How to Manage the Agony of Physical and Emotion Issues After a Mastectomy

During Kim Harms’s cancer treatment, her middle son became seriously ill and was ultimately diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Many days, Kim felt as though she were drowning. With both conditions bringing lifelong challenges, she learned to thrive and live fully amid ongoing suffering. 

Kim Harms is a wife, mom, two-time breast cancer survivor, author, and library assistant. She holds a degree in English from Iowa State University and brings more than two decades of professional writing experience across a wide range of publications. 

Kim's interview will help you find hope in hard things and to thrive while in the midst of long-suffering. 

Whether it’s yours or a loved one’s, a cancer diagnosis changes everything. It stops you in your tracks as you put everything you have into fighting for life. It can feel isolating being thrown into the unknown chaos of treatment.

But you are not alone.

With uplifting stories from dozens of women who have been where you are, Carried Through Cancer provides emotional and spiritual support, encouragement, and community in its true stories of God-filled moments within the hard and heartbreaking road of cancer.

God meets some people in their fear in the exam room and others in the shower where the flowing water drowns out tears, but regardless of the location, this 70-day devotional demonstrates that God shows up when people reach out to Him, and He is there to carry you through your story.

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Whether facing mastectomy and breast reconstruction due to a cancer diagnosis or a genetic predisposition to the disease, the process is filled with uncertainty, difficult questions, intense emotions, and life-altering decisions that must be made in quick order.

In Life Reconstructed, Kim Harms details her own experience, the experiences of others, plus extensive research, delving into the physical, emotional, psychological, and relational aspects of mastectomy and breast reconstruction, featuring:

• input from medical professionals,
• a detailed look at the distinct differences between breast reconstruction and breast augmentation (It’s not a boob job!)
• practical advice for decision-making, self-advocacy, recovery, talking with your children, a return to intimacy, and more.

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How Can Cancer Have Humorous Moments?

During Ann Bancroft's first cancer treatment, which consisted of two surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation, she reached the point of being too weak to lift a light wastebasket or to walk further than a few yards. She was bald, her skin looked gray, smelled like chemicals and her mouth tasted like metal. It felt as if her life was draining away, and she could not imagine a time when she’d look and feel healthy again.

Ann Bancroft is a 71-year-old, two-time breast cancer survivor with a degree in journalism. Her debut novel, Almost Family, was recently published. Ann began writing fiction after a career in journalism and communications. Cancer prompted her to retire from a demanding full-time job to become a writer. 

Ann has been a volunteer mentor to dozens of cancer patients. Many will relate to her story, and everyone will be encouraged. She shares how a second cancer diagnosis, thirteen years later, did not bring the fear that dominated her life the first time. 

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Liz Millanova has stage four cancer, a grown daughter who doesn’t speak to her, 

and obsessive memories of a relationship that tore apart her marriage. She thinks

of herself as someone who’d rather die than sit through a support group, 

but now that she is going to die, she figures she might as well give it 

a go.

Mercy’s Thriving Survivors is a hospital-sponsored group held in a presumably 

less depressing location: Nordstrom’s employee training lounge. There, Liz hits 

it off with two other patients, and the three unlikely friends decide to ditch the 

group and meet on their own. 

They call themselves the Oakland Mets, and their goal is to enjoy life while 

they can. 

Together, Dave, a gay Vietnam vet, and Rhonda, a devout, nice woman who’s hiding

a family secret and finds peace in a gospel choir, and snarky Liz plans outings to 

hear jazz, enjoy nature, and tour Alcatraz. In the odd intimacy they form, 

Liz learns to open up and get close, acknowledge and let go of the dysfunction

in her marriage, and repair her relationship with her daughter. 

They joined forces to have an enjoyable  time—but what they wound up doing is helping 

one another come to grips with terminal cancer and resolve the unfinished 

business in their lives.

 

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