I picked this up at Book Fair Australia in 2024. I was both intrigued by the title and enamoured with the author. She was vivacious, young and quite happy to be alive. This book was eminently readable despite the subject matter. I only stopped once to write one note because it totally resonated with me.
Nissen talks to Cancer as if Cancer were a person. She talks to her emotions as if they’d stepped outside of her body and become a person in their own right. This technique is incredibly powerful. It made me feel as if there were several people in the room and that Nissen was fighting each and every one of them for her life.
And fight she did. She fought the guilt and all of the other negative emotions, right through to the end and came out victorious. Everyone says that you need to stay positive to get better. Not just from cancer, but from other health issues. But, I can attest that it’s really hard to keep up positive emotions day after day, after week, after month, after year. I don’t have anything that could kill me, but I take lots of meds to keep things at bay. Remaining positive is such a challenging thing to do. As Nissen shows, sometimes the positive just pops back up when you need it most.
She says ‘The year I had breast cancer was the best year of my life…’ Having read this book I believe it. The story is both easy and hard to read. Just about everyone knows someone who has had cancer or they’ve had it themselves. Some of those people died because of cancer. Having all of that in the back of my mind made this book a challenge to read. Remembering those I’ve lost too early thanks to cancer made this book hard to read. I can’t imagine it to be much different for many other people.
But, the writing style is friendly and approachable. The layout helped too. It included a chapter talking about the emotion she was highlighting. Then a smaller chapter with quotes from other cancer sufferers. This helps to bring other people into the story, make it not just about her, but also about others.
The emotions Nissen went through included Denial, Shock, Anger, Determination, Hostility, Guilt, Anticipation, Fear, and Gratitude. Each of the emotions I’ve named have their own chapter heading. I feel there are other emotions shown in this book, but these are the only ones given their own chapters. Other emotions are accounted for, albeit briefly.
One of the problems with this being a readable book is that I would start to type a sentence, the drop into the book to find something to illustrate what I was about to say. Several pages later I’ve dragged myself out of the book only to find the beginning of a thought sitting in front of me, but I can’t for the life of anyone remember what that thought was going to be.
Little things I’m taking away from this book. Apparently Fruit Tingles help with the taste of Chemo. And one of the things that can help a family going through the emotions and throes of cancer is a meal roster. If you can deliver a meal once a week and other people can deliver a meal another day that week then things can be easier. Although, I suggest you don’t all choose Lasagne. There are other dishes that can also be easily reheated.
That note that I wrote? ‘I’m sick of it all. on page 105’ I’ve not had cancer, but I can totally relate to this. I am so sick of taking medication, of seeing my doctor several times a year. He’s a nice man and he listens to me, something doctors haven’t always done. But I’d like a normal life where I do normal things…although I have no idea what normal is, but whatever. And Nissen was sick of everything. Sick of being patient, sick of being the patient, sick of being different, sick of it all. I said something similar about my meds just yesterday.