"When you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back." Every cancer library should have a book like Vickie Girard's. I'm sure you've seen those pocket-size books at every bookstore checkout stand that you just have to flip through while you're waiting, with titles like "100 Little Things You Can Do To Reduce Stress" or "Poems For My Cat". Something about the small size makes Girard's offering reassuring somehow, as if purposefully diminishing the overwhelming nature of the subject matter. The content is scaled back as well. As a cancer survivor Girard understands there are times when the research papers, scientific articles, and autobiographies of cancer may be just too much to handle. What she set out to do was to reduce the guidance, wisdom, and experience she and other cancer survivors shared into digestible "bites" as she calls them. Quotable wisdom in a sentence or a short paragraph at most. The kind of thing you might share at a support group, or laugh about with another cancer survivor. Girard's personal story is one that sets the tone in her introduction. In 1992 her breast cancer had been treated but later metastasized and her prognosis was grim. But with her husband's support, she did not give up, choosing instead to determinedly seek out opinions from a variety of leading specialists, finally finding a doctor and a treatment center with whom she made a profound connection, with whom she felt hope. Now eight years later she is still alive and well, a true survivor. As a cancer activist, Girard has come into contact with many other individuals who have taken the same path, who have heard the same mind-numbing words, who have struggled, fought, and prevailed. The book was written, she says in the Introduction, because of a proverb she was once told: "When you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back." Her small volume is divided into chronological order of sorts, starting out with an introduction to her story and then getting right down to business with a chapter entitled "Confronting the Bully". The bully is cancer, and right away you have a good idea of the strength and resolve that threads it's way through the sayings and quotes found in the subsequent chapters. But there is also plenty of kindness, compassion, empathy, and humor as well. Girard takes on everything a cancer patient will experience - diagnosis, treatment, side effects, nutrition, hair loss, even what she calls "the dreaded doctor visits". Each chapter is packed with little hints, words of wisdom, personal prayers, messages of hope. She credits equally the contribution of good friends, supportive family, kind strangers, and dedicated doctors. And this is a collaborative work - her words are folded into the wisdom of a larger group of survivors who she credits generously. A little book like this fits into a purse or pocket. It seems meant for those moments when one would need a little word of encouragement, or a reminder that they are not alone in particular wilderness. Kindness and constancy are infused on every page. Girard has created a portable guidebook for the soul, and her message is one of hope. |
