“Getting Past the Fear” Is Now In Print, So I’m Hosting a Giveaway!

Sometimes I worry a bit about being too self-promotional with a blog post, but then I remind myself, hey, this is my blog after all. So promoting my own book here from time to time is totally okay and almost required, right? So…

I am excited to announce that finally, Getting Past the Fear: A Guide to Help You Mentally Prepare for Chemotherapy, is available in print. It’s taken me a while to see this part of my book project through, but finally it’s done. Yay!

Click here for all purchasing options.

Now a little bit about Getting Past the Fear and my big dream, well, one of them anyway…

It’s been nearly four years since my diagnosis and the subsequent domino effect that was set in motion. One of the hardest “dominoes” for me to grapple with was realizing I would need chemotherapy. I remember feeling over-whelmed, but mostly I remember feeling afraid. I mean really afraid.

Chemo fear was hard for me to handle and that fear is what led me to write my book in the first place. I figured if I was so darn scared, probably a lot of others were as well. And again, I’m not minimizing any other kind of treatment. There is no good or easy cancer treatment. It’s all hard. Everything about cancer is horrible. But chemo scared the living daylights out of me, maybe because I witnessed my mom go through it. I don’t know.

Why is chemo so frightening anyway?

Is it the nausea? Is it the hair loss? Is it the fatigue? Is it wondering if you’ll be able to keep working or if you can afford treatment? Is it the fear of not being able to take care of your family, or even yourself?

It’s all these things and more, of course; but in a word, I think it’s because chemo makes you so very vulnerable. There are just so darn many unknowns. And unknowns are scary.

Can a person actually mentally prepare for chemotherapy?

As I say in my book:

Well, yes and no. You cannot truly prepare yourself for the unthinkable things in life, but you can understand a bit more about what to expect, and this in itself is preparing.

Reading Getting Past the Fear is the next best thing to talking with someone who’s been there. When a person is reading my book, I want her to feel as if she and I were talking face-to-face. I want to help her get past her fear, at least a little bit past it, because sometimes a little turns out to be a lot.

And now, true confessions time; one of my big dreams is to get this little guide into the hands of as many people facing chemo for the first time that I possibly can. I would love to see a copy in every one of those cancer center libraries across the country and beyond.

Might as well dream big, right?

But for starters, I’ll settle for getting it into the hands of ten of you, my dear readers.

I realize many of you did not require chemo. I realize that many of you who did, are way beyond that first chemo infusion or chemo pill day. I realize that some of you will be doing chemo for the long haul.

But I also realize that regardless of where you’ve been or where you are in your own particular cancer maze, (or your loved one’s cancer maze – this book is for caregivers too), most of you understand and can relate to fear.

This doesn’t mean those of us diagnosed live in fear, but it does mean we understand it.

So even if you never had chemo, are done with it, or will be doing chemo from here on out, I hope you’ll enter my giveaway for a chance to win a free copy of Getting Past the Fear. If you don’t need it for yourself, you can donate it to someone else or to one of those cancer center libraries I mentioned.

So, to get things rolling, I’m giving away ten copies!

To enter all you need to do is leave a comment by 5 pm CDT on Sunday, April 13th stating you’d like to enter my giveaway and you’re in! Winners will be announced shortly thereafter in a new post.

Thanks in advance for any shares, tweets, reviews or whatever (yes, purchases too!) you feel comfortable doing. Your support and efforts to help get the word out about Getting Past the Fear mean a lot.

Why not start by entering my giveaway!

Click on book image to purchase or to learn more.