The Award-Winning Essential Book about Dealing with Cancer
The emotions surrounding cancer are universal—none of us want to die. We just want things "like they were." But with a cancer diagnosis, a new entity has entered many lives, and whether patient, caregiver, friend, relative, or adult or minor child, we can all use some guidance when it comes to a disease that strikes fear in us. That’s what this book is all about.
“Cancer has many complexions,” writes Shirley Ruedy, former columnist for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I explored them all. I went into dark places that people hesitated to talk about: I said it was okay to wish a beloved but terminally ill family member or friend would ‘go,’ to end the unremitting suffering, for them, for us, for everyone.” |
This book is a compilation of those beloved columns, the ones readers taped to their computer monitors, posted on refrigerator doors, mailed to out-of-town friends and relatives, and squirreled away in their billfolds. They wrote to Shirley from Iowa towns, from distant states, from foreign countries. Columns were posted in doctors’ offices and on hospital bulletin boards. The columns resonated because Shirley had been “in the trenches.” She wasn’t a columnist on the outside looking in, she was a columnist/survivor on the inside looking out.
As a career journalist and three-time cancer survivor herself (breast cancer twice, and endometrial cancer), Shirley strongly believed what the public needed was a regular platform on cancer, a newspaper column devoted exclusively to the disease and the whole range of cancer experiences. Thus “Cancer Update” was born.
During her column’s long run as a fixture and beloved must-read in this major Iowa daily newspaper, Shirley gathered 30 journalism, health and civic awards, and gained national attention.
If you are dealing with any aspect of cancer, whether as a patient “insider” or a caring “outsider,” this is the definitive book for you.
Buy your book today and gift it to a friend dealing with some aspect of cancer.
As a career journalist and three-time cancer survivor herself (breast cancer twice, and endometrial cancer), Shirley strongly believed what the public needed was a regular platform on cancer, a newspaper column devoted exclusively to the disease and the whole range of cancer experiences. Thus “Cancer Update” was born.
During her column’s long run as a fixture and beloved must-read in this major Iowa daily newspaper, Shirley gathered 30 journalism, health and civic awards, and gained national attention.
If you are dealing with any aspect of cancer, whether as a patient “insider” or a caring “outsider,” this is the definitive book for you.
Buy your book today and gift it to a friend dealing with some aspect of cancer.