Marnie Aulabaugh
Published: 2019-12-19
Total Pages:
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"Why me?" begins this brave, witty, and different memoir about a big fat bummer of a year spent with breast cancer.Two weeks after randomly placing her finger on a lump attached to her right ribs, Marnie Aulabaugh found herself at her daughter's third birthday party with an ice-filled diaper strapped to her out-of-commission back desperately trying to schedule a mammogram, her first, at age 36. Spoiler alert: it's stage 2/3 breast cancer.Filled with warmth, outrage, dark days, unanswerable questions, and unsolicited advice, Mostly, I Just Miss My Nipples reads like a comfortable, vulnerable chat with a girlfriend over tea. Marnie openly shares emails that she sent to family and friends during treatment (MESG, Marnie's Email Support Group), listicles of all things cancer (Seriously, why me? Surgery options! Supplements! Side effects!), journal entries that she forgot she wrote (yes, chemo brain is real), and pictures of her roboboobs and mastectomy vest of doom. She admits that she loved being bald, confronts her physical deformity, worries over never having normal sex again, rails against chemically induced menopause, and relives telling her three-year-daughter that something is wrong with Mommy without cluing her in to the fact that Mommy thinks she might die.In the end, after detailing exactly how she thinks she has stayed alive for the last 10 years (and counting!) and what you should and should not do when someone you love has cancer, Marnie wraps it all up with an excellent cookie recipe and the confession that she just wants her nipples back. Written with heart and humor, through tears and laughter, this memoir will strike a chord with anyone battling, surviving, or touched by cancer.