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For millions of people worldwide, a cancer diagnosis can feel like a death sentence. It did at first for Ken and Emily, who spent that Mother’s Day weekend thinking about mortality and death. But they refused to settle into the loneliness and isolation that logically follow such feelings of despair. Instead of withdrawing from friends and family, they embraced their new experience and invited their loved ones to share their adventure, which continues today, almost thirty years later.
Ken’s “Our Mantra” and the 100 other stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book (Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and David Tabatsky, March 2009) provide inspiration to help deal with every aspect of this terrible disease. From initial diagnosis to breaking the news to securing a medical team to chemotherapy and then recovery, the collection of stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book is the most extensive of its kind.
When cancer awareness advocate David Tabatsky set out to sort through thousands of cancer story submissions, he was struck by the outpouring of emotion, hope, and support he received. Everyone has a story to tell about cancer, each revealing a unique piece of the human spirit. As a result, the book serves as a hand-held cancer support group for anyone in cancer’s grip as well as for their friends and family. The stories contain a cross-section of real-life experiences from medical professionals, patients, survivors, and their loved ones—those who overcame cancer and those who did not.
The book includes stories from all ages, even as young as 11. Notable contributors include
- Sean Swarner, two-time cancer survivor and first survivor to summit Everest;
- Matthew Zachary, survivor and founder of the under-40 cancer community, ImTooYoungForThis.org;
- High school student Emmarie Truman, recognized in Sports Illustrated as a star student athlete, prom queen, and brain cancer survivor;
- National Geographic editor Mark Silver, who chronicled his wife’s story and his role as a “breast cancer husband”;
- How one man supported his wife through five bouts of breast cancer and later founded The Patient/Partner Project;
- A 30-year Harvard oncologist who calls prostate cancer patients “the unsung heroes of cancer” (like contributor Werner Hass, both a cancer and a Holocaust survivor);
- How a then-39-year-old executive from one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies welcomed a son just six months after a cancer diagnosis, and three years later, a daughter;
- Barry Katz, who founded Lotsa Helping Hands, a free volunteer coordination service, after losing his wife.
