Bearing Up With Cancer

Endorsed by the National Ovarian Cancer Association, Gilda's Club and the Department of Gynecological Oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital. Proceeds from the book will benefit the National Ovarian Cancer Association. "Whoever said that laughter is the best medicine has clearly read Annie Smith's book. Annie covers the full range of emotions and leaves you feeling inspired and humbled by the wit with which she sees the world. " -Maryann Kerr, Executive Director, Gilda's Club Bearing up with Cancer is an inspiring book, chronicling Annie Smith's life over the 20 years after she was first diagnosed with cancer. The author's incredible wit and vivacity are integral to her story. This is a woman who taped chocolate bars to her abdomen as an energy source for her surgical team. This honest, intimate and humourous book is remarkable on many levels. It is a highly informative education on doctor/nurse/patient relationships and the crucial role that they play, as well as the role of supportive family and friends in healing. Bearing Up With Cancer is illustrated in full colour with Annie's signature caricature, bear, who takes the author/patient's place through her various trials and triumphs. It's an easy-to-read book that has infinite appeal; to anyone, of any age, who has been touched by cancer; all who fear it; and every classification of health care worker. Dr Barry Rosen, Academic Chief, Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Toronto's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who wrote the book's foreword, says: "For the most part, medical professionals see how illness affects our patients through our own eyes. Annie showed us ovarian cancer through her eyes, and in so doing, gave us a radically different, and immensely valuable perspective."

Bearing Witness is a collection of stories from women who went through the diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and treatment for it, only to find that the cancer recurred and any hope of recovery was gone. These women represent a spectrum of ages, ethnic backgrounds, marital circumstances, and professional experiences. From their stories we learn how each woman shapes the meaning of her life. Facing a life crisis can make one bitter and angry, but it can also provide the key to a thankful and generous spirit within. Storytelling is an important art form present in many cultures: it is a way of processing life events, of searching for meaning, and of allowing teller and listener to wrestle with the message. It is a form of teaching and learning. For the women in Bearing Witness, stories are tangible legacies for family and friends and a chance to share their thoughts on living with the “glass half full.” They inspire the reader to reflect on life’s struggles and to find within themselves a sense of optimism, perhaps when they least expect to. Kathryn Carter’s concluding essay places these stories in the context of contemporary discourses of illness and healing.

The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies examines the history and evolution of the visual narrative genre from a global perspective. The Handbook brings together readable, jargon-free essays written by established and emerging scholars from diverse geographic, institutional, gender, and national backgrounds.

This book provides the necessary information about not only the clinical aspects of caring for cancer survivors, but also the psychosocial impacts. There are multiple resources available to serve as oncology textbooks, but nothing to provide the necessary information on patient care for the non-MD members of the cancer patient management team. In the post-treatment phase, the management team must go beyond the realm of "conventional" follow-up, helping the patient to intellectually understand and emotionally grasp the path ahead. Cancer Survivorship will prove a vital tool to physicians, nurses, clinical social workers and mental health professionals.

Presents articles on various types of sexually transmitted diseases including causes, symptoms, treatment, prevention and social issues.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson has had the extraordinary privilege and the rare merit to know intimately certain segments of the world which will always be strange to most of us. He has had the alertness to note details, to make correlations which would have escaped others. He has been unhampered by professional or even by lay prejudices. And he has a gift for expressing the ideas which his observations have evoked. The story which he presents in this book is a fascinating one. Here is the sort of thing we call basic research, just as much so as if it were being conducted in the latest of laboratories. Here are the data from a series of experiments which Nature has performed for us—in the Arctic northland, in the tropic forests of Gabon, and in the temperate valley of Hunzaland. She has varied a series of environmental factors yet come up with a like result in the three places, and a result which she has produced, so far as we know, only in those three special combinations of environments, not in any other of her myriads of combinations elsewhere. What have these three in common, that they produce this result, so important to us? Nature will not repeat those experiments. And we will not have another Stefansson to read the data and present them to us. I hope, therefore, that what he has to say will be read carefully and pondered deeply.