Customer Reviews

How I Said Bah! to Cancer: A Guide to Thinking, Laughing, Living and Dancing Your Way Through

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It would be wonderful if you never needed to read this book! That would mean that you or anyone you know was not affected by cancer, sadly this is unlikely to be the case.

This book is honest, informative, supportive and readable. It includes coping strategies, and suggestions, it does not include mumbo-jumbo. I believe this book should be given to every family dealing with and cancer and should be a set text for medical staff , where ever they work.

As someone with terminal cancer I found this book very lifting. I am not one for reading books about health or cancer etc however after reading a review on amazon I decided to have a try.

What a refreshing read and I could relate to so much of the book. Many ideas within the book I've adopted and as a result feel a lot more contented with the situation I'm finding myself in. it's not a "fix all" book - more just a fresh approach to looking at the positives within what is often such a dire and horrendous situation to be in.

Have friends who have read it too - they've found it useful too in trying to understand the rollercoaster of emotions i seem to be on on a regular basis.

Would recommend to anyone!

A wonderful book. Read it if you are facing cancer. Read it if you have already faced cancer. Read it if, like me, you just want to know what so many of your friends and loved ones are facing. Stephanie puts the basic medical stuff clearly and simply, AND she goes into the real `what's it like?' details, all the ones you wonder but don't like to ask, and some of the ones you never even thought of. Along the way she has plenty of good, practical advice for the person with the cancer and their family and friends. All told with wit, warmth, humanity and knitting. Oh, and by the way, have a box of tissues to hand.

I first started reading Stephanie's work after talking to her on Twitter, and this book reflects everything that I loved about her blog posts.

Stephanie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and, I am delighted to say, she is now well. 'Bah! to cancer' charts her journey from diagnosis through treatment and is a frank account of the approaches that she took towards her unwanted 'dance' with cancer - including the things she wishes she had done differently.

This book is truly inspirational - not in the often trite 'think yourself well' genre - but in its humanity, spirit and courage. It is a book about continuing to really live during cancer treatment, and about how being conscious of the nature of your thoughts can help to improve your day-to-day experiences. Indeed the techniques of mindfulness and visualisation described in its pages will be useful to anyone grappling with a serious challenge in their life.

For those currently in treatment there are a wealth of useful explanations and prompts as to where you might go for more information, how to get answers to your questions and, most importantly, gain a measure of control over your treatment plan.

It is also a superb practical guide for anyone who is supporting a person living with cancer. Stephanie includes checklists that cover a hoard of simple things that can make life more comfortable (check the batteries in the remote control etc) and, most powerfully, lists the type of questions that you might want to ask if you are finding it difficult to talk to someone you love about what they are experiencing.

Nobody wants to be in a position where they have to front up to cancer, but if I ever find myself in that place then I hope I will have it in me to produce something so wise, so special and so empowering as a result.

Essential reading for anyone living with cancer and, I would suggest, for anyone working in an oncology department.

I got this book for my mother-in-law who is being treated for limphoma. I have read the book as well and found it very helpful and written in a positive way. I would recommend it for anyone affected by cancer.

Brilliant book. I was struggling but feel this author so spot on she could have been
Following me around. Great lift. Thank you

A wonderful insight into coping and surviving the treatment of cancer. As a sufferer myself 8 years ago I can relate to the ups and downs of Stephanies dance with cancer. She has managed to bring humour,laughter and a positive outlook into an emotive subject. Thank you.

First I have to say that if there was the option I would have given it no stars at all.

I had already seen the blurb for this book and was thinking about buying it myself when it came up for review on Cancer Voices, so I started to read it with the hope that it really was "truthful, personal, funny and above all helpful" as stated on the back cover.

I didn't get far before I came to the conclusion that this is really nothing more than a bit of self promotion for the author and her consultancy business as a 'Master Trainer' in the de Bono Thinking methods. I hope that her conviction that she was cancer free after the surgery, let alone the chemo, rads and Herceptin, turns out to be the case and that she does not have a progression of the disease and find out how condescending, shockingly rude, dismissive and superior this book appears to someone with secondary cancer. She seems to dismiss us all as the walking dead who occasionally cross her path when we are wheeled into radiotherapy on a bed to have a treatment when we already seem to be unconscious and teetering on the brink of death (p180).

The stupidity of comments like 'made sure none of the likely side effects was weight gain' (p 190) when it came to deciding whether to take part in a drug trial is crass to say the least. Some of us don't have the luxury of worrying about something as superficial as that when it comes to the options we have for treatment.

I made myself read the whole of the book so I could review and I had hoped that her attitudes would improve but they didn't. I actually found this book to be highly offensive and it is absolutely the worst cancer advice book I have come across.

I stopped reading this book after being blindsided by some very offensive comments about people with secondary/advanced/metastatic/stage IV cancer like myself. I feel that Stephanie's alledgedly researched information on this subject is very much unfounded. Whilst I admire her for stepping out into the public domain and talking about her cancer I could not finish the book due to her insensitive comments about people like me whose cancer is chronic.
I have emailed Stephanie about this and she said she would get back to me - 6 months ago
I hope that if this book gets republished she will reconsider various parts of it and get further advice on areas she does not have personal experience with.
There are much more useful books out there if you have stage IV cancer. Try Kris Carr and Dr David Servan Schreiber

I read this book having just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I found it disappointing, scary and am terrified at what lies ahead.