Cancer

When Lauren Segal, successful historian and curator, wife andmother, receives a call from her husband one wintry morningin 2014, the furthest thing from mind is her biopsy results. Fortwo years she's been living a cancer-free existence after a doublemastectomy that has put her in the clear. The call shatters thefoundation of her world as she hears the news – the lump shethought was scar tissue is malignant. Her cancer is back.Cancer: A Love Story is the intimately searing memoir of afour-time cancer survivor. The book breathlessly tracks Lauren'sjourney to come to terms with the untold challenges of facingthe dreaded disease. Forced to face her needle phobia, theauthor leads the reader into her crumbling world as she confrontsthe terrors of treatment – from debilitating chemo to nukingradiation. Death is her uninvited companion.But in the midst of her lonely horror, in a quest for deepermeaning, Lauren discovers the unexpected gift of awareness ofunanticipated opportunities that cancer presents – to confronther unmasked humanity – her fears, strengths and weaknesses.“I have come to understand that in the same way that themajestic lotus flower has its roots in murky waters, so too doesthe emergence of beauty in life sometimes depend on life'sdarker events. Throughout my arduous journey into the worldof cancer, I have discovered that proximity to death brings withit a new proximity to life. I have learned that luck and unluck,happiness and distress, hope and despair are tightly coiled into alife well lived.”