Dancing in Limbo: Making Sense of Life After Cancer

When you visit the health section of your local bookstore, you'll find a plethora of information about getting through a cancer diagnosis, and very little about how to adjust to life after cancer. As the founder of a cancer support group, I believe that survivors are leaving our hospitals in droves - unprepared. When a cancer patient "graduates" from treatments, she might exit the hospital floor amidst claps, cheers, and balloons. Her loved ones can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief, for she is out of the worst danger. Everyone wants to celebrate and get on with LIFE! But the feelings inside the patient leaving the crisis behind may be those that she never expected: anxiety, fear, uncertainty, confusion. She leaves the constant medical care that has saved her life. She leaves attachments that grew when she was under incredible stress. She enters a world where everything is okay, but she doesn't feel okay. What does she do next? What meaning can she add to her life after all of this? How does she make sense of everything that she has learned because of cancer? How does she relate now to her healthy friends when she feels tired, hurting, different, or disabled? These are the issues cancer survivors dance with for the rest of their lives. This book addresses, in a personal and realistic way, the effects of cancer on our lives - after treatment is finished. The authors interviewed dozens of cancer survivors and received the candid responses that you'd expect from those who have been through it all and want to help others. One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the discussion of how people handle trauma psychologically. It helped me understand the different approaches we each take to cope and make sense of a cancer crisis. I am now more accepting of others who view their cancer experience in a different light than I view mine. I also came to a deeper awareness of how my cancer affected my loved ones, how the process of dealing with diagnosis and treatment is so different for them than for the patient. This showed me why my loved-ones may not fully understand, or want to think about, what life *after* cancer is like for me. As an osteosarcoma survivor, the one negative thing I can say about this book is that when I got to the end, I realized there is one chapter missing. It applies to those of us who are dealing with significant physical disabilities or pain after cancer. But most survivors don't necessarily face this challenge, so I understand why the chapter isn't there. If you love someone who is finishing treatment, or if you have finished treatment within the last few years, I urge you to buy this book. It may be more expensive than the other books out there, but it is SO worth it. This is the perfect cancer graduation gift! Just giving someone this book shows them that you understand their battle for a full life doesn't end with treatment. I wish I could give it to every survivor I know.

After being diagnosed with cancer when I was 25 and also not personally knowing any cancer survivors, especially my age, I was so glad to find this book. I thought after the treatments were over and I was in remission I would feel normal, but instead I felt worse with depression, fear and anxiety. I thought I was just being ungrateful. I found this book and realized I was normal! So many told the same story as what I had been feeling. I never knew all those feelings were normal until I found this book. I recommend this book to every cancer survivor I meet. It helped me more than anything. I even dislike reading books and had never in my life read a complete book from front to back until I got this book. I read every page in less than two weeks and have went back through it over and over! Every survivor needs this book!!!

I was introduced to Dancing In Limbo at a cancer conference in 1995 after I had been diagnosed with colon cancer. The whole conference environment was "Dancing in Limbo". It made my family wake up to the emotional devastion I was facing. I realized I was limbo, and I needed to move on. At this conference, I was inspired by the authors of Dancing In Limbo, and I was able to have a life after cancer. To this day, I highly recommend this book to every new diagosed person I meet. After reading this book, I knew it was the "Dance of Life"! (5 1/2 years later I am still living the dance!)

"Limbo: A region on the border between hell and heaven where those who are not responsible for their fate await judgment day." "Limbo: A dance of West Indian origin...[that] requires strength and flexibility."So begins this interesting treatise on the psychology of survivorship, written by a dedicated pair of women, both survivors and both human development experts. For any number of cancer patients, the day will come, Halvorson-Boyd and Hunter explain, when all the Ivs have been pulled out, and the doctor has said, "You don't have to see me again." The fantastic focused determination that carried the patient through treatment is no longer needed and now comes the time- one would think - for that sigh of exquisite relief and return to normal life. Why is it then that so many in this position go home and fall apart? Why is it that life never really does return to normal? In a discourse that is part sharing of experience, part theorizing, the authors unpack these issues for us, outlining the stages survivors typically pass through and the strategies most effective in arriving at a new balance. Accessibly written with many memorable phrases from the authors and other survivors interviewed for the book. Will appeal to: Survivors, of course, especially intellectualizers nagged with unresolved anxiety. Also a good book for counselors and therapists.

This book should be given to all cancer patients, caregivers and family members during cancer treatment. It details thoughts and feelings you will have, but never imagined and ways to deal with them. There should be more books out there like this one. There is definitely a need for them! If I would have read this book during my treatment, it would have saved me a lot of money on therapy and antidepressants afterwards! The answer to surviving cancer and enjoying your life that follows is in this book! It is honestly the most helpful book I have read. God bless the authors!