EMERGING: Stories from the Other Side of a Cancer Diagnosis, Loss, and a Pandemic

By Nancy Stordahl

Independently Published, 2023

Genre: Memoir/Breast Cancer/Grief & Bereavement

Pages: 120

 

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Some books are meant to be sipped and savored slowly, like fine wine. NancyStordahl’s EMERGING: Stories from the Other Side of a Cancer Diagnosis, Loss, and a Pandemic is one of them. Profound and powerful, Emerging takes readers on a deep dive into the lifelong process of healing and self-acceptance as learned by a self-described “average sort of worrier.” It’s a terrific read!

Basic Structure

Emerging is divided into three basic parts: Cancer, Loss, and the Pandemic.  The parts are inter-related but separate, too. Each section touches on some aspect of adapting, relearning, refocusing and reinventing oneself, post-trauma, showing readers how to do so along the way. Part 4 ties everything together. It features stories about growing into self-acceptance and emerging from life’s challenges with resilience. Observations, insights, and lessons learned in the process are realistic, practical, and pull no punches.

“Average Sort of Worrier”

A self-described “average sort of worrier,” the author helps readers understand worry, cancer’s cousin, and its effects on ”Cancer Havers” and their loved ones. She describes how she grapples with worry some ten years after a breast cancer diagnosis. Also how “just letting ‘it’ go and getting on with your life” after a cancer diagnosis isn’t that simple. Or easy. Noting how cancer and grief go hand-in-hand, the author explores effects of cancer that go far beyond the physical. These include emotional, relational, psychological and social effects. Also “Divisions in Breast Reconstruction Land” and guilt trips, both self-induced and other.

Part 2 is Loss. Subtitled I’m an Orphan Now, the section chronicles the author’s thoughts and feelings about the loss of her parents. Also what it’s like to live “the Jack Reacher way” when a loved one is in hospice care. (Who knew Circle Peanuts can be a grief trigger?) She lays bare her soul as it crumpled and tore when she lost her mother to cancer.

Anyone who’s ever lost a loved one will understand and relate to this part of the book. It’s both heart-breaking and hopeful, as eloquent as a new moon.

A standout chapter is A Life in Dog Chunks. The subtitle is Things Dogs Teach Us About Grief. It’ll jump right off the page and straight into your heart. This section will especially resonate with anyone who’s ever loved and lost a dog. The writing is polished to a sheen so sharp, it’ll cut paper as the author recalls her life via the dogs she’s had and how her life intertwined with theirs. This section shines. It’s poignant, pellucid, and powerful in a Where the Red Fern Grows sort of way. You may want to bring tissue. (Hi, Elsie and Sophie.)

In Part 3, Pandemic, the author chronicles how the pandemic impacted her life as a “Cancer Haver,” resulting in a delayed surgery. But she also digs deeper, noting that it’s okay to acknowledge and express frustration, anger, and fear at the disruptions and delays wrought by the pandemic. Also how life continued. It found a way.

The author fleshes out her background in Part 4, Emerging. Here she ties everything together and explains how she’s learning to embrace who she’s become through the adversities and challenges she’s encountered in her life journey.

Compelling, Heartfelt

This book offers a compelling and heartfelt look at how one woman met life’s challenges and hardships head-on. Avoiding canned cliches and rusted-out bromides regarding adversity and loss, the style is raw and intense. Indeed, there’s no Pollyanna-ish “pie-in-the-sky, bye-and bye” here. For example, the author describes how emerging from loss doesn’t mean you stop grieving. It means you’re learning to blend grief and love into your life. It’s hard. It’s painful. It can be lonely. But it can be done. And it’s worth it. So is this book. It percolates with an intense sort of authenticity that’s both startling and incredibly refreshing. It’s also mature, forthright, and utterly absorbing.

Witty & Warm

The writing style is smart, witty, and warm. It’s conversational and eminently engaging. In fact, sitting down with this book is like sitting down at your kitchen table and sharing a hot cuppa with a close friend. Someone with whom you can feel safe and accepted. The advice offered is also practical, down-to-earth, and honest.

Probing & Piercing

Eminently engaging right out of the gate, Emerging is roughly one hundred probing and piercing pages. It can easily be read in an afternoon. Don’t. Because this isn’t the kind of book you skip through merrily or skim at warp speed. Emerging is a thoughtful and penetrating read that’s meant to be sipped and savored slowly, like fine wine. I didn’t want it to end.

Adult readers looking for an authentic and evocative glimpse into one woman’s experience with cancer, loss, and the pandemic will appreciate this fine work. It’s a towering achievement that no library should be without.

 

Our Rating: 4.5

***

Nancy Stordahl writes the award-winning blog, Nancy’s Point, in which she shares candidly about her cancer truths. She doesn’t sugarcoat her cancer experience, in fact, she refuses to do so. She also writes about grief, loss, pets, hereditary cancer, the under-discussed issues of survivorship, the need for more research specific to metastatic disease and more.

Reading her blog and her books, “Getting Past the Fear: A Guide to Help You Mentally Prepare for Chemotherapy” and “Cancer Was Not a Gift & It Didn’t Make Me a Better Person: A memoir about cancer as I know it,” is like sitting down with a good friend who is willing to take you by the hand to help you through your cancer or grief experience. Truth telling, not sugarcoating, that’s what you get.

 

Buy Links

• Buy on Amazon
• Buy on Barnes & Noble
• Buy on Website