Synopses & Reviews
When Mary Potter Kenyon's husband David was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2006 she searched libraries and bookstores for books on cancer and the caregiving experience. What she discovered was a plethora of technical and medically-oriented books or those written by a caregiver whose loved one had died, a scenario she refused to contemplate. While serving as David's companion during Wednesday chemotherapy treatments, Mary began journaling about their experience as a couple and parents of young children as they navigated the labyrinth of cancer. It soon dawned on her that she was writing the very book she had searched for upon David's diagnosis: one that goes beyond the cancer experience to give hope and inspiration to the reader. Chemo-Therapist: How Cancer Cured a Marriage is a moving testimonial of a relationship renewed by the shared experience of a life threatening illness." Initially, after David's diagnosis, I would cringe when I read books or articles by cancer survivors who stated that cancer had been a gift in their lives. How could all that David endured be viewed as a gift? The invasive surgery, the weeks of chemotherapy and radiation: a gift? Yet, after the cancer, David would often reach for my hand and say, "If it is cancer that is responsible for our new relationship, then it was all worth it." And I'd reluctantly agree that cancer had been a gift in our lives. We'd both seen the other alternative: patients and survivors who had become bitter and angry, and neither one of us wanted to become that.
Review
“Mary Potter Kenyon tells a beautiful love story, describing her life as a mother of eight home-schooled children, struggling with financial problems, and the trauma of her husbands fight against oral cancer. She serves up strong illustrative details covered with a double topping of honesty. No sugar coating here. If youve ever driven past a strangers house and wondered what goes on behind closed doors, youll want to open this book. But be fully warned! Youll have trouble putting it down.”--Elaine Fantle Shimberg, author of
Blending Families and co-author of
The Complete Single Father
“This intensely personal book openly talks about the issues that families face when a spouse is facing serious cancer treatments. Marys frank writing about the emotional problems they faces as a family and as a couple should be required reading for couples facing any life and death medical condition. Finding ‘the gift of a new relationship in the midst of stress and daily living will, I hope, inspire others to reach for the same goal.”--Jean Reed, co-author with her husband Donn, Lifetime Learning Companion
“Mary Potter Kenyon shares the story of what happened to her family when her husband David was diagnosed with oral cancer, and the story she weaves is compelling, enlightening, and utterly engaging. Every so often a book comes along which seizes the readers attention and draws him into the life and the everyday concerns of another person, a book which informs and illuminates and makes the reader stop and think hard about his own life. This is such a book.”--Helen Hegener, author of Alternatives in Education, The Homeschool Reader, and The Mantanuska Colony Barns
""Mary Potter Kenyon brings transparency, honesty, humor, and hope to spouses and family members caring for loved ones with cancer. With deep insight, she shares that illness can unlock doors to deeper levels in our relationships and lead us to new discoveries about ourselves and others. Chemo-Therapist is a must-read book about living and loving for anyone who wants to discover how to find joy in each day."" —Shelly Beach, Christy award-winning author of Ambushed By Grace: Help and Hope on the Caregiving Journey and Precious Lord, Take My Hand: Meditations for Caregivers
"This is an excellent book. It's a cancer story. It's a love story. It's a struggling-to-get-by story. But what I saw weaved through every piece is that overwhelmingly it is a God story. One well worth getting comfortable in your favorite chair and reading over a cup of coffee (probably with a box of kleenex)."
--Kim Harms, blogger, 26 Letters--Countless Stories
"Yes, this story is about cancer. . . . This story helps the reader understand answers questions and gives a glimpse into what can be expected. . . . Mary tells it like it really happened, the good, the bad, the ugly and, but not least, the joy. I was changed by absorbing her words."
--Mona Rottinghaus, blogger
"In Kenyon's glass-half-full memoir, she movingly explains how her husband's tongue-cancer diagnosis turned her marriage around. Director of the Winthrop Public Library in Winthrop, Iowa, and a widely publisher writer, Kenyon is also a staunch Catholic. She and her husband, David, a trained social worker who worked as a maintenance man at a nursing home, raised eight kids, whom Kenyon homeschooled. Not surprisingly, the family felt financial stress, but once she learns she could lose David, Kenyon realizes she has always been so busy with the house and kids that she neglected their relationship. The couple started saying, 'I love you,' and holding each other close. 'We had become a kinder, gentler household,' Kenyon writes. In other words, as their radiation oncologist says in a short foreword, "Cancer does not have to change everything in a negative way." Each chapter starts with an inspirational quote from a wide range of sources, and some readers may feel uncomfortable with Kenyon's religious tone. But, overall, the story, which ends after Kenyon loses her husband to a heart attack, does hold universal appeal as Kenyon reminds all of us to better appreciate loved ones while they're alive."
Synopsis
Chemo-Therapy: How Cancer Cured a Marriage details the journey and emotional and physical turmoil that a diagnosis of cancer brings to a marriage and a family with young children. More than that, it is a moving testimonial of a marriage and love renewed by a shared experience with a life-threatening illness.
Synopsis
What happens in a family when the father is faced with cancer, a family in which the mother is the local coupon queen and their yearly vacation consists of a day spent at a Chuck E. Cheeses restaurant?
Chemo-Therapy: How Caregiving Through Cancer Cured a Marriage details the journey and emotional and physical turmoil that a diagnosis of cancer brings to a marriage and a family with young children. More than that,
Chemo-Therapist is a moving testimonial of a marriage and love renewed by the shared experience of a life-threatening illness.
"At the time of his diagnosis wed been married for 27 years. We were no longer the naïve young college students whod gotten married and played house for a few years. Wed been through a lot together, including the births of eight children, two years of dealing with my chronic illness and a bout of unemployment for my husband. Wed settled into a stagnant existence as a lower-income, middle-aged couple juggling bills and babies. During the eleven days of visiting him after his surgery, alone together at the hospital and away from the cacophony of a house full of children, I found myself falling in love with my husband all over again. Caring for David during his recovery and further cancer treatment became an honor and a privilege."
About the Author
Mary Potter Kenyon graduated with a BA in Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa in 1985. She has worked as a freelance writer for over 25 years and is widely published in newspapers, magazines and anthologies, including five Chicken Soup books. Her essay, “A Mothers Masterpiece,” which dealt with the connection between creativity and grief, was published in the January/February issue of Poet and Writers magazine. She is the author of Coupon Crazy: The Science, the Savings, and the Stories Behind Americas Extreme Obsession (Familius, August 2013). Several of her devotions will be included in the Zondervan grief Bible, Hope in the Mourning, to be released in November of 2013. She currently writes a weekly couponing column for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald newspaper and holds couponing workshops for area community colleges, libraries, and womens groups. She conducts writing workshops for Hawkeye Community College, the River Lights bookstore in Dubuque, and the Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. She does public speaking for womens groups and churches. Mary was her husbands caregiver during months of cancer treatment in 2006. Excerpts of her caregiving story have appeared in Voices of Caregiving (LaChance Publishing, May 2010), Love is a Flame (Bethany House, July 2010), and God Makes Lemonade (God Makes Lemonade, August 2010). Her essay on caregiving “Feel Like Crying? Pinch Your Nose,” was featured on the Survivors Review online magazine, Volume XII. Marys author website can be viewed at marypotterkenyon.com
Table of Contents
Foreword by Dr. Susanna Gordon, radiation oncologist, Diplomat, The American Board of Radiology, trained at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine (UCLA).
Chapter 1: Is This All There Is?
Chapter 2: The Diagnosis
Chapter 3: Treatment Begins
Chapter 4: Where Is My Daddy?
Chapter 5: What Happens Now?
Chapter 6: Bringing Daddy Home
Chapter 7: Not Tonight, Honey, Ive Got Cancer
Chapter 8: Let the Trials Begin!
Chapter 9: Fatigue is Our Friend
Chapter 10: We Get By, With a Little Help From Our Friends
Chapter 11: Make It Mean Something
Chapter 12: Life After Cancer
Chapter 13: The Sound of the Other Shoe Dropping
Epilogue
Appendix A: Suggested Resources