While advances in cancer therapy now account for an estimated 50% permanent remission rate, Nessim, founder of the support group Cancervive, charges that society still stigmatizes survivors of the disease. In an excellent handbook based on her own successful battle against cancer as a teenager, she addresses recovered cancer patients, their families, friends and health professionals. Assisted by freelance writer Ellis, she offers positive, empathetic advice on how to control fears of recurrence and long-term side effects--including infertility--as well as anger and depression. Nessim also makes suggestions for regaining sanguine self- and body-images essential for securing jobs, insurance and more. Cancervive members have their say, too, recounting how they handled anxiety about new relationships. With the help of a support group, the author maintains, the survivor can have a healthy, forward-looking life.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The nearly six million survivors of cancer in the United States often find that life after cancer can be fraught with difficulties. Nessim, who had cancer as a teenager, founded Cancervive in 1985 as a support group to help patients deal with the problems of survivorship. She writes that "surviving is an experience wrought with pain, joy, anger, and optimism . . . it challenges our ability to endure." Drawing on the personal testimonials and accounts of survivors, Nessim offers advice on what comes after the cure: physical, emotional, and psychosocial problems; employment discrimination; insurance difficulties; and biomedical issues related to treatment such as fertility. This book aims to help survivors live warily but without anxiety. Recommended for health care col lections.
- James Swanton, Albert Ein stein Coll. of Medicine, New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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