A Cluster of Cancers
A Simple Coping Guide for Patients
Meinberg’s cheery optimism could help cancer patients who may be stuck in a negative frame of mind.
In A Cluster of Cancers: A Simple Coping Guide for Patients, educator and cancer survivor Sherry L. Meinberg has created an optimist’s manual for cancer survival. With a plethora of inspirational quotes and personal anecdotes, Meinberg hammers home her main point: how we deal with a cancer diagnosis is up to us.
In the introduction, Meinberg explains that she wants the book to serve as “an easy resource guide, kind of like a CliffsNotes summary.” To this end, the book is dived into five broad sections: “Cancer Diagnosis,” “Cancer Stages and Grading,” “Cancer Statistics,” “Cancer Causes,” and “Coping With Cancer.” The last section makes up the majority of the book, consisting of twenty-seven topical chapters.
Though well-intentioned, Meinberg’s chapters on self-care, self-talk, belief, attitude, and intention become redundant, exhausting her basic message that patients must take care of themselves and project a positive image of health and recovery. The chapters on exercise, sleep, and nutrition offer more practical advice for patients, as well as interesting factoids such as the amount of time we spend dreaming throughout our lifetimes. A less-than-scientific chapter on water, however, wanders into mystical territory: “When you send positive thoughts and gratitude to the water you drink, its quality improves, and your health improves, as well. Understand that water is sensitive, and responds to what we say.”
Meinberg is more authoritative in the book’s earlier sections, in which she describes the emotional experience of cancer and how to avoid fear, guilt, and self-pity. All patients, she says, want to answer the question of why. “Cancer is not a punishment,” she asserts. She encourages patients to look at a cancer diagnosis as an opportunity for personal growth: “Granted, your diagnosis may be daunting, but at the same time, it can actually be freeing. You now have a definite goal and purpose; a specific target to aim for: being healthy and cancer-free.”
What A Cluster of Cancers lacks is gritty detail about the physical realties of cancer recovery. For instance, Meinberg never specifically addresses the side effects of chemotherapy or radiation treatment—nothing about wigs or weight loss or nausea and vomiting. In this way, A Cluster of Cancers is less a medical manual and more a general work of popular psychology. That’s not to say the book isn’t impactful. Meinberg’s cheery optimism could help cancer patients who may be stuck in a negative frame of mind.
Reviewed by
Scott Neuffer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
