When I was dealing with breast cancer, my mantra was “information is power.” My skills as a journalist came in handy to research the subject in depth. The resources I have gathered below may be helpful for anyone going through cancer, and I hope that some of the more light-hearted material I’ve included may make you laugh too!
Ten Tips to Stay Sane After a Cancer Diagnosis
My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity – Contents
My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity – Introduction
See below for my breast cancer awareness talk at the 2022 Maui Earth Day Festival
Duration: 11 min. 13 sec.
Medical Alert Bracelet: I have some allergies to pharmaceutical products and had made sure that these were on all my various physicians’ medical records for me.
My oldest son, who is a doctor, insisted that was not good enough: “If you’re in a car accident and you’ve passed out, the only thing paramedics would have access to immediately is a medical alert bracelet. You should get one made right away.”
I took his advice, but most of the ones I saw online were somewhat ugly. I settled on the rose gold Lynx Shine by American Medical ID.® It was one of the most attractive models I found, so much so, that I wondered if the medical alert emblem might be a little too discreetly placed to be noticeable to paramedics, but I have to admit that my vanity won out over practicality.
Chocolate Mindfulness Exercise
The BRCA Mastectomy Debate: My Biased View
Healing Breast Implant Illness, a website set up by Nicole Daruda, a pioneer in the field. Her Breast Implant Illness and Healing Facebook group currently has more than 170,000 members. I had fun writing an article skewering a ridiculous new study claiming that neuroticism is a big factor in breast implant illness.
My article about the Link Between Bras and Breast Cancer. The book I reference is Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras by Sidney Ross Singer and his wife and breast cancer survivor, Soma Grismaijer. Make sure you get the 2018 second edition as it includes more studies than does the original 1995 book. I talk more about this issue in Busting Myth-Buster Myths: Bras and Cancer According to Google and discuss how to mitigate the negative effects of bras in my blog, If Breaking Up with Your Bra Is Hard to Do… I look at the potential problems of breast binders and hormone blockers in Are Gender Affirming Practices Carcinogenic?
Chemo hair loss: Ugly Lady Bares All at Halloween
How Cancer Gave Me Awesome Armpits
Planning for Death and Dying: The final chapter of my comic self-help memoir, My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity, is entitled “Resting in Peace.” At a presentation I gave to the Bitterroot Book Club in Western Montana on June 6, 2023, I explained exactly why this chapter resonated with so many people. The forms I mention in the video clip from that presentation are the Five Wishes form from www.fivewishes.org and the Caregivers and Consent Form from www.ourpatientrights.com. There are a number of different forms you can use for an advance healthcare directive or living will, as well as various options as to how to fill them out and varying rules about a form’s legal validity in different locations, so it’s important to research what documents are right for your own particular circumstances.
Duration 4 min. 27 min.
PLEASE NOTE: C. J. Grace is not a doctor and thus would never presume to tell anyone else how they should deal with their cancer. The information on this webpage is not intended in any way to be a substitute for medical, psychological or emotional counseling with a licensed physician or health care provider. Use these resources at your own discretion and at your own risk.