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Your
Breast Cancer Treatment Handbook: Your Guide to Understanding
the Disease, Treatments, Emotions and Recovery From Breast Cancer
By
Judy C Kneece, RN, OCN
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Review
by Carol Redding
5th
Edition (Rev 2003), $29.95, EduCare Inc, West Columbia, SC.
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"Handbook"
is an appropriate description of this concise, practical work, which
is clearly and sensitively written. Ms Kneece combines her credentials--registered
nurse, certified oncology nurse, MammaCare®a Specialist,
and trainee at the Mind and Body Institute of Harvard Medical School--with
an empathetic understanding of her patients' needs. This combination
offers readers a high level of psychological and emotional comfort with
this handbook--both as a resource and as a starting point for building
a better understanding of what it is like to have breast cancer.
The practical
nature of the book is invaluable in its simple, thorough explanation
of different types of breast cancer, the role of the lymphatic system,
surgical and reconstructive procedures, and general medical terminology
likely to be encountered by patients with breast cancer. In short, the
author provides patients with the tools they need to become well-informed,
fully participative members of the health care team. At the same time,
the author spares the reader the research efforts that would be required
if such a handbook were not readily available.
Kneece
also addresses the needs of a patient's family and friends and offers
brief, sound advice on how to convey information, what sort of reactions
to expect, and how to prepare for them. Of particular use is her advice
on how to talk with children about breast cancer: This advice prepares
patients for the possibility that their children may express anger or
fear or may believe that they somehow caused the disease.1
As part of her overall experience of having breast cancer, every mother
with this disease must be prepared to face these issues. The author
also helps patients understand the importance of including children
in the care experience and guides patients on how to do this in a way
appropriate for each child's age.
Kneece
reminds the patient--whose normal reaction to the diagnosis might be
self-absorption, distress, and withdrawal--that her mate is also suffering
because of the breast cancer diagnosis. The author speaks frankly about
effective steps that a couple can take to maximize communication and
sensuality, thereby using their shared experience of breast cancer to
strengthen their relationship instead of being driven apart.
The visual
layout of this book is especially helpful. A combination of tables,
charts, bulleted lists, and clearly illustrated images is used to clarify
concepts, surgical procedures, cellular structures, metastatic pathways,
postoperative exercises, and techniques for breast self-examination.
The book includes a set of tear-out pages useful to patients for maintaining
records of medical contacts, treatment records, bulb drain records,
and sets of predefined questions for the health care teams with whom
patients are likely to interact.
Your
Breast Cancer Treatment Handbook is an affordable, comprehensive
resource for any family coping with a breast cancer diagnosis and its
aftermath. The book is an equally appropriate and meaningful gift to
give to a friend or family member during any stage of breast cancer
treatment or recovery.
If this
publication has any drawback, it is its cover design--ironically, one
aspect of the book that could encourage many women to pick it up for
a closer look. Its depiction of a delicate pink rose accompanied by
gold-embossed script will probably make the book visually appealing
to most women but might cause some men to overlook it as merely "girls'
stuff" or "feminine fluff." Physicians and other health
care practitioners who interact with the male partners of women with
breast cancer should encourage these men to read this book cover to
cover, because the content is as much for them as for the women they
hold dear.
Another
reason for men to read this book applies to them even more directly:
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2003, about 1300 new cases
of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among men in the United
States. Breast cancer is about 100 times more common among women,2
but we would be doing men a grave injustice by ignoring the possibility
that they, too, may someday be diagnosed with this disease.
In Kneece's
own words, "Breast cancer is more than scars on the breast; it
can also scar the heart. We must address the psychological and social
issues breast cancer brings if a woman is to master the disease. ...
Getting well is more than surgery and treatments; it is a woman understanding
the vital role she can play in managing her own physical and emotional
recovery."1
Interspersed
throughout the book are quotations from breast cancer survivors, whose
poignant words offer readers a profound sense of community--membership
in a club to which they would rather not belong but in which they might
nonetheless find comfort.
a
MammaCare® is a breast examination certification program,
which purports to be "The only scientifically validated system
for teaching physical examination of the breast." Their Web site
offers a full description of their program: www.mammacare.com.
References
- Kneece
JC. Your breast cancer treatment handbook: your guide to understanding
the disease, treatments, emotions and recovery from breast cancer.
5th ed. West Columbia (SC): EduCare; 2003.
- American
Cancer Society. Detailed guide: male breast cancer: what are the key
statistics for male breast cancer? Available from: www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_are_the_key
statistics_for_male_breast_cancer_28.asp?sitearea=&level=
(accessed July 29, 2003).
Carol
Redding, a writer, is also an Information Technology Consultant
and Customer Service Manager at San Diego State University; a California-licensed
Private Investigator; a grant writer for the California Institutes
of Preventive Medicine; an authentic voice in the National Call to
Action, a movement to end child abuse and neglect; a Fellow of the
Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine; a cancer survivor;
and a patient who recently embarked on her own breast cancer journey.
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