Clarissa E Schilstra

Riding the Cancer Coaster Clarissa E Schilstra

A diagnosis of cancer is devastating at any age. For teenagers and young adults, it presents a unique challenge both socially and emotionally. You strive for independence, but cancer leaves you completely dependent on those around you. At an age when you want nothing but to be with your peers, isolation resulting from a compromised immune system leaves you starving for social contact. When you should be able to start setting goals for the future, you are confronted with the possibility of having no future at all. This all makes staying positive very difficult. Through her own experiences as a two-time cancer survivor, and previous teen cancer patient who faced a forty percent chance of survival, Clarissa Schilstra has learned a great deal about all of these challenges and how to cope with them. In the pages of this book, she shares those stories and strategies, in an effort to provide a guide through the emotional roller coaster that is cancer treatment and life as a cancer survivor. A foreword by Lori Wiener, PhD, DCSW, FAPOS is included.