Imagine you’re thirty-two, married, with two little children and you find out you’re carrying a deadly cancer gene?
That was me in August 2005. I discovered I had the gene Brca1, which means a 50% chance of developing ovarian and an 85% chance of developing breast cancer.
I had two options – wait for the big bad cancer wolf or have radical surgery. I chose the latter. Over the following year, I had a double mastectomy and both ovaries removed, which reduced my cancer risk to 5%.
I was just dressing in my victory dance outfit, when my worst fears were realised.
Cancer had struck anyway.
Between 2007 and 2010, I battled and slayed cancer six times.
This book takes you on my journey during that turbulent time in my life.
If you’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, I know you are scared.
I was too. But I want you to know you are not alone. More than that, I want you to know that I am still here.
The score so far is – Cancer 0 : Emma 6.
Even if my cancer returns, I will keep on crusading.
I can show you how being positive and a big dollop of black humour can go a very long way towards getting better.
So chin up, wig on and don’t forget, your skin can absorb an astonishing amount of make-up on those bad hair days!
Love
Emma Hannigan
That was me in August 2005. I discovered I had the gene Brca1, which means a 50% chance of developing ovarian and an 85% chance of developing breast cancer.
I had two options – wait for the big bad cancer wolf or have radical surgery. I chose the latter. Over the following year, I had a double mastectomy and both ovaries removed, which reduced my cancer risk to 5%.
I was just dressing in my victory dance outfit, when my worst fears were realised.
Cancer had struck anyway.
Between 2007 and 2010, I battled and slayed cancer six times.
This book takes you on my journey during that turbulent time in my life.
If you’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, I know you are scared.
I was too. But I want you to know you are not alone. More than that, I want you to know that I am still here.
The score so far is – Cancer 0 : Emma 6.
Even if my cancer returns, I will keep on crusading.
I can show you how being positive and a big dollop of black humour can go a very long way towards getting better.
So chin up, wig on and don’t forget, your skin can absorb an astonishing amount of make-up on those bad hair days!
Love
Emma Hannigan
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Reviews
'Inspirational...and unmissable'
'An unusual and powerfully upbeat memoir...Talk to the Headscarf is a meditation about life, not death.'
'An extraordinary story'
'A gloriously uplifting and terribly wise account of living with cancer.'
'So honest, so darkly humourous, so miraculously positive, and - above all - really... funny...Anyone who knows someone with cancer; is undergoing treatment themselves; or just fancies keeping themselves abreast (pun partially intended) of what happens to "one in three" people, should most definitely give Talk to the Headscarf the time it readily deserves'