Seriously Cancer Seriously

What you are about to read is the raw story of a death as it unfolded in real time, and how it impacted multiple lives. It is just one more battle story in the ongoing war against cancer - a diary of a thousand small defeats and even more victories - some past, and some that will hopefully come in the future.This is also a very, very human story told in a very, very, human way by a woman who found strength she never thought she had, and learned that sometimes, in the end, strength alone is not enough. It is Tony Leonard's story, a story of the Iraq war contractor, father, husband, brother, son, and friend's fight against the odds, time, and his own body.Through these pages you will meet Tony, a man who, after fighting nearly the better part of a decade, lost his battle with cancer on January 22, 2019. Tony's life became a continuous, ferocious, battle against an intractable and cunning enemy, but he never let that enemy define who or what he was or how he chose to live whatever time was allotted to him.It is also a story about caregiving and sacrifice. That story belongs to Tony's wife Christy Leonard, and their sons. But Christy is no more a victim than Tony. In taking care of her husband and children she found something inside herself, something that had always been there but was only summoned when it is needed. Christy is not some shy, faceless heroine standing by her man. She is also a warrior, fighting her own battles and she fights his.

Lauren Graham was three weeks away from turning twenty-oneloving college life, her friends, and her familywhen her life was turned upside down and changed forever. She was diagnosed with cancerspecifically, with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. In her memoir, Lauren considers the everyday life of a cancer patient and recalls all the challenges she experienced with humor and brutal honesty. Her unique storytelling, presented through the e-mails that she wrote over the course of nearly three years of cancer treatments, provides an intimate window into her struggle with cancer. Week by week, month by month, and treatment by treatment, she shares her journey and experiences in group e-mails to family and friends with wit, fear, stubbornness, faith, and candor. After recounting the procedures, tests, and general medical things she experienced, she ends each e-mail with several wonderful quotes, which offer as much solace to her as they would to those reading her e-mails. SeriouslyCancer? I Do Not Have Time for This! tells a true story of inspiration for anyone who is facing illness or difficulties in life. Lauren is a real trooper who viewed her cancer treatment in such a positive, relatable, inspiring, and hilarious perspective. This book is a must read for all young adults battling cancer, for healthcare providers, and for families and friends supporting their loved ones during their treatment. Brenda Muriera-Noggy, senior research nurse, Leukemia/Lymphoma Department, Division of Pediatrics, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

Lauren Graham was three weeks away from turning twenty-one-loving college life, her friends, and her family-when her life was turned upside down and changed forever. She was diagnosed with cancer-specifically, with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. In her memoir, Lauren considers the everyday life of a cancer patient and recalls all the challenges she experienced with humor and brutal honesty. Her unique storytelling, presented through the e-mails that she wrote over the course of nearly three years of cancer treatments, provides an intimate window into her struggle with cancer. Week by week, month by month, and treatment by treatment, she shares her journey and experiences in group e-mails to family and friends with wit, fear, stubbornness, faith, and candor. After recounting the procedures, tests, and general medical things she experienced, she ends each e-mail with several wonderful quotes, which offer as much solace to her as they would to those reading her e-mails. Seriously-Cancer? I Do Not Have Time for This! tells a true story of inspiration for anyone who is facing illness or difficulties in life. "Lauren is a real trooper who viewed her cancer treatment in such a positive, relatable, inspiring, and hilarious perspective. ...This book is a must read for all young adults battling cancer, for healthcare providers, and for families and friends supporting their loved ones during their treatment." -Brenda Muriera-Noggy, senior research nurse, Leukemia/Lymphoma Department, Division of Pediatrics, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center

Let's face it, cancer sucks. This book provides real-life advice from real-life teens designed to help teens live with a parent who is fighting cancer. One million American teenagers live with a parent who is fighting cancer. It's a hard blow for those already navigating high school, preparing for college, and becoming increasingly independent. Author Maya Silver was 15 when her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. She and her dad, Marc, have combined their family's personal experience with advice from dozens of medical professionals and real stories from 100 teens—all going through the same thing Maya did. The topic of cancer can be difficult to approach, but in a highly designed, engaging style, this book gives practical guidance that includes: How to talk about the diagnosis (and what does diagnosis even mean, anyway?) The best outlets for stress (punching a wall is not a great one, but should it happen, there are instructions for a patch job) How to deal with friends (especially one the ones with 'pity eyes') Whether to tell the teachers and guidance counselors and what they should know (how not to get embarrassed in class) What happens in a therapy session and how to find a support group if you want one A special section for parents also gives tips on strategies for sharing the news and explaining cancer to a child, making sure your child doesn't become the parent, what to do if the outlook is grim, and tips for how to live life after cancer. My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks allows teens to see that they are not alone. That no matter how rough things get, they will get through this difficult time. That everything they're feeling is ok. Essays from Gilda Radner's "Gilda's Club" annual contest are an especially poignant and moving testimony of how other teens dealt with their family's situation. Praise for My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks: "Wisely crafted into a wonderfully warm, engaging and informative book that reads like a chat with a group of friends with helpful advice from the experts." —Paula K. Rauch MD, Director of the Marjorie E. Korff Parenting At a Challenging Time Program "A must read for parents, kids, teachers and medical staff who know anyone with cancer. You will learn something on every page." —Anna Gottlieb, MPA, Founder and CEO Gilda's Club Seattle "This book is a 'must have' for oncologists, cancer treatment centers and families with teenagers." —Kathleen McCue, MA, LSW, CCLS, Director of the Children's Program at The Gathering Place, Cleveland, OH "My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks provides a much-needed toolkit for teens coping with a parent's cancer." —Jane Saccaro, CEO of Camp Kesem, a camp for children who have a parent with cancer

This is an engaging and unique book that uses humor to encourage and empower those impacted by cancer. With 35 colorful illustrations/pages and gentile wit, this book takes you on an adventure through the cancer and chemotherapy experience in a healing and inspirational way. The story begins with a woman who is physically fit and living healthy. Cancer was the last thing she thought could ever happen to her because she was doing everything right. With each turn of the page, the true-life illustrations capture the entire ordeal through the dire and life-shattering diagnosis of breast cancer, surgery, physical changes and chemotherapy side effects. Then the journey takes an amazing turn as a new attitude emerges with positive sparks of change as she begins embracing her new normal. The book concludes with the best of all...healing, loving life and the new you! You will smile when the woman who is about to go bald from chemotherapy takes charge of her hair loss and has the salon cut her hair so short that she feels she looks just like the man leaving the barber shop; or at the golfers watching her wig fly across the golf course on a windy day. This feel-good book acknowledges that cancer can actually, bring about positive change and a new perspective on life. The reader will feel the compassion and understanding they have longed to receive as they recognize their story in the pages of "Breast Cancer. Seriously? Hot Chicks Get Cancer Too. Going from Hot to Not, to Loving Me a Lot."

Jason Micheli, a young father, husband, and pastor, was diagnosed with a bone cancer so rare and deadly that his doctors didnÕt classify it with one of the normal four stagesÑthey simply called it Òstage-serious.Ó As Micheli struggled with despair and faced his own mortality, he resolved that although cancer kills the body, it would not kill his spirit, faith, or sense of humor. Ê Micheli knew that the promise of faith makes hope possible. And approaching cancer as fodder for some bowel-busting humor helps, too. His reflections are not trite. Instead, he writes honestly about being stricken with lethal cancer in the midst of a promising career and raising two young children. He struggles with his commitment to the God who, as he writes, may or may not be doing this to him. Because figuring this out for himselfÑnot to mention explaining it to his congregation and his sonsÑis so important that theology is now a matter of life and death. This is a funny, no-holds-barred, irreverent-yet-faithful take on the disease that touches every family. MicheliÕs story teaches us all how to stay human in dehumanizing situationsÑhow to keep living in the face of death.

CANCER IS CANCER. CHEMO IS CHEMO. RIGHT? THAT'S WHAT MEL THOUGHT BEFORE SHE RECEIVED HER DIAGNOSIS. BUT SHE QUICKLY FOUND OUT SHE HAD A LOT TO LEARN! FROM BIRD POO TO SHINGLES, AUNT SALLY TO A BURNT BOOB, AND TOO MANY OTHER 'SPECIAL JOYS' TO MENTION: WHO KNEW? EVERYONE'S CANCER STORY IS DIFFERENT: NOT WORSE, NOT BETTER, JUST DIFFERENT. MEL LETS US IN ON HER OWN UNIQUE STORY OF CANCER, OTHER ILLNESSES, AND GENERAL LIFE CHAOS WITH SOME INAPPROPRIATE HUMOUR AND A TOUCH OF SWEARING. "I think people who have been diagnosed with cancer, or their loved ones, will find this book incredibly helpful in terms of navigating the emotional and medical/physical side of things. I love the way you can make tragedy funny, which is incredibly difficult. This has the potential to be an incredibly depressing book, but somehow it isn't because you wrote it.' AD It goes without saying the story. is amazing. I love the stream of consciousness style in which it is written." CG MELANIE GREEN IS A MOTHER OF TWO FROM SUFFOLK WHOSE LIFE WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN WHEN SHE RECEIVED HER CANCER DIAGNOSIS IN 2018. BECAUSE OF THIS, SHE QUIT HER JOB AND IS NOW LIVING LIFE TO THE FULL WITH HER HUSBAND, BIG G: TRAVELLING THE WORLD AND WRITING BOOK NUMBER TWO! "Love it. Funny, self-aware, empathic, informative, warm." DFR "How you have suffered knock back after knock back and then bounced back time after time is nothing short of amazing. My eyes leaked a couple of times and ( also laughed. Quite a few times actually as also love inappropriate humour. What a story." JV