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Showing posts from August 16, 2008

Cancer Is A Bitch, Gail Konop Baker's Memoir

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I read Gail Konop Baker's memoir Cancer Is A Bitch *Or I'd Rather Be Having a Mid-Life Crisis , twice. Before reading it, I wondered if I'd be able to relate-- I've never had cancer, I'm lucky and grateful for that. I also grew up in a neurosis-is-the-breakfast-of-champions environment, where the word cancer is whispered for fear that elevating the pitch would somehow invite the disease into our lives. Flowing along that superstition, I wondered if reading a book about cancer would beckon a social call. Would I be dialing-a-disease-for-delivery by reading this memoir? What would my grandparents think? Should I even tell my parents I was reading a shh-book? And I wonder where my hypochondriac roots stem from?! Really? Really. OY. The minute I started reading Cancer Is A Bitch, I could NOT put it down. Honestly, irreverently, hysterically and exquisitely, Gail hurled me into what she endured and continues to face as a cancer survivor. But, more than that- the fren