Mammograms, Mastectomies, and Mom's Apple Pie: My Recipe for Handling Breast Cancer and Returning to a Healthy Life

By Vickie Jenkins

An engaging and educational how-to book for breast cancer survival through first-hand stories, humorous observations, and hands-on health care tips and tools.

Author Vickie Jenkins blends her talent as a writer and journalist, improv comedy performer, and cancer survivor to serve up her personal recipe for surviving a health crisis. Filled with inspiration and helpful info that's easy to digest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vickie Jenkins
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465928030

Vickie Jenkins

Farm girl. Radio news reporter. Media coach. Improv comedy performer. Screenwriter. Murder-mystery novelist. Corporate communications executive. Poet. Cancer survivor. On any given day you can find her, pen over paper, staring off, wearing a crooked smile, playing with words. She lives in Los Angeles.

Book preview

Mammograms, Mastectomies, and

Mom’s Apple Pie:

My Recipe for Handling

Breast Cancer

and

Returning to a Healthy Life

By Vickie Jenkins

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Vickie Jenkins

This book is also available in print at most online retailers.

Discover other titles by Vickie Jenkins at http://vickiejenkins.com/

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

Cover Design: Copyright Carlo Carmona

Cover Illustration: Copyright Margarets/Bigstock.com

Interior Illustration: Copyright iStockphoto.com/hfng

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month.

My friend Carlo looks up from his laptop at Priscilla’s Gourmet Coffee Shop. You gonna write it?

I sigh. Yeah. I guess I’m ready now.

Yesterday in follow-up treatment at the clinic, the nurses sat me between two brand-new chemo patients. One squeezed her eyes shut during the entire two hours, and barely breathed. The other talked excitedly in Spanish to her husband, who held her hand and translated. I opened conversation with each of them, giving them tips the doctors and nurses don’t know, because they’re just watching, not living it. I was old hat now, eight months in.

Last month a friend whose mom was diagnosed with cancer asked me to write down what I had done to recover, so I began to chronicle what had happened with my own treatment and the things I learned and applied to help me.

This book is not about what treatment to choose. It’s not a technical report. It’s not about the history of the disease. I figured there were plenty of cancer books out there that covered all that.

This book is simply a series of successful actions—both traditional and non-traditional—that I took to speed up my recovery from breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy. And the bizarre, ironic, comedic moments that accompany the harsh reality of handling a body crisis.

I always had the goal of – Handle it, and get back to health.

If that is also your goal, perhaps some of the tips in this book might help you. Or you can at least have a laugh or two at the sillier stories.

But in the end you design your own program. Your health is your responsibility and it all begins with the attitude you take. Survive? Or Succumb.

I write this book in my birthday month—October—which is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month here in the U.S.—of which I am much more aware now.

I am celebrating another birthday, another year on this planet. I give thanks to all who helped me—family, friends, medical specialists, spiritual leaders, and fellow explorers.

I dedicate this book to you, the readers—and to the next worlds that you will create as a healthy, glowing spirit.

Much Love,

VJ

Table of Contents

PART 1

Not I, Said the Frog: The Lump

Okay, Here’s the Deal: The Confront

Betty Was Right: The Diagnosis

Family Prayers, Friendly Action: The Plan

PART 2

Is That a Recipe Book?: The Surgery Prep

Did You Eat?: The Surgery

Let’s Get Out of Here: Post-surgery Recovery

The Secret Weapon: Body Communication

PART 3

Red Bells, Yellow Bells: Not Just ‘Physical’ Therapy

Agua, Por Favor: Chemo Prep

Fully Armed: Chemo, Shots, Drugs

Farting at the Library: Handling Side Effects

PART 4

Life Imitates Life: Giving and Receiving

Great Haircut!: Cancer Camouflage with Wigs, Boobs, Makeup

Cancer-Free. What a Lovely Phrase: Returning to Life

What are You Looking at?: The Healthy Info Diet

PART 5

Happiness Re-defined: Abilities Gained

The Cancer Discount: Help is a Two-way Street

Have Your Pie and Eat it Too: Doing What You Love

Prom Night: Celebrating Success

PART 6

Remembering Me, Remembering You: Poetry in Motion

Things I Thought: Mirror Images

Take Two Pages & Call Me in the Morning: VJs Successful Actions

Shopping List

Treatment Journal

References, Websites, Organizations

Post Script – I Will: Thank You

About the Author

Random Martinis book excerpt

Part 1: 1

Not I, Said the Frog:

THE LUMP

Lots of people have lumpy breasts.

I barely have breasts—let alone lumps.

I found it while lying in bed one March morning.

I was home sick with the whatever-you-get-when-a-nasty-person-lands-on-your-communication-lines-and-you-don’t-recognize-it illness.

A small, hard lump on my right breast. Smaller than a marble. Kind of.

I was barely working as a consultant during the recession, and had no health insurance. Well, there was nothing I was going to do about it, I decided.

That was a