The Gown Opens in the Front

I just want to set the record straight before we begin: I am not Lance Armstrong. I didn t ride a bike every day after my chemotherapy treatments. Most days, I was just satisfied if I could find the gumption to push the buttons on the remote control. I am still afraid. Sometimes my fears keep me awake at night. I am afraid the cancer will come back. Everyone says it will not; I say that too, but I m still scared. I am afraid I will have to go through all of those stupid treatments again the surgeries, the wounds that would not heal, the trips to the emergency rooms full of sleepdeprived doctors and disgruntled nurses. Now that the cancer is gone and the book is finished, I have done a lot of thinking, mostly about you. How can I, as a writer, help to show you that even though cancer is painful, humiliating and disgusting, it can bring blessings into your life? That cancer will give you the opportunity to love people you never would have thought worthy of love including yourself? Will this book show you how cancer helped me learn to give and receive unconditional love? How it taught me to stand up for what I believe in? I want this book to show you these things. I want it to show you just how miraculous it is that we all share the same journey, regardless of who we are. Many cancer survivors share similar experiences on the road to recovery. We battle complications from treatments and surgeries, feel misunderstood, face our mortality, struggle with selfimage, wait out lonely and scary nights, thank God when we are too weak to strangle neurotic family and friends ... The list goes on and on. The strange thing is that, although we share the same journey, fighting cancer can be a very lonely time. Many times during the course of my illness, I heard the phrase, No one ever goes through cancer alone. It s true that I was never alone during cancer, but it was the loneliest time of my life. Cancer is a lonely disease. It is your body fighting itself, and you have to retreat inward for the battle. The solitude is the scariest part. When I was dealing with cancer, my only solace was hearing other people s stories that were similar to my own. I hope that with this book I can help to dispel some mysteries, to let you know you are not alone and that you will get through this. I also want to make you laugh. I hope you laugh at least once while you read this book. I hope that after you read it, you are excited because you feel you have found a way to cope with your experience. I address a lot of issues in this book; problems with depression, confusion about my spirituality, my hopes and fears, etc. I may have written some things that offend you. If so, please understand, what I have written is only an opinion, and that, while I continue to change and grow as a person, I am doing the best I can... This book is a MUST READ for every woman diagnosed with breast cancer!