Grit and Grace: Fighting Breast Cancer One Step at a Time

by Carrie S. Bell

Grit and Grace offers readers a window into the physical and emotional world of a breast cancer patient. What's it like to have chemo and lose your hair? Should you be open about your illness with family and friends? How do you feel before and after a mastectomy? Does radiation hurt? How do you get your life back once treatment is over? Grit and Grace answers these questions and more, providing insight and inspiration along the way.

179 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 15, 2014

Reviews

[M. Dobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Grit and Grace, Carrie S. Bell shares and bears her soul to provide knowledge and hope for all fighting cancer. All profits are donated to cancer charities. And she does it with love, passion, and honesty.

I met Carrie S Bell in a writer's critique group. That first time, she brought pages from her cancer-fighting memoir she was considering publishing, and I loved them. Last time we met, she handed me the published work! How thrilling to see her writing quest and her personal cancer journey at last in book form and in my hands.

We share a common love of the Sonoran Desert. The thesaurus offers alternatives to the word desert: wasteland, wilderness, waste, barren and arid region, desolate tract. Yet there are some of us who find solace, comfort, peace, and beauty there. It takes grit to not only survive the desert but to embrace it. We both admire the plants and animal life that adapted over time to flourish there. However, while I putz along on gentler slopes and less strenuous climbs with naked bow in hand, Carrie seeks the mountaintops.

In her cancer fighting memoir, Grit and Grace, she shares the ups, the downs, the in-betweens, and the difficult reality of fighting breast cancer. Her determination to trek to soaring desert peaks is the same determination she applied to her cancer battle.

We share something else, the dogged determination to pursue our writing passion.

I look forward to reading her future works of fiction, but dare I hope she'll bring the mountain tops and the desert with her into the works? I hope so!

With great admiration, Meg E Dobson, AKA M Evonne Dobson

[Jean Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated blog entries, some with postscript notes, trace the author's journey of just over one year (August 2011-December 2012) after receiving the life changing diagnosis of a serious form of breast cancer. She details the various treatments she went through and finally, breast reconstruction. I admire her ability to keep writing entries during the bad days and her decision to share the writing publicly through this book. It seems natural that a writer would want to record the experience and work through her feelings with words, cathartic and helpful self-talk - only later shared in this book. She is extraordinarily determined, positive and honest about the physical and mental components of her experience and serves as an inspiration to anyone facing not only cancer but any unthinkable occurrence in life.
p.s
Carrie, I'm eager to read that mystery you've been working on. Missed you in writing group this winter.

[Barclay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling, moving, and informative. Carrie Bell is a gifted writer with an important story to share. I recommend this book for those facing or recovering from breast cancer and those who love them.