Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery

This book reachs out and touchs your very heart and soul, dealing with my breast cancer I felt so alone despite a tremendous support system. Musa's book reached out and showed me I was not alone, she spoke so down to earth about feelings and fears. This is a do not miss book.

I've found many of the published, first-person accounts of women dealing with breast cancer to be superficial and/or self-congratulatory. This book, however, is just FULL of information and deep insight. So many of the thoughts and feelings echoed my own. The narrative flows smoothly from personal experience and intense emotion to important, accurate technical information. Each topic is presented with clarity and objectivity. Every woman diagnosed with breast cancer should put this book at the top of their "must have" list.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I wolfed down this book, for it reflected back to me my own feelings---anxiety, intense loneliness, wild uncertainty, fear of the disease and fear of the treatment for the disease, the weeks and weeks of living in that strange land of chemo and exhaustion---and also the "good" part of learning that I had a life-threatening illness: the sudden and sharp clarity of the value of life itself, the quantum leap in perspective, finding the fortitude to endure, and being supported by the wonderful travelers in the treacherous land of cancer.After treatment, I read the book again, slowly, and discovered even more--not about treatment choices and pathology, but about growing in strength and knowledge through true, deep self-examination. The author is at times frightened,angry, disgruntled, searching, tired, relieved, elated and always honest. The writing is precise and engaging, the author always going a little deeper than most other writers to get to the truth of her experiences---and therefore finding what is common to us all.I have recently discovered that the author donates all the profits from her books on cancer to cancer research and treatment.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so the reminders are everywhere - it's practically trendy. Even Murphy Brown has it. Almost exactly one year ago, I had a mastectomy, and I checked Musa Mayer's book out of the library along with many other volumes on breast cancer. As I read it, I kept thinking, "This is me," and "I could have written this book!" She describes diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, and recovery vividly and convincingly. I was relieved to find out that she even scanned the newspaper's obituary columns, just as I did, in a morbid search for women who had died young of cancer. She went through the fear, uncertainty, self-blame, depression, and shifts in relationships that most women with breast cancer experience, as I know now. She assuaged her anxiety by seeking information; she dabbled in alternative healing methods; essentially she just went forward with her life on a new basis. As soon as I returned the library book I bought a copy of Examining Myself, to re-read and le