Geetha Paniker, a survivor of triple negative cancer with double mastectomy, shortlists 3 books on cancer that had a great impact on her.
When you're dealing with cancer, a daily dose of inspiration may make a big difference in the outlook on life. Keeping a positive outlook is proven to help with stress management, but when someone says to "think positive" or "be optimistic" during a traumatic phase of any disease, it can be much easier said than done. Knowing cancer isn't all rainbows and butterflies and once you enter a dark mindset, it can be hard to get out of it, most of us have that one message of hope and inspiration that somehow manages to help bring some perspective and optimism to a situation.
During my journey through cancer, reading helped me a lot. I had left my reading habit in the rat race of life. I went back to that habit and I used to read a lot of books, some of them about cancer, mainly because I was gifted some great inspiring books. I would like to highlight three of those that really touched me a lot.
1. The Emperor of all Maladies
One book is The Emperor of all Maladies. It is a biography of cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. "The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. He recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book is like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist." This book helped me in many ways. It helped me walk the path of cancer with a vast experience of the worded knowledge of the disease.
2. Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book
Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Cancer Book was like reading a book of short stories, but very powerful stories of courage, hope, support, and the love to help cancer patients and their families. A bonus memoir by a cancer patient bound in, with intimate and helpful words of advice. A support group you can hold in your hand, this loving and inspirational collection of intimate stories, by cancer patients and their loved ones, medical professionals, clergy and friends, is a must-read for anyone affected by cancer. Writers share all their experiences – from the initial diagnosis, to breaking the news to loved ones, to discussing the effect on home, school and work, from securing a medical team to living through an ever changing self-image, from the embarrassment of losing hair to discovering a new spirituality.
3. When Breath Becomes Air
The book that touched me the most and helped me find a meaning to life was “When Breath Become Air." At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. It features his journey through cancer.
He makes the reader realize what makes life worth living in the face of death? A beautiful memoir of his life, mixed with a lot of literature in it. "When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi," is a book that touched me to a great extent. As I read it did, it rattled me a bit. Having gone through the journey of cancer myself, I could connect and feel as I read. What makes it remarkable is his intense desire to find meaning in life, in the face of death and his intimate portrayal of death. It is a book that leaves a great impact on the readers mind. Living a life facing a terminal cancer, he finds meaning in life and his book is a memoir of literature, medicine, his struggles and family relationships. It is those that go through such grave situations who can really teach us the value of life and the 'Present moment.'
Geetha Paniker has written a book on her cancer journey: When I fell in Love with Life. Here is an extract from the book: My love story with the creeping crab
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