Our Breast Cancer Journey: How To Kick Cancer's Ass

By Michelle Joyce

So, you´re interested in this book, are you?


Awesome! Read on:


     

What do pink chocolate syrup caps, tuna casserole, and a brand-name soap have in common? More than you might think! Especially if you take the time to curl up with this amazing book!

     

A raw and honest account of a husband and wife´s experience with breast cancer, Our Breast Cancer Journey / How to Kick Cancer´s Ass follows Michelle and Corey Joyce as they recount their fight against the dreaded "Cansah."

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©2011

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781469133485

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Michelle Joyce and Corey Joyce.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011962110

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-3347-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-3346-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-3348-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is NOT intended to be a medical guide. It is just an account of what we

experienced. It is not intended to be a substitute for what your Doctor recommends.

Please make all treatment decisions after discussing them with a Physician.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

106834

Table of Contents

A Note About Chapter Titles

Preface

(Who the Hell Are These People?)

What the BLEEP?

(Let’s Play Doctor)

Getting Diagnosed

(Knock Knock, Who’s There? Cancer. Faaaan-tastic)

Decisions, Decisions

(Matt Damon Movies Are Better)

Breaking the News

(Breaking the News 2: Electric Boogaloo)

To Work or Not

(Tiny Gap)

Surgeries

(What’s the Latin Word for Tuna Casserole?)

Chemotherapy

(Fun Things That Happen With Benadryl)

Cancer and Sex

( . . . Said the Liar… )

Hospitalization

(Spa Time)

Hair

(I Love You, Melissa Etheridge!)

Radiation

(The Chapter I Couldn’t Write Much About)

The Importance of Accepting Help

(It’s Ding Dong Ditch… But With Food!)

Lymphedema

(Sexy Potholders)

Life After Cancer

(10 Points for Gryffindor)

The Big Three

(Now I Want a Hot Dog)

To our kids, our families, our friends,

and bald chicks everywhere.

A Note About Chapter Titles

Hey, this is Corey (you’ll meet me in a minute). I just wanted to let you know about the chapter title situation and how this book is set up.

My lovely wife, Michelle, is a pretty straight-laced type of person, so her chapter titles (and subsequent writings) are in Times New Roman. I, being a somewhat less straight-laced type of person have my chapter titles and writings in a font my wife picked for me: Chalkboard. I think she chose well. The whole idea came out of a conversation we had one day about, If you had to pick a font that represented you, what would it be? Yeah, we’re nerds.

So, long story short: we hope you enjoy this story about how to get through cancer from two very different perspectives.

But be warned! This book pulls no punches. It is a true and very real account of what we went through, what we were thinking, and how we reacted to it. It is honest. And the language in here can be… let’s say… salty at times. It is not for the easily offended. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not a suitable bedtime story for children. And it most certainly isn’t one of those, Oh, everything is going to be alright, mushfests you sometimes find in cancer books. But I digress. Read the damn book already.

Preface

 (Who the Hell

Are These People?)

So this is my first attempt at a book and I am deferring to my husband’s judgment on how this preface thing goes. (So if it sucks it just may be his fault.) He told me that this is where I have to introduce myself and let me say, that is a tough thing to do! How do you sum up 36 years of life into a paragraph so that total strangers can understand who you really are? After much puzzling, I figured the Cliffs Notes version works best, because you want to get to the interesting parts, right?

So here it goes: People at work call me Michelle, outside of work I go by Shelly. I like predictability and organization. I’m not a neat freak, but I do get stressed-out by chaos and clutter. I like things to have a place so I can find them again. I am a very logical and analytical person, but I do get passionate about things I believe in. I am an eternal optimist and usually always smiling. I like to say what I mean and mean what I say, which sometimes gets me into trouble, but honesty is very important to me. Lastly, I like acronyms—SNAFU is my favorite (Situation Normal, All F’d Up, for those of you who were wondering)

Almost a year ago, my world got turned upside-down by breast cancer. Up until then I was known as many things: a mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, friend, former Division I softball player, and a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Those were the things that made up who I am. Now I have to add cancer survivor to that list, and I’m not sure how to deal with that. It is not something that defines me and I am wondering if it should be.

During my journey through diagnosis and treatment, my husband, Corey, kept saying that he wanted to write a book for spouses of patients with cancer because, although I was buried in an avalanche of touchy-feely books about how to cope with all things related to cancer, there wasn’t a book for him. His ideas involved a lot of profanity… and I mean A LOT! I figured it would be therapeutic for him to write because he is so good at it, but I didn’t hold much hope his book would be published. At the same time I was desperately looking for a book that honestly admitted that fighting cancer just sucks—I never found it. I started thinking that it would be interesting if we both wrote about the journey from our unique perspectives, in our own, very different voices; because even though we both were living through the same difficult time, I knew we both had different experiences. In a nutshell it sucked for us both, but it sucked in different ways. I thought by combining my scientific mind with his 8th grade English teacher mind, we would likely produce something interesting.

Oh, and you may notice that the only healthcare worker I name in this book is my surgeon. The reason why is simple: he is retired. Everyone else is wonderful, caring, and still working so their names have been left out to protect the innocent… or something like that.

Anyhoo, this book took two years of living to write. Here it is; I hope it helps!

My name is Corey and I am not exactly what you would call a neat freak. Let’s just say that I have my own organizational style which I call piles. Hey, it works for me.

Up until my wife was diagnosed with cancer, I was known as many things: a teacher, a dad, a brother, a husband, a-mazing, and Buttercup. (Don’t ask about the last one).

I told my wife I was going to write a book for spouses during her illness. I even wrote down chapter names, which I thought were funny, but mysteriously (I mean, I’m not directly blaming my wife but how could I possibly be at fault?) they have disappeared and it’s driving me absolutely nuts, and they are not in any of my piles… but I’m just sayin’, my piles were moved. You know I didn’t move them! So now I’m stuck writing a book WITH her (the coincidence is not lost on me, mind you). I think I just got snookered.

Oh, that book was going to be epic. It was going to change lives. It was going to be a best seller, and I would see it in bookstores everywhere. I mean, so long as bookstores still exist that is. What would it have been called? Glad you asked. Something along the lines of Fuck You, Cancer or Up Yours, Cancer, or Cancer Sucks Humungous Friggin’ Ass, which my wife was always telling me were not really good titles, actually quite offensive, and unappealing to almost everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife. But she doesn’t have the best track record of making choices. Look who she married. (And that’s where she got snookered.)

I should let you know something about me. I tend to freak out. Not outwardly, as much, but internally, mostly. My wife thinks I’m a glass-half-empty kind of person, but really I just tend to think, no overthink, about scenarios and possibilities and I try to plan for the worst, but hope for the best. I think it’s best to be prepared. Even if that means sacrificing my own sanity in the process. Which, as I have come to find, probably isn’t the best way to deal with things. For me, the best way to deal with stress is with humor and sarcasm—keep reading, it’s pretty easy to spot.