Seeking recs for anything you or someone you know found helpful while undergoing cancer treatment (for a friend).

Question

D · Answer

The Undying by Anne Boyer: I picked up Boyer's book "The Undying" because I found "Garments Against Women," which I read first, memorable in its poetic yet structurally interrogative prose. After finishing "The Undying," my friend's mother was diagnosed with cancer. I passed along the book to her, with a grain of salt always, saying maybe this is not for now. My friend did read the book shortly after I placed the snake-entwined cover into her hands. She did find it helpful, not in a prescriptive way, but as shared catharsis: a scream, a release, a tear.

So, I will say the same thing to you: maybe this is not for now.

Maybe it will open something for you later in the wrenching and refined ways that Boyer's work does. Maybe later, it will be soothing to witness Boyer take a scalpel to the structural harm of a broken healthcare system while living—or trying to live—inside of it. But I'll leave you with a snippet, to dip a toe into the language:  "The sick disassemble and this disassembly crowds a cosmos, organs and nerves and parts and aspects announcing themselves as unfurling particulars: a malfunctioning left tear duct—a new universe; a dying hair follicle—a solar system; that nerve ending in the fourth toe of the right foot—now eviscerating under chemotherapy drugs—a star about to collapse."

Aya C · Answer

Cannabis pills, protein and patience: cannabis pills, protein powder, the nicest yogurt and eggs, softest clothes, offer to do something concrete and let them choose what to say yes to. It is much easier for a person when ill to accept help than to think of a task or ask for help. Company on good days. Support for the family. Research support groups for patient and family—lower the barrier to entry so they can join when they’re ready. And patience and compassion that this implosion of their life will affect all parts of life and it may take years to mentally “recover”.