Nearly Departed: Adventures In Loss, Cancer, And Other Inconveniences

By: Gila Pfeffer

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Synopsis: A sharp, funny, and heartfelt memoir of losing both parents to cancer and the daring choices Gila Pfeffer made to avoid the same early demise By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost her mother to breast cancer and her father to colon cancer. A simple blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy. This memoir follows her journey as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, grows up, falls in love, and enters motherhood, before her life is derailed yet again. Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast. After enduring eight rounds of chemo and the removal of her ovaries, she takes her last-ever dip in the mikvah waters as a bald, menopausal, thirty-five-year-old mother of four. With chutzpah honed over years of repeatedly surviving the worst, she manages to save her own life. Drenched in Gila’s dark humor, Nearly Departed is a story about thriving against the odds, committing to what’s important, and leaving a better legacy than the one you inherited.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 272 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9781891011634
Related ISBNs:: 9781891011627
Publisher:: The Experiment
Date of Addition:: 07/09/24
Copyrighted By:: Gila Pfeffer
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Health, Mind and Body, Medicine
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.