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

Weiss, Marisa; Weiss, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812930665 ISBN 13: 9780812930665

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1998

Synopsis

"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.

About this title

Review

"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

From the Publisher

"An extremely useful source of information for living."
--Bernie S. Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles

"This upbeat self-help manual for women making the transition from breast cancer patient to survivor captures the broad range of challenges that women experience after treatment ends. The book provides practical solutions to common problems as well as sensitive discussion of important feelings. I am looking forward to recommending this book to my patients."
--Patricia A. Ganz, M.D., professor, UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Edition details

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0812930665
• ISBN 13: 9780812930665
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544