Agony and Absurdity: Adventures in Cancerland

Agony and Absurdity: Adventures in Cancerland PDF

Author: Meaghan Calcari Campbell

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-08-14

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781537095455

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Living with breast cancer can be absurd. Often, though, the absurdities are kept behind the curtain and shared only with other women living in Cancerland-the tactless comment from a co-worker about how attractive we used to be when we still had hair, breast implants that explode or prostheses that are left behind, accidentally, in the vacation house, and a new wig that makes a woman feel more like Tina Turner than herself. You'll never hear more raucous laughter than that coming from a room full of women sharing their breast cancer experiences. And, in a hot second, that room can turn into a puddle full of tears, given the agony of cancer-saying goodbye to parts of ourselves that are taken in the name of treatment, or to our sisters who do not survive this disease. In bringing these stories forward, we share the painful, the profound, and the ridiculous. We heal, too. And, through these stories, we hope to increase the understanding of the young patient and survivor experience, and to illuminate the dark spaces for those who will walk this path in the future.

Agony and Absurdity

Agony and Absurdity PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"Living with breast cancer can be absurd. Often, though, the absurdities are kept behind the curtain and shared only with other women living in Cancerland--the tactless comment from a co-worker about how attractive we used to be when we still had hair, breast implants that explode or prostheses that are left behind, accidentally, in the vacation house, and a new wig that makes a woman feel more like Tina Turner than herself. You'll never hear more raucous laughter than that coming from a room full of women sharing their breast cancer experiences. And, in a hot second, that room can turn into a puddle full of tears, given the agony of cancer--saying goodbye to parts of ourselves that are taken in the name of treatment, or to our sisters who do not survive this disease. In bringing these stories forward, we share the painful, the profound, and the ridiculous. We heal, too. And, through these stories, we hope to increase the understanding of the young patient and survivor experience, and to illuminate the dark spaces for those who will walk this path in the future."--Page [4] of cover.

The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of All Maladies PDF

Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-08-09

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1439170916

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.

Malignant

Malignant PDF

Author: S. Lochlann Jain

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0520276574

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"Cancer can kill: this fact makes it concrete. Still, it's a devious knave. Nearly every American will experience it up-close and all too personally, wondering why the billions of research dollars thrown at the word haven't exterminated it from the English language. Like a sapper diffusing a bomb, Jain unscrambles the emotional, bureaucratic, medical, and scientific tropes that create the thing we call cancer. Scientists debate even the most basic facts about the disease, while endlessly generated, disputed, population data produce the appearance of knowledge. Jain takes the vacuum at the center of cancer seriously and demonstrates the need to understand cancer as a set of relationships--economic, sentimental, medical, personal, ethical, institutional, statistical. Malignant analyzes the peculiar authority of the socio-sexual psychopathologies of body parts; the uneven effects of expertise and power; the potentially cancerous consequences of medical procedures such as IVF; the huge industrial investments that manifest themselves as bone-cold testing rooms; the legal mess of medical malpractice law; and the teeth-grittingly jovial efforts to smear makeup and wigs over the whole messy problem of bodies spiraling into pain and decay. Malignant examines the painful cognitive dissonances produced by the ways a culture that has relished dazzling success in every conceivable arena have twisted one of its staunchest failures into an economic triumph. The intractable foil to American achievement, cancer hands us -- on a silver platter and ready for Jain's incisively original dissection -- our sacrifice to the American Dream"--

Chris Beat Cancer

Chris Beat Cancer PDF

Author: Chris Wark

Publisher: Hay House, Inc

Published: 2021-01-05

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1401956130

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Now in paperback, the Wall Street Journal best-selling guide to charting a path from cancer to wellness through a toxin-free diet, lifestyle, and therapy--created by a colon cancer survivor. Millions of readers have followed Chris Wark's journey on his blog and podcast Chris Beat Cancer, and in his debut work, he dives deep into the reasoning and scientific foundation behind the approach and strategies that he used to successfully heal his body from stage-3 colon cancer. Drawing from the most up-to-date and rigorous research, as well as his deep faith, Wark provides clear guidance and continuous encouragement for his healing strategies, including his Beat Cancer Mindset; radical diet, and lifestyle changes; and means for mental, emotional, and spiritual healing. Packed with both intense personal insight and extensive healing solutions, the Wall Street Journal best-selling Chris Beat Cancer will inspire and guide you on your own journey toward wellness.

The Promise of Happiness

The Promise of Happiness PDF

Author: Sara Ahmed

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2010-04-06

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 082239278X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Promise of Happiness is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: “I just want you to be happy”; “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the “happiness duty,” the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in that which is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those willing to live their lives in the right way. Ahmed draws on the intellectual history of happiness, from classical accounts of ethics as the good life, through seventeenth-century writings on affect and the passions, eighteenth-century debates on virtue and education, and nineteenth-century utilitarianism. She engages with feminist, antiracist, and queer critics who have shown how happiness is used to justify social oppression, and how challenging oppression causes unhappiness. Reading novels and films including Mrs. Dalloway, The Well of Loneliness, Bend It Like Beckham, and Children of Men, Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who challenge and are challenged by the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant. Through her readings she raises critical questions about the moral order imposed by the injunction to be happy.

Talking Bodies Vol. II

Talking Bodies Vol. II PDF

Author: Bodie A. Ashton

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-05-07

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3030369943

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume brings together scholars from across disciplines and continents in order to continue to analyse, query, and deconstruct the complexities of bodily existence in the modern world. Comprising nine essays by leading and emerging scholars, and spanning issues ranging from literature, history, sociology, medicine, law and justice and beyond, Talking Bodies vol. II is a timely and prescient addition to the vital discussion of what bodies are, how we perceive them, and what they mean. As the essays of this volume demonstrate, it is imperative to question numerous established presumptions about both the manner by which our bodies perform their identities, and the processes by which their ownership can be impinged upon.

Mammographies

Mammographies PDF

Author: Mary K. DeShazer

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2018-05-09

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0472900986

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

While breast cancer continues to affect the lives of millions, contemporary writers and artists have responded to the ravages of the disease in creative expression. Mary K. DeShazer’s book looks specifically at breast cancer memoirs and photographic narratives, a category she refers to as mammographies, signifying both the imaging technology by which most Western women discover they have this disease and the documentary imperatives that drive their written and visual accounts of it. Mammographies argues that breast cancer narratives of the past ten years differ from their predecessors in their bold address of previously neglected topics such as the link between cancer and environmental carcinogens, the ethics and efficacy of genetic testing and prophylactic mastectomy, and the shifting politics of prosthesis and reconstruction. Mammographies is distinctive among studies of contemporary illness narratives in its exclusive focus on breast cancer, its analysis of both memoirs and photographic texts, its attention to hybrid and collaborative narratives, and its emphasis on ecological, genetic, transnational, queer, and anti-pink discourses. DeShazer’s methodology—best characterized as literary critical, feminist, and interdisciplinary—includes detailed interpretation of the narrative strategies, thematic contours, and visual imagery of a wide range of contemporary breast cancer memoirs and photographic anthologies. The author explores the ways in which the narratives constitute a distinctive testimonial and memorial tradition, a claim supported by close readings and theoretical analysis that demonstrates how these narratives question hegemonic cultural discourses, empower reader-viewers as empathic witnesses, and provide communal sites for mourning, resisting, and remembering.

The Wig Diaries: An Irreverent Cancer Book

The Wig Diaries: An Irreverent Cancer Book PDF

Author: Mary Ladd

Publisher: Wig Industries

Published: 2019-10-13

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 1734133317

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Wig Diaries is Mary Ladd's debut irreverent cancer book. Delivered with bold gallows humor, it intimately address the gravity of cancer and invites the reader to bear witness to both the horror and the joke(s). Armed with creative sensibility, Ladd robs her diagnosis of its dour weightiness. Refusing to tiptoe around the gnarlier elements of treatment and recovery, the narrative is powerful in its unvarnished honesty and contagious lust for life exemplified by hilarious anecdotes. A uniquely fresh modern and black comedy take on cancer Covers and pokes fun at everything from diagnosis to treatment to medical bills Illustrated by noted San Francisco Chronicle Bad Reporter cartoonist Don Asmussen “I love this book.” —Mary Roach, author of the books Grunt, Stiff, Spook, and Bonk “This looks like a hoot and a half. I want more.” —Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), author of A Series of Unfortunate Events “Clear-eyed, fun, and reassuring, it’s the perfect guide!” —Vanessa Hua, author of A River of Stars and Deceit and Other Possibilities

Conscious Uncoupling

Conscious Uncoupling PDF

Author: Katherine Woodward Thomas

Publisher: Harmony

Published: 2015-09-22

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0553447009

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

And Then They Lived Happily… We enter our romantic relationships with great love, hope, and excitement--we've found the 'one', so we plan and forge our futures together. But sometimes, for many different reasons, relationships come undone; they don't work out. Commonly, we view this as a personal failure, rather than an opportunity. And instead of honoring what we once meant to each other, we hoard bitterness and anger, stewing in shame and resentment. Sometimes even lashing out in destructive and hurtful ways, despite the fact that we’re good people at heart. That's natural: we're almost biologically primed to respond this way. Yet there is another path to the end of a relationship--one filled with mutual respect, kindness, and deep caring. Katherine Woodward Thomas's groundbreaking method, Conscious Uncoupling, provides the valuable skills and tools for you to travel this challenging terrain with these five thoughtful and thought-provoking steps: Step 1: Find Emotional Freedom Step 2: Reclaim Your Power and Your Life Step 3: Break the Pattern, Heal Your Heart Step 4: Become a Love Alchemist Step 5: Create Your Happy Even After Life This paradigm-shifting guide will steer you away from a bitter end and toward a new life that’s empowered and flourishing.