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As it stands now, one out of every nine women will find a lump in her breast, go to her doctor's office, and hear two of the most terrifying words in the English language: "It's malignant." Speaking (alas) from personal experience, learning that you have breast cancer is like being trapped on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Ordinary life is in abeyance, days are spent lurching from specialist to specialist, careening between Fellini-esque medical procedures-bone scan, liver scan, biopsy-trying to make major life decisions, while struggling to remain in control.
It isn't easy. But if there is a bright side to being part of a modern epidemic, it's the abundance of literature available on this subject. Gathering information gave me a way to get a grip. While Betty Rollins wisely titled her moving 1986 account of her bout with breast cancer "First You Cry," after the second or third box of Kleenex is depleted, the next step is obvious. Second, you read.
A warning: Coping with breast cancer tends to make you feel vulnerable. And some books are inherently more reassuring than others. A rule of thumb: Read what makes you feel better, not worse. With that in mind, here is a sampling from my medical bookshelf. In "Women Talk About Breast Surgery," Amy Gross and Dee Ito have assembled a support group in book form to show women how to be "the smartest possible patient and how to get the best possible care for yourself." This collection of conversations with women who have survived lumpectomy, mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and/or reconstruction is compelling , comforting, alarming, infuriating, informative, and ultimately empowering. While the survivors' stories are buttressed by useful interviews with experts on anesthesiology, plastic surgery, oncology nursing, radiation, chemotherapy and even insurance, the authors operate on the assumption that the patient is an expert too.
"The women we interviewed are models of the New Patient: well-informed, skeptical, opinionated, insistent on getting involved in treatment decisions," they note. "These voices have all been to the front and returned to tell what happened." To read the war stories is to gain valuable insights into what...