After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask

by Musa Mayer

Each year, around the world, over one million women will be told they have breast cancer. All will face surgery, and most will undergo radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal treatment. But the worry isn't over when treatment ends. In the months and years that follow, women are left with nagging questions, questions they often are afraid to Author and 14 year breast cancer survivor Musa Mayer breaks the silence surrounding recurrence to talk frankly about the feelings of uncertainty and fear that breast cancer patients commonly face when their treatment ends, and for years thereafter. She reviews scientific literature (and debunks some commonly cited myths) by giving survival statistics corrected for current treatments and diagnostic profiles. She explains what is known about the benefits of follow-up visits and testing. Devoting several chapters to emotional recovery, she offers advice about how to tackle these fears through information and support. Throughout the book are the warm and wise voices of over 40 other women who have been through this same tough journey of tears, fears and triumph.

196 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2003

About the author

Musa Mayer is an author, advocate, and 14-year breast cancer survivor. She left a career as a mental health counselor to pursue an MFA from Columbia University in writing. While she was a student at Columbia, she published her first book, Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston, her own story of growing up in the New York art world of the 1950s. Less than a year later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has since published two books on breast cancer: her 1993 memoir, Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery, Advanced Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living with Metastatic Disease (O'Reilly & Associates, 1998), the only book of its kind; and her latest, After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask. In After Breast Cancer, Mayer explores the the feelings of uncertainty and fear that breast cancer patients commonly face after treatment. She offers survival statistics and the voices of 40 breast cancer survivors to help readers cope and thrive.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous. Finally someone who has "been there" offering tips on how to do what everyone thinks you should be doing: get back to "normal". After having used all your strength to get this far, where do you go now? How can you "get back to normal" when the new "normal" is a place you have never been? Packed full of validation of the crazy emotions/fears/feelings that follow cancer treatment, I'd recommend this book to anyone finishing up treatment.

[Kayoc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting info, but a bit hard to get through all the statistics.

[D.]

You are advised to read the OTHER Patient-Centered guides