Full Description
A diagnosis of breast cancer can be overwhelming. The disease is frightening and the medical landscape confusing. In the wake of fear and confusion comes the need to make decisions about treatment. This book provides women with medically reliable and up-to-date information to help them with these decisions. Within these pages is a team of private consultants-including surgeons, medical oncologists, radiologists, plastic surgeons, and women who have faced breast cancer-each of whom offers sound advice and valuable insight. In addition to describing surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and breast reconstruction, the medical experts clarify choices and offer support, while breast cancer survivors tell their own stories of pain, perseverance, and triumph. Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment is a rare blend of medical expertise and compelling personal accounts that empowers those with breast cancer to meet the disease with confidence, knowledge, and hope.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Understanding the Choices
Part 1. The Big Picture
Chapter 1. Making Decisions
Chapter 2. What is Breast Cancer?
Chapter 3. A Statistic of One
Chapter 4. "Why Me?" A Discussion of Risk
Part 2. Understanding the Treatments: The Doctor's Perspectives
Chapter 5. Assembling the Treatment Team and Charting a Course
Chapter 6. Facing Surgery
Chapter 7. Profiles of Two Breast Surgeons
Chapter 8. Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer
Chapter 9. Profiles of Two Radiation Oncologists
Chapter 10. Beyond Local Therapy: Hormonal Therapy and Chemotherapy
Chapter 11. Profiles of Three Medical Oncologists
Chapter 12. Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy: What Are My Options?
Chapter 13. Profiles of two Reconstructive Surgeons
Chapter 14. Treatment Options for Metastatic Breast Cancer
Part 3. Notes on the Experience of Having Breast Cancer
Chapter 15. The Shock of Finding Out
Chapter 16. Neccessary Decisions: Surgery, Radiation Therapy, and Breast Reconstruction
Chapter 17. Considering Adjuvant Therapy
Chapter 18. Reflections on the Experiemce
Part 4. Survivors Tell Their Stories
Chapter 19. Stories from Women at High Risk
Chapter 20. Stories from Women with Non-Invasive Breast Cancer
Chapter 21. Stories from Women wityh Invasive Breast Cancer
Chapter 22. Stories from Women with Advanced Breast Cancer
Part 5. When Cancer Specialists Get Cancer
Chapter 23. A Professional and a Patient
Chapter 24. Lessons Learned
Chapter 25. "You're Going to Live"
Conclusion: The Agony and the Opportunity of Choice
About the Contributors
Index
