Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons [Paperback]

Mary Ellen Harvard (Author), Mary Openlander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2004

In Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons, authors Mary Ellen Havard and Mary Openlander—one a patient, the other a practitioner of Trager, a form of complementary therapy—offer a first-person, combined journal account of the year during which Havard was diagnosed with, and treated for, breast cancer. The primary focus of the book is the unfolding experience of a woman who, out of catastrophic illness, creates a healing journey, aided in no small part by her relationship with a compassionate therapist.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Keryn Shipman, Executive Director, AMC Cancer Research Center, St. Louis Regional Office: As a six-and-a-half-year breast cancer survivor, I found myself both laughing and being moved at the similarities of Mary Ellen's and my experiences in our battles with breast cancer. The documentation captured in the book Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons realistically portrays the struggles and emotional roller coaster with which every breast cancer patient can relate.

Peter D. Weiss, M.D., Specialist in Oncology and Hematology P.C., Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO: This is an important read for all health care professionals, including medical and nursing students, patients with (or with a history of) breast cancer, family members of cancer patients, and meditative, massage, and physical therapists. As this book shows, breast cancer treatment is more that chemotherapy, radiation, and statistics: it is the story of an individual and her personal journey toward healing.

Deane Juhan, Instructor at Trager International, author of Job's Body: A Handbook of Bodywork and Touched by the Goddess: The Spiritual, Psychological and spiritual Aspects of Bodywork: This book is most obviously a testimony to the power of the work of Dr. Milton Trager and the practitioners he trained. But far beyond that, it is a testimony to what has been missing—and what can be effectively brought to bear—from virtually every individual's encounter with debilitating injury or disease. It is about an alternative approach, not to disease, but to life.

From the Back Cover

In the spring of the year 2000, Mary Ellen Havard was diagnosed with breast cancer. She writes that, on hearing those words, "my world flew apart. I was pulled in opposing directions, living in two worlds. There was the one of curling up in a ball and crying, refusing to eat, refusing to sleep, refusing to think. There was the other of facing the issues and making a plan. I had a job to do, and that job was called survival. As part of the job of survival, she kept a journal of her experience. That act of journalizing, suggested by Mary Openlander, a Trager practitioner who became part of Mary Ellen's cancer treatment team, began as a way to rein in fear and uncertainty and became part of the healing process. Simultaneously, Mary maintained her own written record of their treatment sessions. After independently documenting their thoughts and impressions for more than a year, Mary Ellen and Mary combined their separate journal entries to create Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons. Not a "how-to" book, Breast Cancer is the account of one woman's experience through which we come to see how illness can be transformative —providing opportunities for growth—and how empathic care can help to redefine what it means to "get well." Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons: Presents the experience from the persepctive of a person who is being treated for cancer and from that of a health care provider involved in the process of treatment; Shows a person taking charge of her own health—the primary voice in the cancer treatment planning and care decisions; Clarifies the importance of considering a range of treatment modalities as part of the cancer care regimen; Provides insight, through the supplemental entries of family members, into their experience of, and participation in, the cancer treatment process.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 90 pages
• Publisher: PenUltimate Publishing; 1 edition (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976067501
• ISBN-13: 978-0976067504
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,095,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and inspirational personal testimony, March 9, 2005

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons (Paperback)

Originally written as a journal of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer, who recorded each step of her journey partly as a way to keep fear and uncertainty under control, Breast Cancer: One Illness, Two Women, Four Seasons offers the perspective of a patient - one who felt she was practically living in two worlds, one side of herself terrified and unable to think, the other determined to face head-on the job of surviving her ordeal. A moving and inspirational personal testimony, recounting the author's transformation and growth over the six and a half years since the initial diagnosis, and her experiences with both conventional and alternative therapies. Black-and-white photographs illustrate this intensely personal account.