Customer Reviews

Humor After the Tumor: One Woman's Look at Her Year With Breast Cancer

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is will make you want to hug Patty Gelman or anyone as funny as she is! It makes one feel great about family, friends, and conquering adversity. Patty Gelman is a beautiul writer who portrayed in this book what it means to not take yourself too seriously - a very important lesson for all of us!

This is compulsory reading for anyone who has been touched by breast cancer. It provides a perspective that supports patient, family and friends. It transcends medical application and bridges generations.

I read Patty Gelman's book to better understand my mother- in -law's struggle with chemo, I ended up making a friend. You'll finish this book feeling like you just hung up the phone with a treasured girlfriend from college, or from your first job in the City. You know, the one who could always make you laugh.

Patty Gelman leaves you feeling hopeful; about marriage, about having kids, about middle age, without sugar coating a thing.
She's funny, unflinching and funny, and I can't wait till I hear from Patty again.

If one finds themself on Cancer Road personally or because of a loved one, they need to read this book. Patty provides a detailed map on how to cope, laugh, and most importantly...be informed. She revealed so much of what she went through...we had no idea!!! Thanks Patty, for helping others.

Best Lesson....ASK QUESTIONS!!!!
What exactly is this poison going to do to my cancer cells and my body??????

I thoroughly enjoyed Patty Gelman's book. She writes with elegance and grace about a very difficult time in her life. Her humor adds a special dimension to her experience with cancer. This is a wonderfully informative book for anyone who has been recently diagnosed with cancer, on the road to recovery, or has gone through the entire treatment process.
It is also a helpful book for friends and family members of anyone diagnosed with cancer.

The idea for this book came from all the fun, interesting and informative emails Patty had written to us. I'm so glad she listened to Roswell Park and not her husband. Buy it - you will LOVE it!

In this most impressive little book, the author Patty Gelman chronicles in a series of emails her breast cancer diagnosis and a subsequent year of treatment that she underwent for the disease. As she explains, this method of keeping in touch with concerned family and friends seemed the easiest and most logical one for her, when talking on the phone or in person was often more than she could handle. Writing the emails also proved therapeutic, Gelman writes. They became a way to acknowledge and express the wide range of emotions she felt while encountering the many challenges that presented themselves throughout that eventful year.

It is not at all surprising that recipients of Gelman's emails encouraged her to put them together in book form, thus making them available to the many women and their families who travel a similar road. It is also not at all surprising that Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, where Gelman's doctors are, decided to publish the book -- and to accept all proceeds from it, which Gelman so generously has offered to them. The fact is that Gelman is inspirational. While certainly confronting the broad philosophic dimensions of her disease and the painful side effects of chemotherapy, she is ultimately down-to-earth, practical, and humane -- and so witty and funny! Readers will find themselves laughing out loud, as I so often did, and will quickly understand why Gelman's title -- Humor after the Tumor -- is the obvious right choice. Incidentally, the cover photo of Gelman (and of her golden retriever Kambel, a major player in the drama) is worth the price of the book. Gelman exudes warmth and optimism and will undoubtedly encourage anyone who is in the midst of her own breast cancer journey.

Patty Gelman's experience with breast cancer is an inspiratinal story. Her candid, funny, and honest veiwpoint is something that anyone who knows someone with breast cancer or has been directly affected can read and relate to on several levels. It is refreshing to read something about such a significant experience without complex medical terms and a positive outlook. Patty takes you through her year long experience with stories in which all of us can relate.

Patty Gelman's book is one of those gems that is informative, funny, sensitive,and above all, sympathetic to the concerns of cancer patients. I highly recommend it. As a physician in the Boston area, this is a book I'd recommend for patients about to undergo the often stressful and worrisome journey toward curing his/her cancer. Humor After the Tumor would certainly get them smiling and help ease their tension.

This is a great gift to anyone who is facing the fierce fight of cancer. Humor is great medicine, and this book has a healthy dose of it.