Reclaiming our lives after breast and gynecologic cancer

the long version

By a clinician who specializes in medical psychology and who herself has had breast cancer, twice, this is an unusually aware and supportive book that recognizes and addresses cancer's assault on one's senses of self, femininity, and womanhood. It speaks with equal resonance to women with (or worried about) cancer and to those who love them, as well as to the professionals in mental, physical, and spiritual health who work with them. Kristine Falco leavens the hard parts with her unshakable assurance that the experience of cancer can lead to a "choiceful, redecided life based on new and amended definitions of womanhood and humanness." She shares her understanding of the physiology of gynecologic and breast cancers, and knowledgeably confronts the differential challenges of surviving both the diagnosis and the treatments.