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Breast Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction

Patricia Anstett

More than 100,000 American women undergo mastectomy and breast reconstruction every year because of breast cancer. Thousands more are having double mastectomies to prevent it. So much has been written about breast cancer, and so much overlooks the reality of reconstruction when a woman has a mastectomy and opts for this process. It is difficult, painful, and traumatizing at times. Most women do not emerge with a new set of breasts and nipples in a single operation. Breast reconstruction usually takes months and can take years to finish. Some women never do, living without nipples or with imperfect results. Others opt not to have reconstruction at all. Still others struggle with one of the biggest women's health questions today: lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy? Breast Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction offers a glimpse into the big picture of the various stages and types of breast reconstruction using stories and photos of real women. It offers a true picture of what breast reconstruction entails, and offers hope to those facing it. This is a book to help women with a variety of issues surrounding their choices, with powerful insights from women who have been there.

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The Breast Cancer Survival Manual, Sixth Edition

John Link, M.D.

One of the most comprehensive and bestselling books on breast cancer treatment and survival, completely revised and updated

The sixth edition of Breast Cancer Survival Manual provides essential updates on treatment and care, enhancing the basic information that has made this the most trusted guide for women diagnosed with breast cancer for the past two decades. This edition includes the most current advice on:
· The new genomic classification of breast cancer and its importance in treatment planning
· Cancer gene testing, which determines if a woman will benefit from chemotherapy
· New developments in breast cancer treatments with new targeted agents
· The continued importance of getting a second opinion: why it’s important, what questions to ask, and how to decide which team of doctors is best for you.

Conscious of the rapidly evolving spectrum of treatment options, Dr. John Link outlines the latest findings and professional wisdom for patients in pursuit of the most effective treatment plan for them. The Breast Cancer Survival Manual continues to be a must-have for any woman seeking accurate and accessible information about managing breast cancer today.

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Bald Is Better with Earrings

Andrea Hutton

The breast cancer guide every woman needs for herself, her best friend, and her sister—a warm, practical, relatable handbook, that dispels the terror, taking you step-by-step through the process, from diagnosis to post-treatment.

When Andrea Hutton was diagnosed with breast cancer, she wanted to know everything. She voraciously read books, articles, and websites and talked to everyone she knew. But nothing prepared her for what the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation would feel like. Were there tricks that could ease her pain and discomfort? What was “fatigue” and how would it affect her? At what exact moment would her hair fall out and how? Hutton wanted what she could not find: a clear how-to guide for the cancer girl she had become.

Bald Is Better with Earrings is Hutton’s answer for women diagnosed with breast cancer: a straightforward handbook, leavened with humor and inspiration, to shepherd them though the experience. Warm and down-to-earth, Hutton explains what to expect and walks you through this intense and emotional process: tests, surgery, chemo, losing your hair and shaving your head, being bald, radiation treatments.

Hutton offers a wealth of invaluable advice—from tricks for surviving chemo, to treating your skin during radiation, to keeping track of meds—and includes a practical list of tips for each stage of the process at the end of every chapter. Compassionate, friendly, and shaped by Hutton’s first-hand knowledge, Bald Is Better with Earrings is the comprehensive, essential companion for anyone dealing with breast cancer.

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Had I Known

Joan Lunden

In this brave and deeply personal memoir, one of America’s most beloved journalists, mother, and New York Times bestselling author speaks candidly about her battle against breast cancer, her quest to learn about it and teach others, and the transformative effect it’s had on her life.

When former Good Morning America host Joan Lunden was diagnosed with breast cancer, she set out to learn everything about it to help her survive. With seven children counting on her, giving up was not an option. After announcing her diagnosis on Good Morning America, people all over the country rallied around Joan as she went into Warrior mode. Within a few months, after losing her hair, Joan appeared on the cover of People magazine bald, showing the world she could, and would, beat the disease. Determined to remain upbeat—to look in the mirror with a brave face—her resolve empowered women everywhere. The Today show quickly recruited Joan as a special correspondent and continues to follow her progress.

A deeply personal and powerful story of pain, persistence, and perseverance, Had I Known is a chronicle of Joan’s experience and the plan she formulated and followed to battle with her disease and treatment. As Joan reveals, while her journey was not easy, it profoundly changed her in unexpected ways. Her odyssey helped Joan redefine herself, her values, and most of all, her health. Following a new clean way of eating, Joan lost thirty pounds, became more aware of the food she was eating, and avoided many of the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy.

Dealing with the cancer also changed her perception of true beauty. Being attractive isn’t about the hair on your head—it’s about the strength and character you bring to everything you do. Positive yet down-to-earth, told with piercing honesty leavened with warmth and humor, Had I Known offers unforgettable, inspirational lessons for us all.

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Breasts

Kristi Funk

A national bestseller! Breast cancer surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk offers a comprehensive and encouraging approach to breast care and breast cancer. Empower yourself with facts and strategies to understand your breasts, reduce your cancer risk, and open your eyes to interventions and treatments.

Most women don't want to hear about breast cancer unless they have it and need to make some decisions, but these days news about breast cancer--the number one killer of women ages twenty to fifty-nine--is everywhere. Chances are you know someone who has had it. But did you know that choices you make every day bring you closer to breast cancer--or move you farther away? That there are ways to reduce your risk factors? And that many of the things you've heard regarding the causes of breast cancer are flat-out false?

Based on Dr. Kristi Funk's experience as a board-certified breast cancer surgeon, she knows for a fact that women have the power to reduce breast cancer risk in dramatic ways. Many women believe that family history and genetics determine who gets breast cancer, but that's not true for most people. In fact, 87 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer do not have a single first-degree relative with breast cancer.

This book will help you:

  • Learn the breast-health basics that every woman should know
  • Reduce your cancer risk and recurrence risk based on food choices and healthy lifestyle changes backed by rigorous scientific research
  • Understand the controllable and uncontrollable risk factors for breast cancer
  • Outline your medical choices if you're at elevated risk for or are already navigating life with breast cancer

There have been few solid guidelines on how to improve your breast health, lower your risk of getting cancer, and make informed medical choices after treatment--until now. With her book available in 10 languages and in more than 30 countries, Dr. Funk is passionate about her mission of educating as many women as possible about what they can do to stop breast cancer before it starts.

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It Takes a Worried Man

Brendan Halpin

“When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, I joked that I couldn’t decide between alcoholism and overeating as a coping strategy. My wife suggested I write about it instead. She is always right. I couldn’t write a cloying, sentimental story of inspiring courage, so instead I wrote what was real to me—fear, lust, annoyance, love, fatigue, resentment, existential terror, horror movies, alcohol, and country music. It’s not pretty, but it is real. I hope you like it.” This book is a horror story and a comedy, but, most of all, it is a love story. It is the story of what happens to a man who fears that his best friend might leave him forever. Feeling helpless, angry, and scared, Brendan Halpin sat down at his computer late at night or early in the morning and wrote. Pages poured out of him whenever something struck him as funny, whenever he was annoyed with a medical professional or family member, whenever he was terrified, and whenever he couldn’t sleep—in other words, every day. What came out is sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious, but always honest—a journey into the head of a man whose wife is critically ill. This book will take you to the depths of fear and despair. It will also make you laugh until you feel sick. If that sounds contradictory, well, start reading.

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Everybody's Got Something

Robin Roberts

"Regardless of how much money you have, your race, where you live, what religion you follow, you are going through something. Or you already have or you will. As momma always said, "Everybody's got something."

So begins beloved Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts's new memoir in which she recounts the incredible journey that's been her life so far, and the lessons she's learned along the way. With grace, heart, and humor, she writes about overcoming breast cancer only to learn five years later that she will need a bone marrow transplant to combat a rare blood disorder, the grief and heartbreak she suffered when her mother passed away, her triumphant return to GMA after her medical leave, and the tremendous support and love of her family and friends that saw her through her difficult times.

Following her mother's advice to "make your mess your message," Robin taught a nation of viewers that while it is true that we've all got something -- a medical crisis to face, aging parents to care for, heartbreak in all its many forms --- we've also all got something to give: hope, encouragement, a life-saving transplant or a spirit-saving embrace. As Robin has learned, and what readers of her remarkable story will come to believe as well, it's all about faith, family and friends. And finding out that you are stronger, much stronger, than you think.

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Let Me Get This Off My Chest

Margaret Lesh

Tamoxifen hot flashes, mastectomy, reconstruction, breast cancer etiquette, Frankenboobs, bras with special attachments-Margaret Lesh shares all in her funny, heartfelt collection of essays, anecdotes, and life lessons from the perspective of a two-time breast cancer survivor. She'll tell you when it's okay to play the cancer card, what you should take to the hospital, and gives suggestions on how to cope in those dark moments of the soul. With practical tips sprinkled throughout, LET ME GET THIS OFF MY CHEST explores how breast cancer changed her outlook on life, offering honest insights, humor, and sensitivity as she looks for the silver lining in a not-so-great situation. Whether you are a woman diagnosed with breast cancer or whether you know someone with breast cancer, this book was written for you.

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Pretty is what Changes

Jessica Queller

Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA “breast cancer” gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality.

Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman’s life.Pretty Is What Changesis an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy.

Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives?

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The Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Book

Lynn C. Hartmann

From the breast health experts at Mayo Clinic comes a guide to the many aspects of breast cancer—from prevention, to care and coping, to survival, to living with hope. Trustworthy information offered in a spirit of companionship.

The Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Book is the trusted resource for anyone wanting reliable information about this dreaded disease. Mayo Clinic set out to provide comprehensive and up-to-date facts in easy-to-understand language. They've succeeded in this handbook for those who've been diagnosed, or for those who want to give sensitive and helpful support to someone with breast cancer. The Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Book stands out for its tone of companionship, as well as for the many patient stories that appear throughout the book. 

This straightforward, yet approachable resource will empower all who are affected by breast cancer. Here are facts about the disease, but also suggestions and inspiration for working effectively with one's doctors and caregivers. This volume offers solid tools for coping with the many uncertainties and decisions that need to be made when one is diagnosed.

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Promise Me

Nancy Brinker

Suzy and Nancy Goodman were more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, and partners in the grand adventure of life. For three decades, nothing could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not miles. Then Suzy got sick. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1977; three agonizing years later, at thirty-six, she died.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Goodman girls were raised in postwar Peoria, Illinois, by parents who believed that small acts of charity could change the world. Suzy was the big sister--the homecoming queen with an infectious enthusiasm and a generous heart. Nancy was the little sister--the tomboy with an outsized sense of justice who wanted to right all wrongs. The sisters shared makeup tips, dating secrets, plans for glamorous fantasy careers. They spent one memorable summer in Europe discovering a big world far from Peoria. They imagined a long life together--one in which they'd grow old together surrounded by children and grandchildren.
Suzy's diagnosis shattered that dream.

In 1977, breast cancer was still shrouded in stigma and shame. Nobody talked about early detection and mammograms. Nobody could even say the words "breast" and "cancer" together in polite company, let alone on television news broadcasts. With Nancy at her side, Suzy endured the many indignities of cancer treatment, from the grim, soul-killing waiting rooms to the mistakes of well-meaning but misinformed doctors. That's when Suzy began to ask Nancy to promise. To promise to end the silence. To promise to raise money for scientific research. To promise to one day cure breast cancer for good. Big, shoot-for-the-moon promises that Nancy never dreamed she could fulfill. But she promised because this was her beloved sister.
I promise, Suzy. . . . Even if it takes the rest of my life.

Suzy's death--both shocking and senseless--created a deep pain in Nancy that never fully went away. But she soon found a useful outlet for her grief and outrage. Armed only with a shoebox filled with the names of potential donors, Nancy put her formidable fund-raising talents to work and quickly discovered a groundswell of grassroots support. She was aided in her mission by the loving tutelage of her husband, restaurant magnate Norman Brinker, whose dynamic approach to entrepreneurship became Nancy's model for running her foundation. Her account of how she and Norman met, fell in love, and managed to achieve the elusive "true marriage of equals" is one of the great grown-up love stories among recent memoirs.

Nancy's mission to change the way the world talked about and treated breast cancer took on added urgency when she was herself diagnosed with the disease in 1984, a terrifying chapter in her life that she had long feared. Unlike her sister, Nancy survived and went on to make Susan G. Komen for the Cure into the most influential health charity in the country and arguably the world. A pioneering force in cause-related marketing, SGK turned the pink ribbon into a symbol of hope everywhere. Each year, millions of people worldwide take part in SGK Race for the Cure events. And thanks to the more than $1.5 billion spent by SGK for cutting-edge research and community programs, a breast cancer diagnosis today is no longer a death sentence. In fact, in the time since Suzy's death, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer has risen from 74 percent to 98 percent.

Promise Me is a deeply moving story of family and sisterhood, the dramatic "30,000-foot view" of the democratization of a disease, and a soaring affirmative to the question: Can one person truly make a difference?

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Bald, Fat & Crazy

Stephanie Hosford

Stephanie Hosford has a big decision to make. For her 20-year high school reunion, how should she style her hair? Little does she know, in a few months it won't matter - she'll be bald. And huge. What woman wouldn't go a little crazy? After receiving a cancer diagnosis and a positive pregnancy test within days of each other, Stephanie, a happily married mother of one and in the midst of an international adoption, is suddenly fighting for her life, her children - and her sanity. Get ready to laugh, cry, gasp, and cheer on the ultimate 9-month roller coaster that takes us everywhere from the treadmill, to infusion rooms, and even across oceans. You will not forget this wild, true and ultimately satisfying story of love, motherhood and finding the inner strength we all hope is there when we need it.

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Surviving Cancer

Joseph E. Bosiljevac

This is the story of a patient with Stage III breast cancer who chose treatment using complementary and alternative methods over conventional medical therapy. She is currently seventeen years post diagnosis with no evidence of tumor. Her personal story in her own words is presented as well as a scientific analysis by the author as a medical case study. A commentary about use of conventional and alternative methods in cancer and overall health is included.

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Don't Bet Against Me!

Deanna Favre

The wife of Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, Deanna was inadvertently thrust into the spotlight when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. Now cancer-free, Deanna is one of breast cancer's leading activists, speaking and raising financial support for women who are “medically underserved” (uninsured or under-insured). Deanna's story shares the role her faith has played in her life—from her years as a single mom and her high profile marriage to Brett, to her battle with breast cancer and the work she is currently doing through the HOPE Foundation. Includes 24 pages of color photos, a foreword by Brett Favre, and an afterword by Brittany and Breleigh Favre.

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The Bright Hour

Nina Riggs

An exquisite memoir about how to live—and love—every day with “death in the room,” from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air.

“We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other.”

Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer—one small spot. Within a year, the mother of two sons, ages seven and nine, and married sixteen years to her best friend, received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal.

How does one live each day, “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty?

Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs’s breathtaking memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in his gorgeous When Breath Becomes Air. She asks, what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time?

Brilliantly written, disarmingly funny, and deeply moving, The Bright Hour is about how to love all the days, even the bad ones, and it’s about the way literature, especially Emerson, and Nina’s other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. It’s a book about looking death squarely in the face and saying “this is what will be.”

Especially poignant in these uncertain times, The Bright Hour urges us to live well and not lose sight of what makes us human: love, art, music, words.

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My Louise

David Collins

A moving account of a young woman's tragic struggle with breast cancer, and her bereaved husband's fight to control his grief and provide a home for their two-year-old daughter. At the age of 34, while seven-months pregnant with her first child, Louise Mooney Collins first discovered the breast cancer that would forever alter the lives of Louise, her husband David, and the daughter who would soon arrive to join their harrowing struggleone that ultimately ended with Louise's death nearly three years later. From those experiences and his ensuing grief, and from recollections of the couple's love affair and journeys into his deeper past, David Collins has created this hauntingly beautiful memoir.

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