Customer Reviews

My Breast

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

 

 

In this memoir a journalist writes about her experiences once
diagnosed with breast cancer. She focuses on the medical
choices she must make along with her advocacy for treatment.

There is little examination of her personal feelings about the
impact of having cancer on her life. She coves the surface as-
pects of medical care but the book lacks substance about the
author as a woman with her own personal struggles with this
disease.

Good book pretty well written..though I thought more could have done by way of research. which it was written back in the early 90s..it is a good book though.

I first read this book when my sister was diagnosed with cancer many years ago. I read it again when I was treated for cancer a few years later. It is a very moving story, but not a sob-fest by any means. The author has guts and humor and her struggle is one that too many of us can relate to. I would recommend this book to anyone who knows someone with cancer, because it provides a great view of what a woman goes through and gives insight to friends, family and caregivers on how to deal with their loved one. I only wish Wadler had written a sequel, as a magazine article of a later date indicated that she developed a secondary cancer. There are fewer books available regarding people who deal with multiple cancers, yet as treatments become more sophisticated, there are a steadily increasing number of people who encounter recurrences and secondary illnesses. Wadler's tough, funny and energized outlook would be a valuable inspiration and resource for them.

"The surgeon took it out using a local, and when he was done, I asked to see it. It was the size of a robin's egg, with the gray brain-like matter which give it its name, medullary cancer. It rested in the middle of a larger ball of pink and white breast tissue, sliced down the center like a hard-boiled egg...and I looked at it hard, trying to figure it out. We did not know it was cancer until twenty minutes later, when they had almost finished stitching me up and the pathology report came back, and then I was especially glad I had looked. Mano a mano, eyeball to eyeball. This is a modern story. Me and my cancer. I won."

Any book that starts off this way has got to be a terrific read and this one is. A sharp-eyed, witty, chin-up personal account by a journalist who keeps it close to home but happens to be a great mediator of the graphic details and the medical context. Not many breast cancer patients will be lucky enough to have the rare, unaggressive medullary form that Joyce Wadler thought she had, but even she had her diagnosis hedged later in the game and thus underwent the full round of surgery, radiation and chemo. Will appeal to: All breast cancer readers, well or ill.

Published in 1992, Ms. Wadler's story is engrossing, and especially interesting when she sticks to her cancer and its treatments, instead of digressing into descriptions of her rather flaky relationships with three, on-again, off-again boyfriends. Based on the author's upbeat yet realistic attitude, and the fact that she had an apparently slow-growing, "good" type of malignancy--medullary cancer--I would suppose that she is alive and thriving today.

"My Breast" is a fast read, and one that would be particularly appropriate for anyone who has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. The more frightening aspects of Ms. Wadler's diagnosis and treatment are well balanced by her sense of humor and positive attitude.