I am Not My Breast Cancer

I am Not My Breast Cancer
Ruth Peltason
William Morrow
ISBN: 9780061174100
Non-Fiction, Women's Health
Reviewed by John R. Clark

Wow. This is both a simple and an extremely powerful book. As a man whose wife is currently undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, I wanted to review this book, both to see what I could learn and to see if I was on the right track. I got those answers and a lot more.
This book should be in every public and health science library. Ruth Peltason has done a great service to anyone directly or indirectly affected by breast cancer. The sections, each of which distills with perfect succinctness, the from-the-gut and from-the-heart responses of survivors, are short, easily digested and quickly convey, in intimate fashion, how the cross-section of 800 participants felt about every aspect of the experience and/or re-experience. Pretty much everything a survivor ever encounters is in here, whether it be who/how to divulge, anger, losing hair everywhere, how the disease affects others, be they family members, friends or co-workers.
The book gave me comfort by mirroring both my support attempts and my powerlessness, while making me very much aware that this is a disease that doesn't come, wreak havoc and leave, it lurks in the subconscious of the affected one for a long, long time. This is an excellent book to give to anyone affected by the disease.