Picking Up the Pieces: Moving Forward after Surviving Cancer

by Sherri Magee, Kathy Scalzo

Overview

Stepping back into everyday life after having faced a life-threatening illness is not as simple as it sounds. Now what? How do you pick up the pieces of your life and put them back together again? There are no guidelines to follow once treatment for cancer finishes--no bridge from hospital to home. How do you discuss the variety of changes you are experiencing when you may not even know how to describe them? All you know is that you are confused and that you feel out of sync with yourself and with others.

Picking Up the Pieces will guide you through this difficult time. Reassuring, realistic, and insightful, this book presents a unique four-phase process with useful daily practices to support you along your recovery journey. Drawing on the inspiring voices of cancer survivors, the authors give practical advice on how to design your own unique Healing Plan, including suggestions on ways to handle physical side effects and stress, and how to connect with yourself, with others, and with a higher power. They provide informational and educational resources and professional support services, and they suggest ways that you may find healing through your own contributions and creativity.

For the more than 10 million cancer survivors in North America who have spent months and, in many cases, years, battling disease, this book is essential for reclaiming mind, body, and spirit to move forward with recovery.

See a talk by co-author Kathy Scalzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvINDkcLRuE
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813540368
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2007
Edition description:	None ed.
Pages:	322
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sherri Magee, Ph.D. , is an independent oncology researcher who has designed cancer recovery programs for more than fifteen years and has trained health care professionals to work with survivors. She is the cofounder of the "Abreast in a Boat" Dragon Boat Society and past executive director of the Hope House Cancer Center and chair of the "Back on Track" cancer rehabilitation program.

Kathy Scalzo, M.S.O.D., is president of a consulting group specializing in change and transition management. Over the last twenty years, she has designed and implemented change initiatives for well over 200 health care organizations. She is the past president of the Board of Hope House Cancer Society and a faculty member of the Canadian Medical Association's Physician Management Institute.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Chapter One  So Where's the Party?
Chapter Two  Having New Eyes
Chapter Three  Laying Out the Pieces 
Chapter Four  The Daily Practices

Section I  Finding the Four Corners: Inquiry

Introduction: The Self Scans
Chapter Five  In Your Skin: Assessing Your Body
Chapter Six  What's on Your Mind: Assessing Your Thoughts and Emotions 
Chapter Seven  Why Am I Here? Assessing Your Spirituality
Chapter Eight  Who Showed Up? Assessing Your Relationships
Conclusion 

Section II  Framing the Edges: Discovery

Chapter Nine  Doorways to Change 
Chapter Ten  Four Approaches to Healing: Designing a Healing Plan
Chapter Eleven  Actualizing Your Healing Plan 
Chapter Twelve  Exploring Possibility 
Chapter Thirteen  Re-Evaluating Your Healing Plan

Section III  Working toward the Centre: Growth

Chapter Fourteen  Growth through Adversity 
Chapter Fifteen  From Wounds to Wisdom

Section IV  Seeing the Whole Picture: Reflection 

Chapter Sixteen  Living with Uncertainty
Chapter Seventeen  Don't Go Back to Sleep 

notes
resources
about the authors

Editorial Reviews

Picking Up the Pieces is a wonderful and important gift for cancer survivors. It is written by two highly skilled, deeply caring women with decades of experience assisting people to effectively navigate cancer and life's other great transitions. Filled with wisdom, heart, insight, and practical advice, this book will profoundly enrich and enhance the recovery process.

Medical Oncologist and author of The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transfo - Jeremy Geffen

This book is about the period after cancer diagnosis and treatment, described by survivors as “an in-between place, limbo,
a weird nothingness, a neutral zone”, or the Void....Picking Up the Pieces is easy to read, practical, moving and insightful. I liked the way in which the authors provided doable strategies for living through this difficult period, wrote about challenges to making changes, and advanced counterarguments to help the reader move ahead. I strongly recommend this book as a resource for friends, family members and clients.
 

Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy - Anita M. Unruh

This is a book of deep experience. The survivors' voices are wise and inspiring. The advice is practical, sensible, and supportive. Give it to anyone you know who has cancer. Buy it for yourself.

author of Comprehensive Cancer Care: Integrating Complementary and Conventional - James S. Gordon

This book is about the period after cancer diagnosis and treatment, described by survivors as “an in-between place, limbo,
a weird nothingness, a neutral zone”, or the Void....Picking Up the Pieces is easy to read, practical, moving and insightful. I liked the way in which the authors provided doable strategies for living through this difficult period, wrote about challenges to making changes, and advanced counterarguments to help the reader move ahead. I strongly recommend this book as a resource for friends, family members and clients.
 

From the Publisher

This is a book of deep experience. The survivors' voices are wise and inspiring. The advice is practical, sensible, and supportive. Give it to anyone you know who has cancer. Buy it for yourself.

author of Comprehensive Cancer Care: Integrating Complementary and Conventional - James S. Gordon