choices about their care. Among the topics discussed are the pros and cons of different treatments including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, hormone therapy, breast reconstruction, recurrence rates, building a support team, follow-up care, and life after cancer. The book also explores current issues such as emerging therapies and examines possible links with obesity, ethnicity, and environmental factors. Top breast cancer specialists and researchers offer comments and testimony, and personal stories from breast cancer survivors provide heartening reminders that the reader is not alone.

Customer Reviews:

A guide easy on the eye, not mired in confusing medical terminology and a fine primer on risks.......2006-12-11

From the basics of diagnosis, treatment options and follow-up care to the latest research on treatment progression, recurrence, genetic and ethnic factors in breast cancer, and more, here's a guide easy on the eye, not mired in confusing medical terminology and a fine primer on risks for any newly diagnosed with breast cancer. There are plenty of books on the market about the subject: what differentiates this from competitors is its focus on traditional treatments, activist responses, and choices which take into account quality of life and future health concerns.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Eyeopening, precise, well-researched.......2005-09-25

As a nurse who worked with patients through each step of treatment -- and as a breast cancer survivor myself -- I found this book to be invaluable. It is a must-have for anyone being treated for breast cancer and building a library to understand it better. That's not just because it answers many important questions but because it raises some that scientists still need to answer, especially about environmental links, links to foods, genes, obesity, etc. We need more answers in each of those areas. A chapter is devoted to breast cancer myths, which is very eyeopening. It discusses many common beliefs dangled out there as facts, which turn out not to have much science behind them, like if you eat a lot of broccoli you won't get breast cancer. For some reason many people, some health care professionals included, believe this stuff.
You can try to wade through thicker and wordier books, but for a little less money you can get this one and use your leftover cash to take yourself to a movie. That will at least allow you to take your mind off your medical problems for awhile.

Excellent and comprehensive .......2005-09-22

My oncologist had two of these books on his desk and gave me one the day I was told about my diagnosis. I started thumbing through it when I got home and could not put it down because with each page, all of the questions I had about this terrifying disease were being answered. I wound up reading it from cover to cover in two days.

The real-life stories from women and men who discuss their breast cancer experiences are invaluable and made me think how lucky I have been so far to have good, caring doctors. The author, Delthia Ricks, a medical writer for Newsday in New York, interviewed dozens of breast cancer survivors and each survivor's story is featured in little vignettes.

One woman tells how she had gotten a mammogram, which revealed a large tumor, but her doctor never called to tell her about the results of her test. When this woman went to see the doctor about a sprained ankle months later that's when the staff pulled her records and "accidentally" found the mammogram information. This woman went for months not knowing about her cancer -- and not because she wasn't doing the right thing. She did what she was supposed to do -- she got a mammogram. It was the doctor who was negligent and allowed this woman's cancer to grow and go untreated.

This book also is helpful because it shines a light on harmful myths and cautions readers about needless scare mongering that overshadows breast cancer. She lists some of these scares as underwire bras, antibiotics and seatbelts, each of which have been reported as causes of the cancer. There is no convincing evidence supporting any of these as triggers of the condition.

Ricks helps her readers understand that many studies that lead the evening news or make headlines are about preliminary research whose final results are probably years away. This is a book that I can highly recommend to anyone who has been newly diagnosed, who is in the midst of being treated for breast cancer or who may have had the cancer many years ago. It's well worth your time

Average customer rating:

Beyond Breast Cancer
Alda Ellis
Manufacturer: Harvest House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0736908595

Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories into Action

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The fight for patient rights in breast cancer treatment
Understanding Breast Cancer

Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories into Action
Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0813534712

Book Description

"Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison makes a great contribution to the emerging literature on the breast cancer movement. The facts and framework of this book powerfully demonstrate the ability of women's words to transform society, and point the way to a future in which breast cancer policy reflects the experiences of all women—and men—affected by the disease."—Barbara Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action

"Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison frames a number of crucial perspectives on breast cancer in relation to femininity, privilege, sexuality, race, and the environment."—Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, author of Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity

"This is an extremely useful and readable history of breast cancer writing framed within a larger feminist history."—Diane Price Herndl, Iowa State University

Depending on one's vantage point, breast cancer can be a very different experience, and indeed, a very different concern. It is, for some, a personal struggle; for others, it is a disease posing scientific and environmental challenges; and for others it is a highly charged and politicized issue around which policy wars rage. Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison brings a unique perspective to breast cancer by recognizing the overlapping relationship of all these realities.

Drawing on the writings of Rachel Carson, Betty Ford, Rose Kushner, and Audre Lorde, this book explores the various ways in which patient-centered texts continue to leave their mark on breast cancer in the political realm and, ultimately, on the disease itself. Ordered chronologically, the selections trace the progression of discussions about breast cancer from a time when the subject was kept private and silent to when it became part of public discourse. The texts included are personal accounts, written by women struggling to play an active role in their healing process and, at the same time, hoping to help others do the same.

Passionately written and well-researched, Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison transforms how we think about breast cancer. Rather than facilitating forums for separate discussions, this book brings conversations into dialogue with each other. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with breast cancer and its history, as well as for those interested in the effect of the environment on public health and the role that literature plays in public policy and medicine.

Customer Reviews:

The fight for patient rights in breast cancer treatment.......2005-02-07

Beyond, Slash, Burn, and Poison explains much about breast cancer and the history of its treatment as it chronicles women's long struggles for the right to have a voice in the treatment of breast cancer. Author Marcy Knopf-Newman focuses on the experiences of five women -- 19th century novelist Frances Burney, Rachel Carson, Betty Ford, Rose Kushner, and Audre Lorde -- each of whose conduct comprised a major step in empowering women with breast cancer. The book shows that struggling to make our voices heard can change the consciousness not only of victims of oppression, but of the dominant culture as well. Over the years, work for social change does succeed!

In the early days of breast cancer treatment, women experienced a terrifying conflict, here best illustrated in the experiences of Carson and Kushner. Though fully aware that the power over their health lay with the establishment that valued deference, discretion, and being nice, they honored their deep inner need to investigate treatment options, speak out, challenge the medical establishment, and be honest and open about the disease.

Thanks mostly to the work of people like these, medicine began to evolve in the early seventies so that information has become increasingly available to patients, multiple options for the treatment of breast cancer have been developed, and patients' needs are increasingly attended to. The book is not just a history; reading it makes one feel committed to becoming informed and assertive in exploring medical treatment options

Understanding Breast Cancer.......2004-12-22

Marcy Knopf-Newman's new book on breast cancer stories is an important intervention in this oft avoided topic. From Rachel Carson's "public silence," to Audre Lorde's very public examination of her own breast cancer, Ms. Knopf-Newman writes a history of mid- to late-twentieth century approaches to the act of telling stories about breast cancer. What makes Ms. Knopf-Newman's book so important, however, is the arc or plot of its telling: from enforced silence and acquiescence to the prevailing dogmas of medical science at mid-century, and the near complete and unquestioned predominance of the Halsted radical mastectomy, to the emergence of a critical questioning of medical practices and procedures as revolutionary medical practitioners, feminists, and even public figures begin to enable ordinary people to see breast cancer in new ways and seek new forms of treatment. Ms. Knopf-Newman is espeically good on Betty Ford and the public impact of her cancer and treatment, as well as on the history of Rose Kushner, a local Maryland activist who brushed history against the grain with her insistance on the short-comings of the Halsted procedure even before the US Congress. This is a well research, well reasoned, and well told story - one that is not told often enough, certainly. And it's refreshing, as well, because it's told in a compelling and straightforward language, one that does not rely on any overly wrought theoretical language. And finally, it's amazing, too, just for its sense of awe and admiration for the figures it treats - Carson, Ford, Kushner, Lorde. This is a book of heroes, not victims, and deserve a wide audience.

The Journey Beyond Breast Cancer: From the Personal to the Political--Taking an Active Role in Prevention, Diagnosis, and Your Own Healing

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Women Deserve the Truth About Their Illness

The Journey Beyond Breast Cancer: From the Personal to the Political--Taking an Active Role in Prevention, Diagnosis, and Your Own Healing
Virginia M. Soffa
Manufacturer: Healing Arts Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Diagnosed at the age of 38 with early stage breast cancer, Virginia Soffa takes a critical look at breast cancer treatments--both conventional and alternative therapies--and outlines a strategy to help women with the disease make informed choices about individual treatments and to help all women prevent breast cancer in the first place. She discusses surgery and its options, life after mastectomy, treatment alternatives--including diet, herbs, acupuncture, manual lymph drainage, and yoga--as well as spiritual and emotional rehabilitation. She stresses the connection between the destruction of the environment and our deteriorating health. To cure the breast cancer epidemic, she insists, we must look beyond the disease and beyond our selves to heal our planet.

Currently, one out of every nine American women will hear the dreaded diagnosis of breast cancer at some time in her life--every twelve minutes this year a woman will die of breast cancer.

Despite advanced technology and early detection, incidence of the disease is actually rising while long-term survival rates are not.

The author points out the need to focus on prevention and political action. She shows how to start a grassroots organization, and offers advice for supporting loved ones with the disease.

A collection of fine art created by women recovering from breast cancer, accompanied by their own poignant commentary, highlights the text.

Customer Reviews:

Women Deserve the Truth About Their Illness.......2003-12-25

All women are at risk for breast cancer, so this book is an immense comfort with information on the subject.

Virginia Soffa was diagnosed at the age of thirty-eight with early-stage breast cancer.

She takes a look at both conventional and alternative treaments and helps the reader make informed choices about prevention and treatment. There's a good chapter on risk factors.

This a great, comprehensive text on the subject, which, along with the overview on possible causes -- environment, diet, pesticides, oral contraceptives -- also is one of the rare book resources that mentions electromagnetic energy fields!

Book Description

One in eight American women will learn that she has breast cancer. While survival rates are improving, the diagnosis still wreaks havoc on their lives and families. A complex illness, breast cancer affects all aspects of a woman's life: her physical health and future wellbeing, her primary relationships, her children, her self-esteem, her sexuality.

This informative book serves to enlighten and empower women who have breast cancer, while providing valuable information and insight for those who love them. The book's topics include:

Finding out you have breast cancer
How to get help and find information
Working with your doctor
The emotional aspects of the disease
Treatment options: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation
Physical side effects of treatment
Nurturing yourself and your relationships
Follow-up care
What to expect after treatment ends
Recurrence

Written with honesty and compassion, this book offers women and those who love them a blueprint for taking a proactive part in their treatment and healing.

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Living Beyond Breast Cancer
Marisa Weiss
Manufacturer: RANDOM HOUSE @ TRADE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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