Stanford Hospital Breast Cancer Connections Review of
Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won‘t by Cheryl Swanson, published in 2009, http://www.cherylswanson.net/
After undergoing treatment for breast cancer, adopting a child from Guatemala, and writing her first suspense novel all at the same time, Swanson decided towrite a book for women fighting breast cancer.
Through this book she hopes to help women realize that their experiences in fighting cancer can help them to “climb the mountains in their lives.” Swanson not only offers readers her own experiences with cancer, but also provides them with various facts and phone numbers that can help to broaden their knowledge regarding breast cancer.
Sometimes it can be hard to see the positives in cancer, but this book helps to point them out.
(Excerpted from Stanford Hospital Breast Cancer Connections Review)
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Cancer Patient Loses Coverage Over 1 Cent
It's not the first time someone has lost coverage because they underpaid by a penny. And it likely won't be the last.
Posted by Karen Datko on Thursday, July 8, 2010 2:10 PM
Jobless and undergoing chemotherapy, a Colorado leukemia patient learned that she no longer had health insurance because she underpaid the premium by a penny.
The story of La Rosa Carrington, 52, was relayed by the Colorado Springs Gazette. What's even more remarkable is, this isn't the first time an insurance company or benefits administrator has dropped coverage over a lousy cent.
NEXT UP ON THIS BLOG--HOW TO GET YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY TO PAY YOU FOR HAVING CANCER (Well...almost.)
Posted by Karen Datko on Thursday, July 8, 2010 2:10 PM
Jobless and undergoing chemotherapy, a Colorado leukemia patient learned that she no longer had health insurance because she underpaid the premium by a penny.
The story of La Rosa Carrington, 52, was relayed by the Colorado Springs Gazette. What's even more remarkable is, this isn't the first time an insurance company or benefits administrator has dropped coverage over a lousy cent.
NEXT UP ON THIS BLOG--HOW TO GET YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY TO PAY YOU FOR HAVING CANCER (Well...almost.)
Monday, July 05, 2010
BOOKS OF THE YEAR IN BREAST CANCER
A huge congratulations to my fellow winners in the IPPY Living Now...
Gold: Winged Victory: Altered Images: Transcending Breast Cancer, by Art Myers (Photographic Gallery of Fine Art Books)
Silver (tie): Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won’t, by Cheryl Swanson (Zumaya Publications LLC) and Redeeming Our Treasures: Finding Joy in the Shadows of an Abusive Past, by Linda Settles, M.A. (Edict House Publishing)
Bronze: Back to Life After a Heart Crisis: Rebuild Your Courage & Feel Strong Again, by Marc Wallack, M.D. and Jamie Colby (Avery Books)
More info at: http://www.cherylswanson.net/ and http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1357
Silver (tie): Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won’t, by Cheryl Swanson (Zumaya Publications LLC) and Redeeming Our Treasures: Finding Joy in the Shadows of an Abusive Past, by Linda Settles, M.A. (Edict House Publishing)
Bronze: Back to Life After a Heart Crisis: Rebuild Your Courage & Feel Strong Again, by Marc Wallack, M.D. and Jamie Colby (Avery Books)
More info at: http://www.cherylswanson.net/ and http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1357
BUSTING LOOSE WINS IPPY
I'm proud to announce that my breast cancer survivor's guide won the Living Now silver medal 2010. Congratulations to fellow winners and more information at: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1290
Thursday, March 25, 2010
WIN A COPY OF BUSTING LOOSE!
Aloha friends!
To celebrate the Hawaiian launch of Busting Loose, Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't, we're giving away free copies. Send an email with name, address and your connection to breast cancer to this address: bobz_publishing@ live.com. (Only United States addresses please!)
And if you're traveling in Hawaii this month, Cheryl Swanson will be appearing at multiple events, including a Borders, Kauai book-signing on May 1 at 2:00 pm. Check back for more details.
To celebrate the Hawaiian launch of Busting Loose, Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't, we're giving away free copies. Send an email with name, address and your connection to breast cancer to this address: bobz_publishing@ live.com. (Only United States addresses please!)
And if you're traveling in Hawaii this month, Cheryl Swanson will be appearing at multiple events, including a Borders, Kauai book-signing on May 1 at 2:00 pm. Check back for more details.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Link Found Between Stress and Breast Cancer
There are mulitple studies (just out in the past week) linking breast cancer recurrence and stress. I'm excerpting a section of Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't that deals directly with stress. If you're stressed right now, go take a walk! Then come back and read.
Finding a new way to handle stress might save your life.
Tame Career and Personal Stress
Life is not a stress rehearsal.
-Anonymous
If we don’t want to know something bad enough, we never let the thought reach our conscious awareness. Every doctor who works with cancer patients has seen patients ignore symptoms that should have seriously alarmed them. It’s too easy to blame this on ignorance. The truth is, it’s rarely ignorance. Instead, the problem goes much deeper.
Nobody comes to breast cancer as a blank slate. The first time I married I did it in four months—from first date to altar. Looking back, I have no idea why I married whom I did. I’d like to blame it on love, but the cause was simpler and possibly more common—plain, unadulterated stupidity.
I sought counseling; I read books; I went to workshops. I even allowed myself to be deprogrammed by an ex-CIA agent who was an expert on brain-washing. Like a lot of women married to men with whom they have nothing in common, I actually thought all this effort was getting me somewhere. And then came year ten, when my frog-who-never-turned-into-a- prince hopped away. To swim in another pond with a much younger and prettier amphibian.
I was never so relieved in my life.
A year after that, I began making my living as a professional speaker. Standing at the podium in my “power suit,” I’d pour out the adrenalin. This was huge, a big change for me. Essentially shy, I found I could do something that would give most everyone I knew anxiety attacks. I couldn’t have made the transformation if I’d still been married—I wouldn’t have given myself the psychic space to change, much less the opportunity for the non-stop international travel required to build a reputation.
Even as a single woman, the work was difficult—filled with migraines, jet-lag, sleepless nights in sterile hotel rooms. In the beginning, I spoke on marketing and patient care and my audiences were mostly comprised of dentists. Dentists are generally good natured, but eventually I also started doing presentations to groups of physicians. If you make a mistake in front of a group of physicians—with their incredible perspicacity and egos—be prepared to be turned into a vomiting wretch (while of course remaining completely nonchalant on the surface.)
As all public speakers soon realize, everything is your fault when you are the one behind the microphone. When the equipment malfunctions through no fault of your own, it’s still your fault. I once spoke at Cornell University’s North Shore Medical Hospital to approximately 100 doctors for an entire afternoon in pitch darkness. A brown-out in city’s main power grid was the cause, but it was still all my fault.
Even when all the equipment works and you’re on your toes mentally, you’re under constant stress. When you’re on the speaking circuit, everything is an occasion for public disgrace. And if you’re not where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there, it’s also an occasion for great financial loss. (Don’t get me started on plane delays when you owe the organizer $15,000 if you don’t show up on time for the gig.)
If your plane actually arrives on schedule, the next morning you’ll still be doing your hair and make-up out of a suitcase you were too tired to unpack the night before. The next day will start with a cab or limo in pitch darkness to the hospital, medical college or conventional hall, where you stand on your feet all day, thinking: I have to pee, I have to pee…
My speaking gigs often went well. I speak from my heart and usually feel as if I make some kind of connection with my audience. But I was always overbooked and looking back, I believe the only reason I persisted was that I was like many of the women of my generation—addicted to living in the eye of a hurricane. I operated on two basic emotions in those days—panic and barely suppressed panic. I stayed unbelievably busy so I wouldn’t realize I was unbelievably overwhelmed.
Most women get their cancer diagnosis in their forties and fifties and by that time we have come to believe they’re stronger than any problem. What most of us don’t understand is that our brains are swamped and our bodies are tired, our blood pressure is up, our serotonin levels are down, our nerves are shot and our core is saggy. In fact, we are in the worst condition of our lives.
It amazes me sometimes that women like me survive, but I did, and we do, and then comes cancer. With no warning, we step out of the eye and into the actual hurricane. I can handle this easily; I’ve handled worse, we think.
How wrong we are. If we were honest, we would admit that we’re already facing challenges that are more than we can actually bear.
Millions of women around the globe go through life this way and just about as many men. We automatically conceal our distress no matter what is happening to us. Disoriented and lost, we keep moving, never asking if we’re going in the wrong direction. Internally, we are coming apart, but we are too stubborn to admit anything is wrong even to ourselves. We know what we’re doing is killing us inside, but pride stands in the way.
The illusion of personal power over a situation in which you are powerless will damage you much worse than anything that is actually in the situation. Cancer makes us accept that there are limits to our power. What a gift that is! That realization alone makes not just the disease but everything in life much easier to handle.
Once we start telling ourselves the truth, it’s like a light is turned on, our whole lives are illuminated and we can get at the root of the problem. We can begin to hash out who we are and what we actually want and what matters to us most.
Over and over, women told me the trauma of the disease became an empowering turning point for them. They felt it helped them spur themselves to new ambitions, new careers and new loves.
It’s never easy, because cancer is a genuine hurricane. The disease seizes us and pulls us where we never wanted to go, while we look in vain for safety ropes. We cling to each other, we cling to ourselves, we cling to whatever comes hurtling out of the darkness until finally, there’s nothing left to cling to.
Willfully and passionately we may disagree, and insist we aren’t hostage to family history, that we are the masters of our fates. But we’ll see who blinks. We can parody safety, the perfect family, the perfect marriage, the perfect career, but we’re teetering on the edge.
Excerpted from Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't, from Zumaya Publications,
Finding a new way to handle stress might save your life.
Tame Career and Personal Stress
Life is not a stress rehearsal.
-Anonymous
If we don’t want to know something bad enough, we never let the thought reach our conscious awareness. Every doctor who works with cancer patients has seen patients ignore symptoms that should have seriously alarmed them. It’s too easy to blame this on ignorance. The truth is, it’s rarely ignorance. Instead, the problem goes much deeper.
Nobody comes to breast cancer as a blank slate. The first time I married I did it in four months—from first date to altar. Looking back, I have no idea why I married whom I did. I’d like to blame it on love, but the cause was simpler and possibly more common—plain, unadulterated stupidity.
I sought counseling; I read books; I went to workshops. I even allowed myself to be deprogrammed by an ex-CIA agent who was an expert on brain-washing. Like a lot of women married to men with whom they have nothing in common, I actually thought all this effort was getting me somewhere. And then came year ten, when my frog-who-never-turned-into-a- prince hopped away. To swim in another pond with a much younger and prettier amphibian.
I was never so relieved in my life.
A year after that, I began making my living as a professional speaker. Standing at the podium in my “power suit,” I’d pour out the adrenalin. This was huge, a big change for me. Essentially shy, I found I could do something that would give most everyone I knew anxiety attacks. I couldn’t have made the transformation if I’d still been married—I wouldn’t have given myself the psychic space to change, much less the opportunity for the non-stop international travel required to build a reputation.
Even as a single woman, the work was difficult—filled with migraines, jet-lag, sleepless nights in sterile hotel rooms. In the beginning, I spoke on marketing and patient care and my audiences were mostly comprised of dentists. Dentists are generally good natured, but eventually I also started doing presentations to groups of physicians. If you make a mistake in front of a group of physicians—with their incredible perspicacity and egos—be prepared to be turned into a vomiting wretch (while of course remaining completely nonchalant on the surface.)
As all public speakers soon realize, everything is your fault when you are the one behind the microphone. When the equipment malfunctions through no fault of your own, it’s still your fault. I once spoke at Cornell University’s North Shore Medical Hospital to approximately 100 doctors for an entire afternoon in pitch darkness. A brown-out in city’s main power grid was the cause, but it was still all my fault.
Even when all the equipment works and you’re on your toes mentally, you’re under constant stress. When you’re on the speaking circuit, everything is an occasion for public disgrace. And if you’re not where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there, it’s also an occasion for great financial loss. (Don’t get me started on plane delays when you owe the organizer $15,000 if you don’t show up on time for the gig.)
If your plane actually arrives on schedule, the next morning you’ll still be doing your hair and make-up out of a suitcase you were too tired to unpack the night before. The next day will start with a cab or limo in pitch darkness to the hospital, medical college or conventional hall, where you stand on your feet all day, thinking: I have to pee, I have to pee…
My speaking gigs often went well. I speak from my heart and usually feel as if I make some kind of connection with my audience. But I was always overbooked and looking back, I believe the only reason I persisted was that I was like many of the women of my generation—addicted to living in the eye of a hurricane. I operated on two basic emotions in those days—panic and barely suppressed panic. I stayed unbelievably busy so I wouldn’t realize I was unbelievably overwhelmed.
Most women get their cancer diagnosis in their forties and fifties and by that time we have come to believe they’re stronger than any problem. What most of us don’t understand is that our brains are swamped and our bodies are tired, our blood pressure is up, our serotonin levels are down, our nerves are shot and our core is saggy. In fact, we are in the worst condition of our lives.
It amazes me sometimes that women like me survive, but I did, and we do, and then comes cancer. With no warning, we step out of the eye and into the actual hurricane. I can handle this easily; I’ve handled worse, we think.
How wrong we are. If we were honest, we would admit that we’re already facing challenges that are more than we can actually bear.
Millions of women around the globe go through life this way and just about as many men. We automatically conceal our distress no matter what is happening to us. Disoriented and lost, we keep moving, never asking if we’re going in the wrong direction. Internally, we are coming apart, but we are too stubborn to admit anything is wrong even to ourselves. We know what we’re doing is killing us inside, but pride stands in the way.
The illusion of personal power over a situation in which you are powerless will damage you much worse than anything that is actually in the situation. Cancer makes us accept that there are limits to our power. What a gift that is! That realization alone makes not just the disease but everything in life much easier to handle.
Once we start telling ourselves the truth, it’s like a light is turned on, our whole lives are illuminated and we can get at the root of the problem. We can begin to hash out who we are and what we actually want and what matters to us most.
Over and over, women told me the trauma of the disease became an empowering turning point for them. They felt it helped them spur themselves to new ambitions, new careers and new loves.
It’s never easy, because cancer is a genuine hurricane. The disease seizes us and pulls us where we never wanted to go, while we look in vain for safety ropes. We cling to each other, we cling to ourselves, we cling to whatever comes hurtling out of the darkness until finally, there’s nothing left to cling to.
Willfully and passionately we may disagree, and insist we aren’t hostage to family history, that we are the masters of our fates. But we’ll see who blinks. We can parody safety, the perfect family, the perfect marriage, the perfect career, but we’re teetering on the edge.
Excerpted from Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't, from Zumaya Publications,
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Busting Loose on Must-Have List for Breast Cancer Patients
http://www.this-is-great.com/top/xrexjxixnxaxhxhxmxaxjxsxcxs?PHPSESSID=924211c1022b42f843ca12683bf1b4b9
Not sure I agree with this list...but nice to see Busting Loose is listed. If you're a reviewer, let me know at cherylaswanson@gmail.com. Free copies are available for review from the publisher.
Not sure I agree with this list...but nice to see Busting Loose is listed. If you're a reviewer, let me know at cherylaswanson@gmail.com. Free copies are available for review from the publisher.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Recent Review of Busting Loose--reprinted with permission
Busting Loose Hit Me Like a Bombshell
by Jane Phillipshttp://www.booksunlimited.ie/Books/Swanson-Cheryl/Busting-Loose/9781934841747.htm
Most helpful book I read on breast cancer, bar none. When I was diagnosed, so many things did not make sense—until I read this book. They now make sense
Briefly, in addition to cancer, you have to deal with an information overload that is unbelievable. You have to sift through that information and make huge decisions, decisions that could radically change your future and even save your life. And you can’t give the responsibility up to your doctors—not unless you really don’t care if you keep your breasts, or even keep on living. Deep down, I was completely terrified and at a loss how to help myself. I virtually gave up because my doctors didn’t seem to care.
The book showed me how to take control, get answers to my questions, force the hospital to schedule tests and surgery rapidly. (I even browbeat my insurers into paying for a procedure they had refused to cover! Yes!) There are eighty chapters in this book. It doesn’t cover just medical information, but family relationships, work problems, diet, sex—all the things breast cancer can effect.
Some of the chapters in Busting Loose I felt I could have written because they were so close to my experience. The book tells the story of the author’s battle not to let cancer become a roadblock. In her case, she went right ahead with her dreams, adopting a little girl from Guatemala and becoming a suspense novelist. My life is very different, but I could relate and her wisdom fit my situation just as well. You want inspiration, you’ll find it here. I recommend this to all women recently diagnoses, as well as any survivor interested in staying healthy. You’re going to find information you will not read anywhere else.
by Jane Phillipshttp://www.booksunlimited.ie/Books/Swanson-Cheryl/Busting-Loose/9781934841747.htm
Most helpful book I read on breast cancer, bar none. When I was diagnosed, so many things did not make sense—until I read this book. They now make sense
Briefly, in addition to cancer, you have to deal with an information overload that is unbelievable. You have to sift through that information and make huge decisions, decisions that could radically change your future and even save your life. And you can’t give the responsibility up to your doctors—not unless you really don’t care if you keep your breasts, or even keep on living. Deep down, I was completely terrified and at a loss how to help myself. I virtually gave up because my doctors didn’t seem to care.
The book showed me how to take control, get answers to my questions, force the hospital to schedule tests and surgery rapidly. (I even browbeat my insurers into paying for a procedure they had refused to cover! Yes!) There are eighty chapters in this book. It doesn’t cover just medical information, but family relationships, work problems, diet, sex—all the things breast cancer can effect.
Some of the chapters in Busting Loose I felt I could have written because they were so close to my experience. The book tells the story of the author’s battle not to let cancer become a roadblock. In her case, she went right ahead with her dreams, adopting a little girl from Guatemala and becoming a suspense novelist. My life is very different, but I could relate and her wisdom fit my situation just as well. You want inspiration, you’ll find it here. I recommend this to all women recently diagnoses, as well as any survivor interested in staying healthy. You’re going to find information you will not read anywhere else.
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