| While there's never a good age to get
cancer, people in their 20s and 30s can feel particularly isolated. The average
age of a cancer patient at diagnosis is 67. Children with cancer often are
treated at pediatric (小儿科的) cancer centers, but young adults have a tough time
finding peers, often sitting side-by-side during treatments with people who
could be their grandparents. In her new book Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips, writer Kris Carr looks at cancer from the perspective of a young adult who confronts death just as she's discovering life. Ms. Carr was 31 when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that had generated tumors on her liver and lungs. Ms. Carr reacted with the normal feelings of shock and sadness. She called her parents and stocked up on organic food, determined to become a "full-time healing addict." Then she picked up the phone and called everyone in her address book, asking if they knew other young women with cancer. The result was her own personal “cancer posse”: a rock concert tour manager, a model, a fashion magazine editor, a cartoonist and a MTV celebrity, to name a few. This club of "cancer babes" offered support, advice and fashion tips, among other things. Ms. Carr put her cancer experience in a recent Learning Channel documentary, and she has written a practical guide about how she coped. Cancer isn't funny, but Ms. Carr often is. She swears, she makes up names for the people who treat her (Dr. Fabulous and Dr. Guru), and she even makes second opinions sound fun ("cancer road trips," she calls them). She leaves the medical advice to doctors, instead offering insightful and practical tips that reflect the world view of a young adult. "I refused to let cancer ruin my party," she writes. "There are just too many cool things to do and plan and live for." Ms. Carr still has cancer, but it has stopped progressing. Her cancer tips include using time- saving mass e-mails to keep friends informed, sewing or buying fashionable hospital gowns so you're not stuck with regulation blue or gray and playing Gloria Gaynor’s "I Will Survive" so loud your neighbors call the police. Ms. Carr also advises an eyebrow wax and a new outfit before yon tell the important people in your life about your illness. "People you tell are going to cautiously and not so cautiously try to see the cancer, so dazzle them instead with your miracle," she writes. While her advice may sound superficial, it gets to the heart of what every cancer patient wants: the chance to live life just as she always did, and maybe better. |