Breast Cancer Journal: A Century of Petals

Told with irony, wit, absolute candor and perhaps most valuably, without an apparent agenda, this is the story of one woman's experience with cancer. Juliet Wittman writes of the diagnosis and various treatments of her breast cancer, describing not just the surgery, chemotherapy and radiation she endured, but the healing effects of reading and writing, of talking with friends and drinking Chinese herbs. She is a skeptic and a cynic who nonetheless finds herself benefiting from the power of creative visualization and workshops on the healing energy of love. When Juliet elects surgery, chemo and radiation, it is after careful consideration and thoughtful research, not because she is a dupe of modern medicine. She uses various alternative therapies in conjunction with surgery and drugs to fight the cancer, to treat the many side effects of chemo and radiation, and to strengthen her so she can survive the treatments themselves. This book is terrific for a number of reasons, but mostly because Juliet is smart and funny and wise, and somehow manages to be positive without becoming relentlessly cheerful about what is, after all, a life-threatening illness and life-changing recovery. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by Patricia Pettijohn