People Living with Cancer » Books / Magazines

Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide.

Hilly — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:13:38 +0000

I am the author of a number of cancer books that I believe provide the most comprehensive discussion of all the options cancer patients need to consider and I would like to discuss with you how best to get this information to your members and readers of your magazines. I have recently updated and substantially enlarged my book Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide (about 40% bigger than the previous edition). It is now available as 8 short books under the same name but I will shortly be publishing this in a single volume work with the title: The Cancer Survivor’s Bible – at 550 pages (around 250,000 words) this is the culmination of 18 years research which I undertook as a result of my experience of my wife’s battle with cancer. These books are published by Long Island Press, a small independent publisher in Brighton, UK and are available from all internet bookshops. The first edition of this book received a great many testimonials – see attached. I have also published a short book Cancer Recovery Guide: 15 alternative and complementary strategies for restoring health, published by another small publishing house, Clairview Books. One review of this book said this: ‘For a book shorter than 200 pages, with big print, Chamberlain’s Cancer Recovery Guide packs a lot of discussion on theory and treatment into what may be the best read on alternative therapies for cancer.’—Jonathan Collin M.D, Editor-in-chief, Townsend Letter for Doctors You can find further details of my books at http://www.fightingcancer.com/thebooks

What I learned from having Cancer

Hilly — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:07:59 +0000

Jeanne Greenfield

ROCKFORD — Shy, quiet and even introverted, a devoted mother of three and a workaholic who enjoyed running as an outlet — all those things described Jeanne Greenfield.

It took a bout with stage 4B cervical cancer and being the only survivor of a Mayo Clinic-based clinical trial of an experimental regimen of chemotherapy and high-dosage radiation implants next to a cancer tumor on her cervix to turn her into a motivational speaker and author.

One product of the transformation is her book “What I Learned From Having Cancer,” a 73-page collection of humorous anecdotes describing what she experienced after her diagnosis in March 1990 and being told she had three more months to live. Although the book, which sells for $10, has been available in some bookstores, she said the most reliable source would be the 1,000 or so copies she has in her basement.

Although her regular Pap smear exams had shown no problems, unexplained internal hemorrhaging sent the then-38-year-old Greenfield, now a legislative aide to state Sen. Dave Syverson, to her doctor in 1990 and an examination by an obstetrician-gynecologist produced the cancer diagnosis.

“The doctor said: ‘You can go to Mayo Clinic or Lutheran General Hospital.’ I asked: ‘Why can’t I come back and see you?’ and the answer was ‘Because I’m going on vacation and you can’t wait.’ ”

A surgeon at Mayo Clinic proposed to remove the tumor but, she said, “they opened me up and the cancer had spread everywhere.” Greenfield was offered a choice of chemotherapy or radiation treatments and chose radiation. But when she arrived for her first session, a pretreatment exam showed the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes near her aorta and in her neck.

That’s when she was enrolled in a Phase I clinical trial of MVAC, an acronym for the combination of chemotherapy drugs methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin and cisplatin, plus the radiation implants.

“It was a Phase I clinical trial, which I always call the as-long-as-you’re-going-to-die-anyway-you-might-as-well-give-your-body-to-science phase,” Greenfield said. “There were 20 women in the trial, and everybody in there was either a stage 3 cancer patient or a recurrent cancer patient. I was stage 4B, which is the last stage.”

She reported to Mayo Clinic once a month for four months for chemotherapy and took prescribed drugs at home between visits. She also had radiation therapy for her neck and abdominal areas — 30 treatments in the front, back and sides for six weeks — and radiation implants, which caused her to have to lie down for 55 hours straight.

“I pretty much lived out of a cooler during radiation,” Greenfield said, “because I couldn’t stand the smell of food cooking.”

Her course of treatment was finished by September 1990. “They literally looked at me in amazement and said they had never seen the tumors melt away like that before,” she said.

Her recovery, although the radiation and chemotherapy caused several other health problems such as severe diarrhea, a ruined kidney and bypass surgeries to recover the circulation in her femoral arteries, prompted Mayo Clinic to invite her in 2000 to speak at a women’s cancer program. That’s where the groundwork for the book was laid.

“I was pretty shy, so I got up — I have it on video and my hair looked good, I’ll tell you that — but I was just shaking. And I’m turning the pages of my notebook and reading,” Greenfield said, “but the people were just dying, rolling in the aisles and laughing. The neatest thing was to watch the husbands who had been dragged along, because the program was mostly for breast cancer patients, laughing right along.

“I guess it stood out because the other speakers in the program were all doom and gloom. One lady was reading poetry about it all being black, black in the night, a guy whose wife had died of breast cancer wrote something about confronting the cow because he didn’t want to say the word cancer, and another lady was talking about colors and putting a quilt together or something like that.”

Greenfield was asked to take part in other panels and got the same reaction each time.

“People think I’m funny, but I don’t do it on purpose,” she said. “Everything in there really happened to me. I don’t think I’m necessarily funny, but I guess I’m a little like (comedian Jerry) Seinfeld in that I find humor in the stupidity of our lives.”

Greenfield said she went through the “why me” stage of feeling sorry for herself crying all the way up to Mayo after her fourth round of chemotherapy but credits a husband and family “that allows me to have a fit and scream, and carry on, or lay in bed all day if want to. I’m allowed to show my emotions and allowed to talk about it incessantly.”

She said she tried to keep the message of the book positive and uplifting.

“I think in the beginning I was too stupid to know enough to give up and I didn’t think that I was so much of a fighter,” she said. “My attitude today isn’t ‘why me’ but ‘why am I still here when so many others aren’t?’

“The idea is to just be real about it. Cancer is part of me, but I’m not all about cancer. People need to be allowed to share that bad feeling, but you have to get past that. Like I say in the book, you need all the friends you can get — be bitter, be angry, be all those things, but then get past it.”

Recommended books

Eldré — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:57:19 +0000

Books recommended for reading by Peter Fox : Helderberg Hospice

Author	Title	ISBN
Kushner, Harold S	Hung? On life that matters	0-385-72094-7
Mycroft, Berverly	Missing	978-1-92039706-7
Van den Brink, Margerete Stolp, Hans	A Christian Book of the dead	978-19034583-10
Ashton, Paul	From the Brink	978-1-85575444-7
Ashton, Paul	Evocations of Absence	978- 88267075-8
Kessler, David	The needs of the dying	978-006113759-4
Horne, Donald Horne, Myfanwy	Dying a memoir	978-014300778-4
Hickman, Martha Whithmore	Healing after loss (Grieving)	978-38077381
Staudacher, Carol	A time to grieve (Grieving)	978-006250845-4
Levine, Stephan	A year to live	0-009-80194-5
Levine, Stephan	Unattended sorrow	13978-1-59486-381-4
Moore, Thomas	Dark night of the soul	0749925574
Thurman, Robert AF	The Tibetan Book of the dead	185 5384124
Connado, Judy	Field of compassion	978-1-933495-21-7
Kearny, Michael	Mortal wounded	0-684-83537-1

From Patient to Patience

Eldré — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:16:22 +0000

It was Annick von Sametzkí’s final wish that the book she had spent three years writing during her battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma be published to give other cancer patients hope, guidance and straightforward advice from her own experience. Her dream became a reality when her friends raised funds and had the book, “From Patient to Patience”, published last year. Her story, a poignant but informative chronicle, is an invaluable guide for those dealing with any form of cancer. Ironically, had Annick followed the advice she gives in the book, she may have had a better chance of survival. And this is the core message she wanted to share with those facing cancer, her book urges them to be better informed so that they can make the necessary life and death decisions. The first days after a diagnosis are bewildering – dealing with the shock, family panic, and plethora of advice and treatment options available can be completely overwhelming. After a few treatments of chemotherapy and an unfortunate experience with her oncologist she gave up and pursued a range of other options and by then the cancer had progressed. She eventually realised that she had to go back to the conventional way and was in remission for a while and finally lost her long battle in 2009.
The book is available at a cost of R130 from http://www.annickvons.com
or if you have a problem, email: sametzkis@mweb.co.za
Funds raised from the sales of the book will be donated to the “Jungle Tots Mother Touch Academy” Pre School in the impoverished community of Diepsloot.

CR Magazine special Cancer Prevention issue

jana — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:05:41 +0000

http://www.crmagazine.org/Pages/default.aspx

April is Cancer Control Month

In honor of National Cancer Control Month, we’ve made CR’s special Cancer Prevention issue freely available. Learn what you can do to lower your risk of developing cancer or having a recurrence.

A Note From CR

This month is National Cancer Control Month. Not all cancers are preventable but many of them are. Tobacco is linked to at least 15 different cancers and 30 percent of cancer deaths. But tobacco use isn’t the only problem. Obesity contributes to more than 90,000 cases of cancer each year. And obesity doesn’t just increase cancer risk, it can make treatment more difficult and decrease the chances of survival.

It isn’t easy to quit smoking or lose weight, but take heart, even small changes can make a difference. And if you’re a smoker and would like to quit, here are some tips that can help.

Visit the following sites for information about cancer control:

NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences

CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control

Book: Why I Wore Lipstick to my mastectomy

jana — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:22:23 +0000

http://www.whyiworelipstick.com/v2/home.html

A soulful, surprising coming of age journey by a dynamo who used her own adversity as a platform for examining issues all young women face.

Having finished journalism school and landed her dream job at age 27, the last thing Geralyn Lucas expects to hear is a breast cancer diagnosis. She decides to go public with her disease despite fears about the backlash at work, and her bold choices in treatment are irreverent and uplifting. When her breast is under construction and her hair is falling out, her skirts get shorter. She goes to work every day and gets promoted. She has sex with her bandages on. She reinvents her beauty and in a bold move of conscious objection, forgoes the final phase of her breast reconstruction: the nipple. She is reborn in a tattoo parlor when she gets a heart tattoo where her nipple once was.

Geralyn recovers from her mastectomy and chemo and has a baby in the same hospital where she was treated for cancer. What could have been a huge negative for this young cancer survivor became the impetus to examine her own sexuality and burgeoning womanhood. Virtually nothing has been written for women of a young age who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. This book also deals with the broader issue of self-acceptance that anyone grappling with questions of illness, self-image and sexuality can identify with.

“WHY I WORE LIPSTICK”
By Geralyn Lucas

CR MAGAZINE for international cancer advocates

jana — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:53:19 +0000

http://www.crmagazine.org/Pages/default.aspx

CR launched a digital edition of the magazine—a ‘read on your computer’ version of the magazine that looks just like the print edition but is delivered to subscribers via e-mail. A sample issue is available for you to enjoy here: http://www.crmagazine-digital.org/crmagazine/sample/

As a special offer to international advocates, 1-year subscriptions to the digital edition are available for just $17.95—more than 50% less than an international print subscription. Interested parties can take advantage of this special via this link: https://www.pubservice.com/casubnew.aspx?PC=CA&PK=MDGTL, which we encourage you to share.

Book: Hearing the Stream – a Breast Cancer Survivor’s Journey

jana — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:08:54 +0000

Hearing the Stream

A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer

By Diane Lane Chambers,

Breast Cancer Survivor

Crafts Inspiring Chronicle

CONIFER, COLORADO—Each year, according to the American Cancer Society, approximately 275,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer. The lifetime risk for a woman of developing breast cancer is 1 in 7, and annually more than 40,000 women die of the disease. Receiving a diagnosis of cancer can be shocking, frightening, and overwhelming.

Diane Lane Chambers’ Hearing the Stream: A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer weaves together the author’s own story of her struggle with breast cancer with those of five others also diagnosed, including one man. (Yes men can get breast cancer too.) through each of their eyes Chambers brings to life the complexities of this disease, from its emotional and physical impact to its sometimes hidden historical, economic, political, and environmental dimensions. Chambers shows how bonds of sisterhood develop among the survivors, making them all stronger and ironically, bringing a great deal that is positive into their lives. The narrative dwells particularly on one, Harriette Grober, whose indomitable spirit in the face of twelve years of coping with metastatic cancer will serve as an inspiration to readers everywhere.

Because of her grandmother’s and her own experiences with breast cancer, Chambers speaks with authority on this subject. Her research and extensive involvement with survivors and cancer organizations allow her to provide a rich, mature perspective on the many complex facets of breast cancer.

Here’s what some experts are saying about Diane Lane Chambers’ Hearing the Stream: A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer:

“Written from the heart and well documented.”

—Kelly McAleese, MD, Diagnostic Radiology, Denver, Colorado

“[It] touches beneath the surface of this disease, sparking smiles and much emotion.”

—L.Michelle Bennett, PhD, research scientist, survivor, and teacher, Potomac, Maryland

“Harriette and the other women in Ms. Chambers’ book provide great inspiration to fight for what we need to eradicate: this terrible disease.”

—Karin Decker Noss, late President, Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation

“Accounts such as this of the human tool of breast cancer motivate me as a researcher—and should motivate us all—to redouble our many efforts to reduce further and

someday eradicate this disease.”

—Tim Byers, MD, MPH, Professor, Colorado School of Public Health, Deputy Director of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center

Hearing the Stream: A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Purchase in bookstores or order on line at: www.ellexapress.citymax.com.

$19.95 original trade paperback, 328 pages, illustrations, ISBN 978-0-9760967-1-9, LCCN 2006910198

By postal: send check, purchase order, or U.S. money order for $19.95

(plus $5.25 shipping and handling plus $.92 tax for Colorado residents) to:

Ellexa Press LLC, 32262 Steven Way, Conifer, CO 80433.

Phone: 303 591-1040

Fax : 303 838-7010

Email: dlc@ellexapress.citymax.com

Book Review by Allan Burns,

Colorado Springs, Colorado

The Sisterhood of Survivors

Hearing the Stream: a Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer by Diane Lane Chambers. $19.95 original trade paperback, ISBN 978-0-9760967-1-9, published by Ellexa Press LLC, 32262 Steven Way, Conifer, CO 80433, 303 591-1040.

Like everyone else who receives a cancer diagnosis, Diane Chambers was initially shocked and scared. She knew only two people who had battled breast cancer: her grandmother and a judge in whose court she had worked as a sign language interpreter. Both had died. Despite daily flashbacks to her grandmother’s tragic experience with disfiguring surgery, horrendous lymphedema in both arms, and burns from radiation, Diane accepted her diagnosis and began making decisions about what route to take with a competent team of doctors. She chose the only treatment that made sense for her: a mastectomy and reconstruction.

Six months later, as treatment and recovery began to fade like a bad dream, Diane began recovering her life. She had worked as a sign language interpreter since 1977 and published an acclaimed account of her experiences, Words in My Hands (Ellexa Press, 2005). But she soon learned that after cancer there was no going back to “life before cancer.” There was only “life after cancer,” and she quickly discovered it is not such a bad thing. She forged powerful bonds with a sisterhood of survivors—all people who had been through emotions and physical changes similar to her own. From Kim she learned the issues facing young single women with breast cancer. From Pat she learned how older women cope with diagnosis and treatment and from Sue how the mother of a baby struggled to save her own life. From Charlie she came to appreciate what men have to go through when diagnosed with a “female disease.”

Above all, from the extraordinary Harriette Grober, who had been on chemotherapy for an unprecedented nine years, she learned about a determination she had never imagined and how to be thankful and happy in each moment. She also learned to take Harriette’s advocacy as a model and became involved herself in raising levels of political and social awareness about the disease. Currently, Diane is an active member of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and the Association of Breast Cancer survivors and regularly participates in workshops, symposiums, and webcasts on cancer.

Hearing the Stream, the fruit of all she has experienced and learned as a cancer survivor, is an inspiring book that weaves together her own story and those of five others, thereby providing multiple perspectives on a complex disease that can be as different as the individual people who acquire it. As Dr. Tim Byers of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center says, “Accounts such as this of the human toll of breast cancer motivate me as a researcher—and should motivate us all—to redouble our many efforts to reduce further and someday eradicate this disease.”

All or part of this review may be used without further permission.

Testimonials from Readers

“Harriette and the other women in Ms. Chambers’ book provide great inspiration to fight for what we need to eradicate this terrible disease.”

—Karin Decker Noss, President, Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation

“I was shocked to read how hard cancer is , and to realize how little those of us who have not had to deal with it closely know about the reality—which is the reason for this book, I expect.”

—Jean Silk, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

“I found this book demystifying and a real celebration”

—Lisa Rigsby Petersen, daughter of Justice Linda T. Palmieri, Denver, CO

“Written from the heart and well documented. Mostly,excellent.”

—Kelly McAleese, M.D., Diagnostic Radiology, Denver, CO

“Hearing the Stream, A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer, touches beneath the surface of this disease, sparking smiles, and much emotion.”

—L. Michelle Bennett Ph.D., research scientist, survivor, and teacher, Potomac, MD.

“I could not put this book down. Hearing the Stream made me appreciate so much more all that you (my sister) went through with cancer, and how powerful the bonds become between women who share this awful experience. It is ironic how this terrible disease also has brought so much that is positive into your life.”

—Jeanie Silk, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Listen With Your Heart – ACS Booklet

jana — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:08:21 +0000

Listen With Your Heart: Talking With the Person Who Has Cancer

When someone close to you who has cancer starts to talk about the disease, do you change the subject? Do you stand in silence, worried that you’ll say the wrong thing? If so, you share these feelings with many others.

When talking with someone who has cancer, it is important to listen. Try to hear and understand what the person is saying about how they feel. Don’t make light of what they are saying or try to change the way they are feeling or acting. Put your own feelings and fears aside. Let the person know that you are open to talking whenever he or she feels like talking. Or if the person doesn’t feel like talking, that’s OK too.

Here we will share some ideas on how to be supportive and helpful when you talk with someone who has cancer. You can learn how to make the person with cancer know that they have someone they can truly count on. We call this kind of communication “listening with your heart.”

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MBC/MBC_4x_listen_with_your_heart.asp?sitearea=MBC