5 Lessons I Didn't Learn from Breast Cancer - Shelley Lewis

Shelley Lewis is a wise, strong and realistic woman who has spent many years in the media as a producer of radio and TV for major networks. In 2004, she went for her regular mammogram, and her adventure in breast cancer land started. Lewis writes crisp, entertaining prose about every aspect of breast cancer: treatments, social implications, politics, sex, body image and the pinkapalooza of fundraising. She includes the experiences of other women who didn't find breast cancer transforming but found it confirmed who they really are.

Shelley Lewis is a smart, clear-eyed and unsentimental writer who has worked as a producer of radio and TV shows for NBC, ABC and CNN. Lewis is good at taking risks: in 2004, she left CNN to help start Air America Radio, and, more recently, she helped start up howdini.com. It was just after Air America entered a financial pinch that Lewis went for her annual mammogram, a very different pinch that revealed a breast tumor. In honest, humorous prose, she takes us along her trip through treatment decisions (vanity versus patience) and dealing with offensive comments ("Jerkville City Limits: Population: You"). Along the way, she wonders if breast cancer is going to change her life, give her a major epiphany (a spiritual revelation) or a new pink-chiffon draped personality.

Lewis shares with us her assertive ways of dealing with doctors, nurses and coworkers, as she leans for support on her husband, daughter and real friends. She reads widely and includes the experiences of many other women who survived and didn't let the disease define or remodel their true selves: "Cancer didn't teach me lessons that changed my life; my life taught me lessons that changed my cancer experience."

Her book will teach you how to make denial work for you (how to have 20-minute breast cancer), delegate responsibility (but maintain control while asking for help), listen to your inner voice (it's okay to fail at Attitude Camp) and avoid chat rooms. She talks frankly about sex and the single (breasted) girl, dealing with side effects and working right through 6 months of chemo and 7 weeks of radiation. When she gets in to politics and fund-raising, she lets loose in prose that would make the late, great Molly Ivins smile with joy. Beware fluffy pink angels, Shelley Lewis is still herself!