Cancer Is a Word Not a Sentence or The Roots of Desire

Cancer Is a Word, Not a Sentence: A Practical Guide to Help You through the First Few Weeks

Author: Robert Buckman

A trusted and essential companion for everyone dealing with a diagnosis of cancer.

"If you're reading this book, you're probably reeling... This book is going to do one specific thing for you: it's going to help you get your balance back."

-from the introduction

Cancer is a Word, Not a Sentence is a practical guide written for people who have just been diagnosed with cancer. It aims to help them -- and their loved ones -- make sense of what happens next and to plan a course of action. Dr. Robert Buckman describes everything that comes after the diagnosis, including tests, the stages of the disease, treatment options and follow-up.

Having treated patients and interacted with their families for years, Dr. Buckman presents a six-step plan that provides information needed to make important choices in seeking the best treatment:

• Communicating with the medical team


• Treatment options and their pros and cons


• The right questions to ask and where to get information


• The decisions the patient has to make


• The possible outcomes.

Dr. Buckman also focuses on daily life: how to talk to your spouse or children, how to break the news to friends, and how to obtain the information you need. There's also a section addressed to family and friends who "just don't know what to say."

In simple and straightforward language, this practical book provides a guide for use in the real world.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: A Word, Not a Sentence

Part One: "What's Going to Happen to Me Next?"

A Step-by-Step Guide

Part Two: "What's Treatment Like?"

How Cancer Is Treated

Part Three: "Isn't There an Easier Way?"

Complementary Medicine and Remedies

Part Four: "How Do I Get Back on Track?"

Living Your Life

Part Five: "Do I Always Have to Have a Positive Attitude?"

Cancer and the Mind

Part Six: "What Can I Do to Help Myself?"

Gaining More Control

Appendix A: Tables

Appendix B: "Where Can I Get More Help?"

A Directory of Organizations, Sources and Web sites

Acknowledgements
Index

Books about: Mentoring 101 or Understanding Business

The Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red Hair

Author: Marion Roach

Part history, part cultural commentary, part memoir, The Roots of Desire is a witty and entertaining investigation into what it means to be a redhead.

A redhead rarely goes unnoticed in a crowded room. From Judas Iscariot to Botticelli's Venus to Julianne Moore, redheads have been worshipped, idealized, fetishized, feared, and condemned, leaving their mark on us and our culture. Such is the power of what is actually a genetic mutation, and in The Roots of Desire, Marion Roach takes a fascinating look at the science behind hair color and the roles redheads have played over time. She discovers that in Greek mythology, redheads become vampires after they die; Hitler banned intermarriage with redheads for fear of producing "deviant offspring"; women with red hair were burned as witches during the Inquisition; in Hollywood, female redheads are considered sexy while male redheads are considered a hard sell; and in the nineteenth century, it was popular belief that redheads were the strongest scented of all women, smelling of amber and violets. Redheads have been stereotyped, marginalized, sought after, and made to function as everything from a political statement to a symbol of human carnality. A redhead herself, Roach brings candor and brilliant insight to the complicated and revealing history of redheads, making this a stand-out narrative and an essential tool in understanding the mechanics and phenomenon of red hair.

Publishers Weekly

A redhead herself, NPR commentator Roach has an odd chip on her shoulder about it, relating all sorts of travails and opinions connected to red hair that the average non-redhead may never have guessed existed. To get to the bottom of our perceptions and experience of red hair, she explores the ancient legends of Lilith and Set, the traditions that depict both Judas and Mary Magdalene as redheads, and an Eve in London's St. Paul's Cathedral that has blond hair before the Fall and red hair after it. She visits "witch camp" in Vermont, a high-end hair salon in Manhattan, and Emily Dickinson's house, where a carefully preserved lock of the poet's red hair transforms Roach's image of her. Along the way, Roach (Another Name for Madness) makes some poignant points about what it means to belong to the redheaded minority in Western society, making gently suggestive comparisons to more overt patterns of prejudice. Yet the author seems to accept preconceptions about the sexuality and vivacity associated with red hair, and her jumping between examples often reads more like breathless conjecture than fact and leaches energy from extended vignettes, such as her visit with the witches. Whether readers enjoy this book will have a lot to do with whether they like the narrator's self-conscious red-headed persona. And, of course, whether they are as fascinated as she is by red hair. Agent, Kris Dahl. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus

"Roach approaches her subject from several angles, providing much that's entertaining."

Library Journal

NPR commentator Roach (Dead Reckoning: The New Science of Catching Killers) sets out to affirm the uniqueness of a small elite: redheads. She visits a witch camp, a genetics laboratory, the Victorian graveyard of her ancestors, and Amherst, MA, where she sees the only existing lock of Emily Dickinson's hair. By book's end, she has left blondes and brunettes sputtering in the dust of the world's most powerful, sexy, and satanic women-natural redheads like Roach herself. Along the way, she pulls together history, myth, symbolism, etymology, personal memoir, science writing, and some piquant facts to explore and, some may argue, bolster the significance of red hair. The section "Sinners" associates red hair with Satan (a.k.a. Set) through such figures as Judas, Henry VIII, Boudicca, and Shakespeare's Shylock. (This is the only section that really encompasses male redheads.) In "Science," Roach travels to Edinburgh, redhead capital of the world, to have her own genetic test done. She discovers that she indeed carries the genetic sequencing that creates a typical redhead. The final section, "Sex," looks into the Garden of Eden as depicted in mosaics in London's St. Paul's Cathedral and chronicles Eve's transformation from blond (pre- Original Sin) to redhead (post-Original Sin). Redhead stereotypes of women-powerful, sin-stained, pleasure-seeking, prone to "bad girl" behavior-abound in this section. Lest other hair colors feel left out, there is always Clairol: according to Roach, red is the number-one choice for hair color. A strong recommendation for redheads; a toned-down recommendation for academic and general collections.-Janet Sassi, New York Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.