Breast Cancer: The Unplanned Journey

About the Book

The Unplanned Journey relates the adventures of my walk on the Cancer road. It stresses the lessons that Cancer taught me. It tells the reader about my fears and my struggles in dealing with Cancer - the acceptance of having the disease, the surgeries, and its treatments. This book is written in an effort to assure any woman or man with Cancer that there is an end to the long journey. My readers should be assured that they are not alone. Today most Cancers are curable if they can be found early. Happiness and normal life will return again at the end of the journey.

Book Review:

Breast Cancer
The Unplanned Journey
Lessons Learned
By Beverly Stacy Dittmer

Reviewed by Mary Ann Noonan

Breast Cancer The Unplanned Journey Lessons Learned, is the very personal journal of Beverly Stacy Dittmer’s passage from finding a lump in her breast, through her anxious wait for the confirmed diagnosis of breast cancer that every woman dreads to hear, through her one step at a time trek from surgery through treatment and complications, and, finally, to a realization that life goes on and can become normal again. Beverly as a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, and a professional woman shares critical, yet sensitive, information about her diagnosis of breast cancer and its treatment. She makes it quite clear in the copyright page that “the medical statements in this book are only what I understood and are not to be taken as true medical facts,” continuing that her knowledge about breast cancer was obtained in years 2003 and 2004. In addition, she includes a personal touch to her 222 page manuscript describing many relationships and human interest stories about life with her husband, her family, her friends, her personal activities, and travels. The reader follows Beverly as she relates her cancer journey one step at a time-the good times and the bad.

In a detailed, remarkably sensitive, casual, almost speaking to the audience style, Dittmer writes about everyday life while facing a life threatening condition. She shares words of advice and reminders about living each day with confidence and courage that there is light at the end of the tunnel while including “lessons learned” in the last four pages. Encouragement is granted to the reader by the author’s constructive council that “there is an end to this long journey.” Through her direct and candid accounts it was obvious that she was not alone in this walk.

As a professional nurse practitioner and retired professor of nursing, reading Beverly Stacy Dittmer’s personal story reinforces the importance for health care providers to listen and to be present to all individuals for whom they care. For the person with a life-threatening illness, this read will provide a source of strength and encouragement. For the student of nursing and medicine it is a must read.

About the Author

I was born during World War II to common folks in a large extended family working in a booming oil field. I was the middle child with a loving and happy life. I received a good education in my little hometown of McCamey, Texas. I left the desert area of my childhood never to return. I went to North Texas State University in Denton, Texas and obtained two degrees. My first husband and I started our family of four while I worked at many teaching, farming, and other jobs dealing with the public. My first marriage of 22 years fell apart, and I married my present husband 25 years ago. He had three children, and we melded our families. I worked professionally in industry, traveled, and continued to experience the world. Our children grew up, went off to college, and walked their own roads. The grandchildren came, and I enjoyed every one of them. Then right in the middle of my happy life, I got Cancer. But I lived to continue life and was able to build again. I now have 19 grandchildren to love and watch grow to make their on ways. Life is very good again.