Not Just One in Eight: Stories of Breast Cancer Survivors and Their Families

The 19 women and one man (yes, men get breast cancer) in this study had a wide range of experiences, but the emotional ripple effect of the illness--not only on them but on the important people in their lives--is apparent in all of these stories. Stevens, herself a breast cancer survivor, has conducted extensive and illuminating interviews with these patients as well as with spouses, parents, siblings, children and friends, who had a range of responses. Many husbands stood by their wives during and after surgery, but several marriages collapsed under the strain. As Stevens also makes clear, patients followed different paths in their treatment. While, for instance, some decided on immediate reconstruction after a mastectomy, Lolly Champion feared the procedure would ""hinder early detection if there were a recurrence."" And while most of these patients put their trust in traditional Western medicine, Dara Kaye elected to try holistic treatments instead of chemotherapy following her surgery. Nearly half of the women interviewed decided on a prophylactic removal of the healthy breast after the cancerous one was removed; and several women have taken the drug tamoxifen to help prevent recurrences. (Stevens would have aided readers even further had she addressed the current questions surrounding the side effects and long-term benefits of this drug.) Patricia A. Ganz, M.D., a cancer specialist at UCLA, contributes a chapter discussing how close we are to a cure. This book can be tough going sometimes--despite the subtitle, not all the women interviewed survive their cancer. But these candid personal stories, both sad and uplifting, will be of great interest to breast cancer patients and their families. Agent, Linda Konner. (Oct.)