Showing posts with label breast cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breast cancer. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Resilience by Elizabeth Edwards

Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities by Elizabeth Edwards, 213 pages

I am not sure if any other book has made me cry at every turn of the page.  Maybe, it is because this was written in 2009 and I know how her life ended in 2010.  I don't know another women who could have gone through all the adversity she went through with such grace and character and the utmost respect from concerned family, friends, and strangers.  She probably endured the most painful event any parent could hope to never have to face, the death of her first born child Wade in a car accident in 1996.  This one event affected her life traumatically.  Her and her husband, future presidential candidate John Edwards, decided to have two more children at a later stage in their lives.  Then, while her husband was consumed with politics, she discovered she had breast cancer.  She battled the breast cancer only to have it come back a few years later as terminal cancer.  If that wasn't enough of a blow she discovered her husband cheated on her and fathered another child.  The pain Elizabeth Edwards suffered demonstrates resilience to the likes of which I have never witnessed before.  This was a very heartfelt and inspirational book.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Going Off Script: How I Survived A Crazy Childhood, Cancer, and Clooney's 32 On-Screen Rejections by Giuliana Rancic

Going Off Script: How I Survived A Crazy Childhood, Cancer, and Clooney's 32 On-Screen Rejections by Giuliana Rancic, 266 pages

I love biographies, so I decided I would give this one a go.  I am not a big fan of Giuliana Rancic, but I had watched her reality show, Giuliana and Bill and was aware of her struggles to have a baby and her brave battle with breast cancer.  The first hundred pages were mostly about her childhood which I found just a little boring.  Although, she was more of a rebel than I expected. From the beginning, Giuliana dreamed of being a beauty queen and a star reporter.

Giuliana's story became interesting when she graduated college and began her career in journalism. She details how she climbed the ranks at E! Network to become the lead anchor. She married Bill Rancic of Apprentice fame in 2007.  The book details her struggle to conceive and how during infertility treatments she discovered she had breast cancer.  Giuliana proves what a true fighter and inspiration she is to all women fighting breast cancer and infertility.  Her story not only proved very inspiring, but also funny.