Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul by Jack Canfield Read Free Book Online

mistake my husband and I made, it was not realizing how a child’s cancer impacts every family member, and that each has his or her own capacity to cope. Relatives, friends, teachers and co-workers all feel the profound effects of a youngster’s catastrophic illness.
    Cancer researchers have made enormous and rapid progress, especially in the field of childhood cancers. Had Jason been stricken 20 years earlier, he almost certainly would have died within a matter of weeks. In the mid–1960s, only one in five kids survived cancer, as opposed to one in three by the mid-1980s. Like most parents of children with cancer two decades before, we would have been gently advised to prepare for our son’s imminent death. Today’s cure rate has reached an all-time high of more than two in three, with recent medical advances further supporting hopes for a child’s recovery.

    Reprinted with permission from Harley Schwadron.
    It takes love and faith to emerge from such an experience intact, and it’s not easy. I must tell you that when this happened to Jason and our family, I thought our lives would always center around his disease and could never, ever be pieced back together again. But as time passed, that proved not to be the case. Our lives have evolved and we realized we were not alone. People do withstand this crisis. There can be life after children’s cancer. We are proof of that.
    Geralyn Gaes

Cancer Has Been a Blessing
    Y ou gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    “I want you to know right now, don’t try to save my breast and put my life in danger, I can live without a breast.” I said those words to my oncologist when diagnosed with breast cancer.
    I received this diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer when I was 38 years old. This is a rare and very aggressive type of breast cancer. It accounts for only 1 to 6 percent of all breast cancers and it has a very high rate of recurrence. I was told the doctors could treat me with chemotherapy and put me in remission for probably three to five years. Most likely after the remission, I would have a recurrence, and at this time they know of nothing that can eradicate the cancer. I told the oncologist I wanted the best treatment for my disease that he knew of. I was willing to do anything. Three to five years’ remission was not acceptable to me. My doctor told me of this aggressive protocol that was being used at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston that he would recommend for this type of breast cancer.
    The protocol required that I have strong chemotherapy for three days a week, every other week for four cycles. Then I would be admitted to Dana Farber for very high doses of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. I would then need to have a modified radical mastectomy followed by six weeks of radiation. Needless to say, I was in shock. I knew this was going to be bad, but I never expected it to be this bad. When he said I needed a bone marrow transplant, I knew my cancer was more serious than I had thought.
    After I was diagnosed by the surgeon and before I consulted with an oncologist, I took my then five-month-old granddaughter for many walks in her carriage. We walked and I talked to her. When I was outside with her, I could think more clearly, and I made many decisions while with her. She may have only been a baby, but she was a great listener and I decided then that I could not keep on crying, asking God, “Why me? Why now?” It would have been very easy to feel sorry for myself, but I realized all those thoughts were not productive. I realized that I had to face this head on and fight for the chance to be a part of my granddaughter’s life for many years to come. I told her that I was not going to go anywhere and that her “Grammy” was going to be