Unbreakable Spirit

Description

Real People, Real Stories The Experts, The Carers, The Survivors, The Families Unbreakable Spirit is a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of cancer. It tells the true stories of people who have survived cancer and of those who are terminally ill. It also shares the experiences of people who have had a loved one die from cancer and includes information from hospice workers, oncologists, GPs, a counsellor, surgeon and breast physician. When Karen McMillan's parents, both of whom had lived with cancer, died in their prime, she started her own journey to find the answers to her questions from the stories of others. How do people cope with their own mortality? How frightening is the Big C? Are treatments improving? How does cancer impact on a family? What hope is there for the future? Karen also tells her own story of being diagnosed with cancer in 2011. This is an invaluable collection of real life stories of cancer, representing a wide range of circumstances that will provide information, comfort and help to patients and their families.

Karen McMillan lives in New Zealand and is the author of both fiction and non-fiction. Her non-fiction titles include - Unbreakable Spirit: facing the challenge of cancer in New Zealand; Love in Aotearoa (titled Love Bytes in the UK); Feast or Famine: a New Zealand guide to understanding eating disorders, and Unleash Your Inner Seductress. She has adapted a South African book about dying for the New Zealand market - Dying: A New Zealand Guide to the Journey. She has also helped with the manuscript for Retire Right: A New Zealand guide to planning for financial security & prosperity in your retirement. Her first novel, Watching Over Me, was published in the United States and is also available as an e-book. Her last book, a sweeping novel of love and war, The Paris of the East, published in April 2014 and spent four weeks on the Bookscan Top 10 Bestseller list for Fiction. Karen has a Diploma in Professional Writing and an Advanced Diploma of Applied Arts (Writing). Love in Aotearoa was short-listed for the Ashton Wylie Book Award in 2005. Previously an award-winning fashion designer, Karen worked full-time for a leading book publisher based in New Zealand for thirteen years, before starting her own business kmacPR - a company specialising in publicity and marketing for the book publishing industry. Karen has written articles for a variety of different publications and from time to time she undertakes ghost-writing projects. She also volunteers for her local hospice and writes articles that promote the life-affirming work that they do.

'I know if you read Unbreakable Spirit, you will gain great strength from it.' --Judy Bailey, Patron of North Shore Hospice.