Riding the Cancer Coaster: Survival Guide for Teens and Young Adults

by Clarissa E Schilstra

A diagnosis of cancer is devastating at any age. For teenagers and young adults, it presents a unique challenge both socially and emotionally. You strive for independence, but cancer leaves you completely dependent on those around you. At an age when you want nothing but to be with your peers, isolation resulting from a compromised immune system leaves you starving for social contact. When you should be able to start setting goals for the future, you are confronted with the possibility of having no future at all. This all makes staying positive very difficult. Through her own experiences as a two-time cancer survivor, and previous teen cancer patient who faced a forty percent chance of survival, Clarissa Schilstra has learned a great deal about all of these challenges and how to cope with them. In the pages of this book, she shares those stories and strategies, in an effort to provide a guide through the emotional roller coaster that is cancer treatment and life as a cancer survivor. A foreword by Lori Wiener, PhD, DCSW, FAPOS is included.

82 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2015

Reviews

[Bstamps · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clarissa tells her story with frankness and addresses many of the experiences that are the particularly difficult to being a teen and a cancer patient at the same time. She addresses the unnatural dependency on parents at a time when one should be pushing away and gaining independence. She also discusses the emotional isolation that a cancer diagnosis brings when one should be most strongly connected to their peers. This understanding, along with the many practical medical discussions, make this book a valuable resource for the teen cancer patient and their family.

[Kelly Krienke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not expect this book to be this awesome. Well done.