My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity is the latest book by CJ Grace. Her first, Adulterer’s Wife: How to Thrive Whether You Stay or Not, covered infidelity issues. My Wild Ride is an in-depth, how-to guide, thoroughly researched, filled with anecdotes and generously dosed with Ms. Grace’s sardonic, Pythonesque humor.
Here is an example, where she is discussing her ancestors and their possible relationship to the defective genes which have caused her breast cancer:
“Mine is probably the result of too much Ashkenazi inbreeding in my family background, although thankfully this inbred Jewish heritage has still left me smart enough to string a few words together. Did that lousy gene come from my mother’s side of the family or my father’s? To be frank, I do not know. The Nazis obligingly prevented numerous ancestors of mine from dying of cancer, killing them off in various concentration camps before it might have had time to manifest.”
Lest you think this book is a frivolous, trivial exploration of such a killer disease and its heartbreaking, emotional impact (particularly if combined with an unfaithful partner), allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The chapter on chemotherapy is a memoir of every treatment and then a day-by-day diary of what the side effects were and how Ms. Grace dealt with them. The chapter on her radiation experience does not only go into depth about her treatment, but also includes the history of this therapy.
Ms. Grace also investigated diet and exercise as well as doing various alternative therapies. Her “Medical Tourism in Germany: No Bikini Required,” section includes some hilarious translation errors she encountered.
Because of her journalist background—Ms. Grace was a BBC correspondent in the UK and later worked for China Radio International in Beijing—she has outstanding research skills. She has done extensive reading on her subject and the reader will be the beneficiary of this work; Ms. Grace’s references reinforce the facts she presents and give readers resources for their own investigation.
Ms. Grace peppers the book with humor, while describing some of the bleakest chapters of her life—the infidelity of her “wasband” and dealing with a life-threatening illness twice. She presents these dark experiences as if she were naked. Her chapter Sex and Cancer is an extremely frank discussion of how one has a sex life and cancer:
“I found one solution for vaginal soreness. The calendula ointment that I was given to use on my breasts to combat skin irritation from radiation also helped get rid of genital soreness. Not calendula cream—it had to be the ointment with a petroleum base. This also worked well if my boyfriend’s you-know-what had any irritation.”
She devotes two chapters to one of the most traumatic results of chemotherapy, hair loss. “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow,” Chapter 6, deals with all aspects of hair loss and “The Wacky World of Wigs,” Chapter 7, goes into her own and others’ wig experiences. My late wife never wore a wig after chemo and I shaved my head in solidarity with her. We became the Baldy Twins. Apparently, this is a minority experience.
Her final chapter, “Resting in Peace” is not just for cancer patients. The alternative methods of dealing with our inevitable demise she presents are most thought-provoking for everyone. It would be worthwhile for her to consider excerpting this chapter for publication on its own.
Anyone diagnosed with breast cancer, or any other cancer for that matter, will find Ms. Grace’s experience valuable, her research instructive and her humor an antidote to what are some of life’s most difficult ordeals. This is a book that is both a reference and a memoir; a rather unusual combination. For those with cancer it is an invaluable resource and for those who have been fortunate enough to avoid it, the book is an empowering story of a brilliant, funny, strong survivor.
—Paul Janes Brown, Entertainment Journalist and Radio Host, Maui.