You Gotta Laugh...

or You Might Start Crying!
It's still Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and I need to do another post relating to my October 5 Birthday so I'm combining the topics yet again! Briefly, for my new visitors, I am a bone marrow recipient and will celebrate my second birthday of the transplant on October 5. For that week I will be offering several giveaways, so come back and visit. For more information, follow the cancer tag on my labels list.
Many online crafters and vendors have been donating items for October 5. Some of these include Laura at Decor to Adore, Karla & Kerri from The Summer Kitchen Journal, Lisa the Apron Queen from Rick Rack Attack, Jennifer from Me & My Sister, Mommy Holly, and Heidi Devlin Home. Take some time to check out their nifty blogs and shops.

On to the books!!! I did not write these descriptions, I got them from Amazon and just made a few edits. I have read a couple of them, and browsed the others. They are all funny, and helpful at the same time!

Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr
This book is an advice-from-the-trenches cancer survival guidebook for young women. Actress and photographer Kris Carr thought she had a hangover, but a Jivamukti yoga class didn’t provide its usual kick-ass cure. A visit to her doctor confirmed her “liver looked like Swiss cheese,” covered with cancerous tumors. She entered trench warfare, wearing cowboy boots into the MRI machine, no less, vowing, “Cancer needed a makeover and I was just the gal to do it!” Kris began writing and filming her journey, documenting her interactions with friends, doctors, alternative “quacks,” blind dates, and other women with cancer—sadly a growing group. In August 2007, The Learning Channel broadcast Carr’s documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer. [I saw this documentary and it interested me enough to go and buy the book!]
Full-color photos accompany personal stories and candid revelations in what is essentially a scrapbook of advice, warnings, and resources for the cancer patient. Chapters cover a changing social life, dating, sex, and appearance; health tips on how to boost your immune system; recipes; medical and holistic resources; and information on young survivor support groups.
Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics by Miriam Engelberg

Miriam Engelberg was forty-three when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Like anyone faced with a life-altering personal trauma, she sought out a coping mechanism. While fellow patients championed the benefits of support groups and hypnotherapy, Engelberg found her greatest comfort in drawing, her lifelong passion. Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person puts Engelberg's life in focus the best way she knows how - with cartoons. From sex and wigs to nausea and causes - Was it overzealous cheese consumption or not enough multivitamins? - Engelberg leaves no aspect of cancer unexamined.
Cancer on Five Dollars a Day (chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life by Robert Shimmel
In the spring of 2000, Robert Schimmel was riding high. He’d won the Stand-Up of the Year Award, his HBO special was a huge hit, and his sitcom had been picked up. Then it all came crashing down. Diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he was told he would have to undergo chemotherapy immediately. The sitcom was dumped and the fire of his white-hot career started to go out. But Schimmel never lost his sense of humor, his knife-like edge, and most of all, his passion to entertain. Indeed, it was his basic need to laugh-even if the only people around him were suffering from cancer and the room he was playing was the Mayo Clinic infusion center-that carried him through his ordeal. From his colorful banter with nurses and other patients during chemo, to his hilarious conversation with a wig salesman, going for the laugh was Robert’s survival mechanism.
Cancer Vixen: A True Story by Marisa Acocella Marchetto

“What happens when a shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get-married big-city girl cartoonist with a fabulous life finds . . . a lump in her breast?” That’s the question that sets this powerful, funny, and poignant graphic memoir in motion. With a taboo-breaking sense of humor, Marisa Acocella Marchetto tells the story of her eleven-month bout with cancer, from diagnosis to cure, and every challenging step in between. The story is also a portrait of one woman’s supercharged life in Manhattan, and a wonderful love story. Three weeks before Marisa's wedding, she receives her diagnosis. She wonders: How will my fiance react to this news? How will my world change? Will I even survive? And . . . what about my hair? From raucous New Yorker staff lunches and the star-studded crowd at Silvano’s restaurant to the rainbow pumps Marisa wears to chemotherapy, her wit and courage are an inspiration—she’s a cancer vixen, not its victim.