by Kathy Steligo
Breast cancer is scary and confusing. There are medical terms to learn, alternatives to consider and important decisions to make about your current and future health, all while trying to carry on with family, work and life. The Breast Cancer Book, which I co-authored with an oncologist and a breast surgeon, is a comprehensive resource that will help you make these difficult decisions, whether you’re at high risk for the disease, you’re dealing with a diagnosis, navigating treatment or you’re a survivor who is concerned about your future health.
The breast cancer experience is often described as a journey. And like any journey, you have two choices: make your way from start to finish not knowing what you’ll encounter or choosing to learn what to expect and planning for what lies ahead. Learning about breast cancer is the most powerful way to regain control and restore order in a situation that many previvors, patients and survivors describe as chaotic and disruptive. The Breast Cancer Book is a crash course on breast cancer; a road map to understanding each step of the way, so that you’ll have fewer surprises and unpleasant detours.This soup-to-nuts guide will boost your understanding so that you can move beyond fear and confusion, get through the physical and emotional challenges of the journey, become an engaged participant with your doctors and confidently make decisions about your care that are best for you and your future.
While many breast cancer resources are available, this new book reflects the latest scientific research and the newest treatments—some of which have been developed specifically for hereditary breast cancers—as well as proven strategies for coping. The book is practical, but also compassionate. It’s informative and up-to-date. Most importantly, it offers answers to so many questions that men and women have about breast cancer. (And many you haven’t yet thought of!).
The Breast Cancer Book explains the following (and much more):
- understanding breast cancer risk and strategies to reduce it
- the basics of cancer and hereditary risk and disease
- tools and technologies for screening and diagnosis
- treatment options, from lumpectomy or mastectomy (with or without reconstruction), chemotherapy, traditional and new radiation therapies, hormone treatments, and newer immunotherapies and targeted therapies.
- minimizing the risk of recurrence
- metastatic breast cancer issues
- recognizing and dealing with treatment side effects
- meeting the emotional challenges of breast cancer
- insurance and money matters
The Breast Cancer Book can’t reduce your risk of breast cancer, reverse a diagnosis or make the disease disappear, but every page in this multidisciplinary book can inform and empower you or your loved ones so that you can make the best decisions about diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care.
Available now: FORCE 30% discount from Johns Hopkins University Press (enter promotional code HTWN when checking out.) Also available on Amazon.
An editor for FORCE, Kathy Steligo is the author of The Breast Reconstruction Guidebook and co-author with Sue Friedman of Living with Hereditary Cancer Risk (coming August 2022).