Previvors

Previvors PDF Author: Dina Roth Port
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110144391X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The first guide to all surgical and nonsurgical options for women with a high risk for breast cancer. Advances in genetic testing and risk assessment have changed the face of medicine, but with them has come a Pandora's box of dilemmas. Imagine discovering you had a significant risk for developing breast cancer. What would you do? Through the incredible true stories of five young friends, as well as interviews with more than seventy top breast cancer experts, health writer Dina Roth Port addresses the universal questions of women everywhere who have watched family members suffer from the disease and wondered, "Am I next?" Full of practical information, Previvors is the first comprehensive book to guide women through the difficult process of determining their risk, weighing the options, and coping with the emotions of deciding to undergo surgery. Readers will learn: •The pros and cons of getting tested for the BRCA gene •How to decide between surgical or nonsurgical options •The latest research in breast cancer surveillance •The advanced new world of breast reconstruction •How to overcome body image and sex issues post-surgery, and more From navigating health insurance coverage to finding the right medical team, Previvors is an invaluable resource for women facing decisions about their risk and future health. Watch a Video

Previvors

Previvors PDF Author: Dina Roth Port
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110144391X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first guide to all surgical and nonsurgical options for women with a high risk for breast cancer. Advances in genetic testing and risk assessment have changed the face of medicine, but with them has come a Pandora's box of dilemmas. Imagine discovering you had a significant risk for developing breast cancer. What would you do? Through the incredible true stories of five young friends, as well as interviews with more than seventy top breast cancer experts, health writer Dina Roth Port addresses the universal questions of women everywhere who have watched family members suffer from the disease and wondered, "Am I next?" Full of practical information, Previvors is the first comprehensive book to guide women through the difficult process of determining their risk, weighing the options, and coping with the emotions of deciding to undergo surgery. Readers will learn: •The pros and cons of getting tested for the BRCA gene •How to decide between surgical or nonsurgical options •The latest research in breast cancer surveillance •The advanced new world of breast reconstruction •How to overcome body image and sex issues post-surgery, and more From navigating health insurance coverage to finding the right medical team, Previvors is an invaluable resource for women facing decisions about their risk and future health. Watch a Video

Facing The Unknown A Previvor's Path to Wellness

Facing The Unknown A Previvor's Path to Wellness PDF Author: Keisha M Brown
Publisher: Keisha M Brown
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
In "Facing the Unknown: A Previvor's Path to Wellness," join author Keisha Brown on a courageous and transformative journey of self-discovery. This powerful memoir delves into the author's personal odyssey, marked by resilience, strength, and the pursuit of wellness after facing the life-altering decision of undergoing a bilateral double mastectomy. As a previvor, Keisha shares her intimate experiences, providing a heartfelt account of the emotional and physical challenges that come with such a profound decision. Through eloquent storytelling, she navigates the complexities of living as a previvor, shedding light on the emotional rollercoaster, moments of doubt, and the triumphs of self-empowerment. This book is not just a memoir; it's a guide for those who may be walking a similar path, offering insights into coping mechanisms, wellness practices, and the importance of embracing one's own body. Delving into the intricacies of post-mastectomy life, Keisha addresses topics such as self-care, mental health, and the transformative power of self-love. Embark on a transformative narrative that transcends the boundaries of a traditional memoir, as "Facing the Unknown" empowers readers to embrace their own journeys and find strength in the face of uncertainty. This book is for: Previvors and Survivors: Individuals who have undergone or are contemplating a bilateral double mastectomy, as well as those navigating the challenges of life as a previvor. Patients and Families Facing Similar Decisions: Individuals facing decisions related to mastectomy or other significant medical procedures, along with their families and support networks seeking understanding and guidance. Healthcare Professionals: Medical professionals, including surgeons, oncologists, and mental health practitioners, who want insights into the emotional and psychological aspects of patients undergoing such surgeries. Support Groups and Communities: Members of support groups and communities focused on breast cancer, mastectomy, and previvorship looking for shared experiences and inspiration. Advocacy Organizations: Organizations dedicated to breast health, cancer awareness, and previvor support, seeking narratives that raise awareness and provide valuable perspectives. General Readers Interested in Personal Growth: Individuals interested in personal growth, resilience, and self-discovery, as the book goes beyond medical aspects to explore universal themes of strength and empowerment. Women's Health and Wellness Enthusiasts: Readers interested in women's health, wellness practices, and narratives that emphasize self-care and self-love. Media and Journalists: Journalists, bloggers, and media professionals covering health, wellness, and personal stories, seeking impactful narratives for their audiences.

Confronting Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer

Confronting Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer PDF Author: Sue Friedman
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421404451
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
"Be informed. Be empowered. Be well." If you are concerned that the cancer in your family is hereditary, you face difficult choices. Should you have a blood test that may reveal whether you have a high likelihood of disease? Do you preemptively treat a disease that may never develop? How do you make decisions now that will affect the rest of your life? This helpful, informative guide answers your questions as you confront hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Developed by Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE), the nation’s only nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting families affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, this book stands alone among breast and ovarian cancer resources. Equal parts health guide and memoir, it defines complex issues facing previvors and survivors and provides solutions with a fresh, authoritative voice. Written by three passionate advocates for the hereditary cancer community who are themselves breast cancer survivors, Confronting Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer dispels myths and misinformation and presents practical risk-reducing alternatives and decision-making tools. Including information about genetic counseling and testing, preventive surgery, and fertility and family planning, as well as explanations of health insurance coverage and laws protecting genetic privacy, this resource tackles head-on the challenges of living in a high-risk body. Confronting hereditary cancer is a complex, confusing, and highly individual journey. With its unique combination of the latest research, expert advice, and compelling personal stories, this book gives previvors, survivors, and their family members the guidance they need to face the unique challenges of hereditary cancer.

Beat Breast Cancer Like a Boss

Beat Breast Cancer Like a Boss PDF Author: Ali Rogin
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 1635767105
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Edie Falco, Sheryl Crow, Athena Jones, and other breast cancer survivors and “previvors” tell their powerful, inspiring stories in this collection. Drawing from first-hand interviews of successful, high-profile women from myriad industries and perspectives, award-winning journalist Ali Rogin brings together an all-star support and recovery team to inspire anyone confronting a cancer diagnosis, along with their loved ones. Learn how preeminent actresses, musicians, politicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs faced a formidable disease and put it in its place. In their own words, the women of Beat Breast Cancer Like a Boss inform and encourage other women by sharing their experiences and advice. Learn how they told loved ones about their diagnoses, navigated treatment options, and managed the work/life/cancer balance. Rogin, too, faced great uncertainty when she tested positively for the BRCA1 genetic mutation at age twenty. She found answers in the vibrant community of breast cancer survivors and “previvors” who also stared down the odds. With her brave decision to undergo a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy before even graduating college, Rogin joined this diverse sisterhood of women confronting breast cancer in its many forms with dignity, strength, and humor.

Why Is Mommy Having Surgery? She Looks Ok to Me

Why Is Mommy Having Surgery? She Looks Ok to Me PDF Author: Heather Barnard
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781514713952
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
This sensitive true story of preventive mastectomy and implant breast reconstruction, as written by Heather Barnard in Why is Mommy Having Surgery, will hopefully encourage families to explore their feelings, understand the process, and open the communication to what can be a difficult subject. This book helps children understand what having BRCA means, why mommy is choosing to have preventive surgery and what that process will entail. With a forward written by Dr. Chrysopoulo, breast reconstruction microsurgeon , we hope this book will become a valuable resource for the many women with BRCA looking into preventive measures.

The Breast Reconstruction Guidebook

The Breast Reconstruction Guidebook PDF Author: Kathy Steligo
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421407205
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
For a decade The Breast Reconstruction Guidebook has been the best resource on this topic for women who have had a mastectomy. Equal parts science and support, it is filled with stories that illustrate the emotional and physical components of breast reconstruction. Readers will find advice about choosing a doctor and a procedure, insurance and payment issues, how to prepare for surgery, and what to expect during recovery. Expert commentary by physicians and insights from patients inform this book, as does the exhaustive research by the author, a two-time breast cancer survivor who has twice had reconstructive surgery. New in this edition are discussions of• the pros and cons of saline and silicone implants • solutions for post-lumpectomy cosmetic problems• new immediate-delayed reconstruction when post-mastectomy radiation may be required• the benefits and limitations of nipple-sparing mastectomy• considerations for direct-to-implant reconstruction• newly developed tissue flap procedures • who can best apply nipple and areola tattoos and why tattoos may not last• enriching fat with stem cells so it stays in the breast• patient-controlled tissue expansion • how insurance and health care reform affect reconstruction -- Brice W. McKane, M.D., F.A.C.S., Texas Center for Breast Reconstruction

Women's Health Advocacy

Women's Health Advocacy PDF Author: Jamie White-Farnham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429574967
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Women’s Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity—the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women’s health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women’s health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women’s studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

A Cancer in the Family

A Cancer in the Family PDF Author: Theodora Ross, MD, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698197895
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A Kirkus Best Book of 2016 Oncologist and cancer gene hunter Theo Ross delivers the first authoritative, go-to for people facing a genetic predisposition for cancer There are 13 million people with cancer in the United States, and it’s estimated that about 1.3 million of these cases are hereditary. Yet despite advanced training in cancer genetics and years of practicing medicine, Dr. Theo Ross was never certain whether the history of cancers in her family was simple bad luck or a sign that they were carriers of a cancer-causing genetic mutation. Then she was diagnosed with melanoma, and for someone with a dark complexion, melanoma made no sense. It turned out there was a genetic factor at work. Using her own family’s story, the latest science of cancer genetics, and her experience as a practicing physician, Ross shows readers how to spot the patterns of inherited cancer, how to get tested for cancer-causing genes, and what to do if you have one. With a foreword by Siddartha Mukherjee, prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies, this will be the first authoritative, go-to for people facing inherited cancer, this book empowers readers to face their genetic heritage without fear and to make decisions that will keep them and their families healthy.

The Pink Moon Lovelies

The Pink Moon Lovelies PDF Author: Nicki Boscia Durlester
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781480271289
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
The Pink Moon Lovelies are members of the Facebook group Beyond the Pink Moon, named after Nicki Boscia Durlester's memoir that intimately chronicles her journey after a breast cancer diagnosis. Nicki created the group to provide an active forum for discussion to raise awareness about the BRCA gene and breast and ovarian cancer. She never dreamed her homespun story would travel around the globe and Beyond the Pink Moon would become a support group for people from all walks of life coming together to lift each other up with inspiration, humor, faith and love. With Lovelies in Australia, Canada, England, France, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Tasmania and the USA, Nicki, a BRCA2 survivor, and fellow moderator, Melissa Johnson Voight, a BRCA1 previvor, whose journey of steadfast faith and courage of conviction is included in this book, have encouraged their members to tell their stories with one goal in mind, to save lives. With a Foreword written by renowned breast surgeon, Dr. Kristi Funk, this riveting collection of 50 stories includes: the unflinching account of Barbie Ritzco, a United States Marine who kept silent about discovering a lump in her breast in order to deploy with her unit to Afghanistan, putting her country before her health, the moving story of Ally Durlester, Nicki's daughter, a 25 year old BRCA2 previvor who will undergo prophylactic surgery to try to avoid the same fate as her mother, grandmother and six great-aunts who all had breast, ovarian or fallopian tube cancer, the frustrating story of Erika Grogin Lange, an Israeli Lovely and mother of five, whose nagging symptoms of fatigue, nausea and bloating went undiagnosed for months until she heard the shocking news that she had Stage III ovarian cancer, and the unpredictable journey of Susan Long Martucci, a two-time breast cancer survivor, disease free for 13 years, blindsided by another diagnosis. She is the beacon of hope who coined the term Pink Moon Lovelies. Each story is compelling and has an important message to impart. The Pink Moon Lovelies, Empowering Stories of Survival concludes with the story of the incomparable May Smith, the 32 year old South African Lovely who left a legacy of extraordinary courage, grace and love. Hers was a life well lived. When May sadly passed away on July 22, 2012 from breast cancer she left the Pink Moon Lovelies with one final message filled with wisdom and advice beyond her years. Her emotional eulogy written by Nicki Boscia Durlester is also included. Two women who never met in person but whose love transcended time and space. The power of the Pink Moon! Cover art and design by Ithaca, New York artist and breast cancer survivor, Shera Delia. All proceeds from the sales of this book will go to Beyond the Pink Moon non-profit and will be donated to breast and ovarian cancer research.

What We Have

What We Have PDF Author: Amy Boesky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101458933
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Read Amy Boesky's blogs and view other content on the Penguin Community. The stirring true story of a woman who chose fearlessness in the face of a fatal family legacy and discovered the pleasure of living each moment to its fullest At thirty-two, Amy Boesky thought she had it all figured out: a wonderful new man in her life, a great job, and the (nearly) perfect home. For once, she was almost able to shake the terrible fear that had gripped her for as long as she could remember. Women in her family had always died young-from cancer-and she and her sisters had grown up in time's shadow. It colored every choice they made and was beginning to come to a head now that each of them approached thirty-five-the deadline their doctors prescribed for having preventive surgery with the hope they could thwart their family's medical curse. But Amy didn't want to dwell on that now. She wanted to plan for a new baby, live her life. And with the appreciation for life's smallest pleasures, she did just that. In What We Have, Amy shares a deeply transformative year in her family's life and invites readers to join in their joy, laughter, and grief. In a true story as compelling as the best in women's fiction, written with the sagacity of Joan Didion and the elegance of Amy Bloom, Amy Boesky's journey celebrates the promise of a full life, even in the face of uncertainty.