This book is a remarkable testimony to the importance of psychological care, often missing in even our best cancer centres. Written by a psychologist and counsellor, who actually has been on her own cancer journey, she is well placed to analyse the basis of uncertainty every cancer patient will feel for the rest of their lives.
The book is very readable and gratifyingly free of psycho-babble. It's very suitable for patients and their families as a useful aid to discussion. It contains interesting interviews with various cancer professionals who put forward their own perspectives.
But the take home message is that whilst we can now cure more half of our cancer patients we need to do more to make sure their quality of life in body, mind and spirit is made as perfect as possible. Dr Galgut's short book is an excellent and thoughtful way into to this complex area for patients and indeed all health professionals dealing with cancer.
-- Professor Karol Sikora, Consultant Oncologist
I have made so many notes, reading the book, that it looks like it has developed a severe case of measles. But the beauty of the book is that Dr. Galgut used medical language, albeit in easy-to-understand-form, so the reader can grab sentences from the copy and drop them into official letters, and use these when you write a letter about your treatment. There are lots of phrases to use that spring out from the pages, and after all - this is written by a doctor, so they gather their arguments in a 'medical' rather than an emotive way.
Read it to reassure yourself you are NOT making a fuss. Here is a doctor who has experiencd the 'other' side, and is honest enough to admit there is a lot wrong with the way cancer patients can be treated. As I read it, I was nodding to myself in agreement - here was someone who had experiened the same problems as I had.
* After Cancer *
This book is a little package of experiences: not everyone suffers them but many do. Surely it's time to be realistic about the consequences of cancer treatment, the side effects which may last a lifetime.
Truth telling is important but many shy away from facing hard experiences. Nevertheless it's time to be realistic about the short and long term side effects of cancer treatment for men as well as women. Not everyone suffers the life long pain and the fears, as well as the failure of those around them to understand, but very many do.
Anyone who has read a previous book by Cordelia Galgut will know that she can make the hardest things readable and interesting, as she does here.
All of us, doctors and patients, need this hard-hitting and truthful book.
-- Ruth McCurry, Retired teacher and publisher
Being diagnosed with a malignant melanoma was the start of a journey, the most terrifying of my life as I go from check up to check up paranoid that every ache or pain is something sinister. I know that it's not a short journey I am in this for the long haul.
Cordelia's book clearly illustrates what living with cancer is really like in a very honest, open and informative way from both from a sufferer's and counselling psychologist's perspective. It's particularly invaluable because she includes practical strategies for coping longer term, including allowing yourself to accept that what you are experiencing is real, and enabling you to have the conversations you need to have with medical professionals.
-- Liz Lane, Retired Managing Director
The commitment, courage and insight of Ms Galgut displayed in this comprehensive account of the challenges of cancer survivorship 'from the front line' is both remarkable and inspiring.
As one who has tried to support and campaign for hundreds of patients in these situations over thirty years I know that she speaks from the heart about what we all think, feel and endure.
We can sincerely empathise with those living with fear and isolation in a world which says, 'Be glad you are alive'.
This book needs wide distribution to sufferers in need of comfort and support. And -just as importantly - to medical professionals as a plea to listen and try to understand.
-- Jan Millington, Cancer survivor with 'late effects'
This is a very significant and
courageous book for health
professionals, patients, carers
and family members written by a
psychologist who was first diagnosed
with bilateral breast cancer 15 years
ago and is the author of two earlier
books on emotional and physical
effects of living with cancer... The chapters cover the struggle
of facing up to long-term effects,
the dread of recurrence, effects of
cancer on relationships and work,
and more detailed interviews with a
nurse and three doctors as well as a
separate chapter on the experience
after treatment with male cancers.
The book is clearly structured and
written, with excellent summaries
aimed at different constituencies. The
analysis is incisive and frank: some
of the deepest issues arise from an
unconscious denial of our mortality
when faced with the implications
of cancer and, for patients, the
dread of recurrence and having to
undergo further painful and extended
treatment when reserves of strength
and resilience have already been
sapped... The messages of this book
could not be more important for our
understanding of living with cancer, so it should be widely read and
discussed.
* Paradigm Explorer *
