Cancer? But I'm a Virgo.: *This is not a book about astrology. This is a book about cancer.

by Johnny Brookbank, Tiffany Morgan (Editor)

The doctor looks at me and says, “You have cancer.” My mouth goes dry, I swallow hard and blink twice. He says, “It's on your testicle, your lymph nodes, your heart, your lungs. It might be moving towards your brain. It’s everywhere." The floor drops out from under me. I am free floating in space. “cancer” becomes “Cancer”. It is in me. It is inside of me, it’s black tendrils slowly stretching out through my body. I reach down and touch my jeans, thinking of the lump I discovered only days ago. He continues to talk but his voice fades away. His lip-things move and grunt noises come out of his mouth-hole but I’m thinking about how I haven’t yet had children or left the country or written a book or eaten a pizza from the center out. Over the next six months I am pumped so full of chemo that I feel like a jelly donut. My figure emaciates until I’ve reached my target weight of 130 pounds and I have that much sought after cancer-chic look. And in this time I find that at the uncertainty of dying young, there is a wild joy at being alive. This is a story about what happens when cancer grabs your hand and demands you walk alongside it.

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 16, 2018

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnny begins his story by telling of his childhood shame and anguish at being born with one undescended testicle. An operation to try to correct this problem fails. Fast forward to the age of 26, married to his long-term girlfriend, when a small tumour is found on Johnny's remaining testicle. The surgery to remove the tumour sounds gruesome, but after that all should be well. Unfortunately, it is not so simple, and Johnny embarks on the wild journey of his life, calling upon his utmost reserves of courage, as things go from bad to worse. The story is told with gut-wrenching honesty and rawness, alongside humour, bringing me to both tears and laughter.

[Doug Rusley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cue up some Ben Folds Five, folks. Mr. Brookbank (Broogbank? Brookbag? ...) takes us into an epic, intimate, candid and often screamingly funny tale of battling cancer in your 20's. Johnny holds nothing back (if the second chapter about his distended testicle, which likely led to the cancer later, is a little much for ya, just know that a lot of the book is like that) and openly walks us through every emotional step of this six-month journey of chemotherapy, needles, IVs, weed, pancakes, incompetent medical professionals, and Georgia O'Keefe paintings, and all the while maintains his sense of humor and poetically sublime writing style.