Book Promo: Bonjour, Breast Cancer – I’m Still Smiling!

Bonjour, Breast Cancer – I’m Still Smiling!:
Wit, Wisdom, and Optimism for
Beating the Breast Cancer Blues

by Princess Diane von Brainisfried

Honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month By Finding Your Happiness Mojo In Spite Of Life’s Challenges

There is nothing more terrifying to hear than those three words, “You have cancer.” The world seems to turn upside down and nothing makes sense anymore. Award-winning author and breast cancer survivor, Princess Diane von Brainisfried (aka Diane Young Uniman), knows how it feels – she’s been there. Her new book, Bonjour, Breast Cancer – I’m Still Smiling! is packed with practical advice, humor and encouragement – the perfect mix to find positivity in the face of challenges posed by breast cancer and its accompanying treatment.

Written with a deliciously humorous tone, this essential guide to beating the breast cancer blues combines von Brainisfried’s own experiences and insights with research-based positive psychology strategies. Along the way, she shares wisdom from Socrates, Cherokee legends and her own Jewish great-grandmother to help those facing cancer diagnoses reclaim their happiness mojo and move from fear and despair to positivity and optimism.

From her own breast cancer diagnosis to chemo, baldness, double mastectomy, radiation —and 3-D nipple tattoos — she holds nothing back, imparting refreshing honesty (that’s always dappled with humor) to encourage and empower others on their journeys. Bonjour, Breast Cancer — I’m Still Smiling! is the closest thing to having a hand to hold onto throughout any difficult experience.

Some of the secrets inside:
•    Create blessings out of bad news without needing a magic wand
•    Comfort family and others
•    Tame fear when it is acting like a monkey and going bananas
•    Find the pluses when they pop up

Regaining equilibrium and reclaiming happiness following a cancer diagnosis is not easy. It’s OK to wallow — for a moment. Bonjour, Breast Cancer — I’m Still Smiling! shares a king’s ransom of practical advice and wisdom to find positivity in the face of the challenges posed by breast cancer and everything that goes with it.

When author Princess Diane is not smashing champagne bottles over the bows of ships or blogging her brains out at her palace desk, she’s a motivational speaker and certified positive psychology life coach, the optimist expert for the Women’s Health Institute of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and was a facilitator at Miami’s World Happiness Summit. When the Princess is not wearing her tiara, she is known as Diane Young Uniman, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of The University of Pennsylvania and criminal justice appeals attorney turned writer of screenplays and musicals. Her work has been featured at Lincoln Center’s Broadway’s Future series and was accepted into Fringe/NYC. She has won over 50 awards for her screenplays and musicals and an ASCAP award for writing. Diane is also an opera singer and an advanced student at the New York School of Practical Philosophy. Bonjour, Breast Cancer — I’m Still Smiling! is her first book.

To learn more, please visit www.princessdianevonbrainisfried.com or connect with her on multiple social media platforms:
Facebook.com/princessdianevonb; Twitter.com/princessdianevonb;
Instagram.com/princessdianevonb; Pinterest.com/princessdvonb;
Youtube.com/princessdianevonb;
Linked.com/linkedin/diane-uniman-bb548635/

Bonjour, Breast Cancer — I’m Still Smiling! Wit, Wisdom, & Optimism for Beating the Breast Cancer Blues
Publisher: HarMaxiProductions, LLC
Release Date: September 2019
ISBN-10: 1732658609
ISBN-13: 978-1732658608
Available on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2MFKCc7

October is
National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month

Book Review: The Santangelos by Jackie Collins

In memory of Jackie Collins ~

The Santangelos: A Novel

A vicious hit. A vengeful enemy. A drug addled Colombian club owner. A sex crazed Italian family. And the ever powerful Lucky Santangelo has to deal with them all, while Max-her teenage daughter is becoming The “It” girl in Europe’s modeling world. And her Kennedyesque son, Bobby, is being set up for a murder he didn’t commit. But Lucky can deal. Always strong and unpredictable with her husband, Lennie, by her side she lives up to the family motto-Never cross a Santangelo.

Lucky rules. The Santangelos always come out on top. An epic family saga filled with love, lust, revenge and passion.

Amazon Customer Review

     Jackie Collins’ THE SANTANGELOS gives us another thrilling chapter of one of fiction’s favorite families   by Cyrus Webb

 We had to wait a little longer this year to get another Jackie Collins’ novel, but I can tell you that THE SANTANGELOS was DEFINITELY worth the wait.

Jackie has a way of thrusting you in the lives of her characters, making you feel their desires, their hatred and the love that comes from one of the most beloved families in fiction.

In this book we are able to see the extent that Lucky is willing to go in order to protect her own, but we are also given the reminder that some things are out of our control. When tragedy hits the Santangelos family will it break them apart or bring them closer together? That is one of the most fascinating layers of the book.

I also love the fact that Max finds her own “voice” so to speak, and come to rely not only on the strength of her mother but the words of her grandfather as well. “You’re a Santangelo—an’ Santangelos don’t quit.”

The other interesting things about this novel is that it reminds us that in a digital age EVERYTHING is fair game and the truth is not always something that others feel the need to spotlight. Bobby Santangelo Stanislopoulos realizes this firsthand, and he has to live with the thoughts of others thanks to the world wide web.

This book allows other characters to step up and be noticed, giving readers something to look forward to when it comes to the future of the Santangelo family in other books. Whether this is your first book to read about the family or you’ve been a fan for some time, you won’t be able to forget.

About the Author

Jackie Collins started writing as a teenager, making up steamy stories her schoolmates paid to devour. Her first book, “The World is Full of Married Men,” became a sensational bestseller because of its open sexuality and the way it dealt honestly with the double standard. After that came “The Stud,” “Sinners,” “The Love Killers,” “The World is Full of Divorced Women,” “The Bitch,” “Lovers And Gamblers,” “Chances,” and then the international sensation, “Hollywood Wives” — a #1 New York Times bestseller, which was made into one of ABC’s highest-rated miniseries starring Anthony Hopkins and Candice Bergen. She wrote more than 30 books during her career.

Ms. Collins passed away Saturday, September 19, 2015 at the age of 77 after battling breast cancer.

Jacqueline Jill “Jackie” Collins was born on Oct. 4, 1937, in London. Survivors include her three daughters, Tracy, Tiffany and Rory, and her sister, Joan.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: 
Beyond the Controversy of Screening
Pioneering Psychotherapist Shares 3 Exercises for Maintaining Emotionally While Coping with a Diagnosis

Breast Cancer Awareness Month has been one of the most successful campaigns to raise public awareness in recent history. Unfortunately, in terms of successfully reducing breast-cancer mortality, the results have been mixed, which has caused fierce debate among doctors, researchers, non-profit groups and patients.

“Embedded in the message driving the campaign every October includes instruction to women to strongly consider getting screened for breast cancer, which is often asymptomatic during the early stages, in the hopes of finding cancer before it metastasizes,” says cancer psychotherapist Dr. Niki Barr, author of “Emotional Wellness, The Other Half of Treating Cancer,” (canceremotionalwellbeing.com). 

Debate over the efficacy of screenings has arisen as new studies reveal possible shortfalls:  self-examinations haven’t been proven effective; younger women experience false positives due to denser breast tissue, as well as missed positives, despite clinical examinations; and recently published studies such as The New England Journal of Medicine’s findings on three decades of screening have been mixed, Dr. Barr says.

The latter found that screenings did reduce late-stage cancer rates, to a small extent, but mammograms also drastically increased over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment,  including surgeries, toxic drugs and an incalculable amount of stress and suffering, she says.

“I think each woman needs to consider screenings on an individual basis. Family history, age and other risk factors should be considered in their decision,” Dr. Barr says. “It’s equally important to remember that, should you or a loved one be diagnosed with breast cancer, you should care for your emotional well-being as much as you take measures to restore physical well-being.”

While doctors, nurses and medical staff tend to your body, you can tend to your mental health with some of these exercises she recommends to her patients:

• “Catch” anxious feelings before they become anxiety. Prevent anxious thoughts from becoming full-blown anxiety by “catching” those feelings before they intensify. If you find anxious thoughts repeating themselves in your mind, take out some index cards and a pen and write them down, one by one, one per card. When you’ve written them all down, try to identify which one thought started the chain reaction.  Then find the thought that came next. Continue until you have each thought in order. Now, go back to the first thought and write down a new thought that does not make you feel anxious. When the first thought comes to mind, substitute it with the second thought. Continue through the list until you have positive, empowering thoughts for each negative, anxious one.

• Release painful feelings and then let them go: Writing down painful thoughts and feelings through journaling is an excellent way of exorcising them. Some people find rereading what they’ve written can be helpful, but others hesitate to use this tool for fear someone will find it and read their private thoughts. For those people, Barr suggests an extra measure of release: Shred the pages while focusing on “letting go” of those feelings.

• Give your mind respite by escaping through music and meditation: Music is a tonic for many things: It can help us relax, lift our spirits, provide an escape from anxious thoughts and the here and now. Always have favorite CDs easily accessible so you can escape with music whenever you need to. Meditation CDs are available to help you learn how to meditate and to provide guided imagery for meditation, which is scientifically proven to trigger soothing chemical changes in the brain. Try “Meditation for Beginners” by Jack Kornfield or “Guided Mindfulness Meditation” by Jon Kabat-Zin. Finally, sleep is an absolute must for both physical and emotional health. If you’re having trouble sleeping, there are CDs and downloads to help! Try “Sleep Through Insomnia” by KRS Edstrom.

“Having an actual box, with three-dimensional items, gives patients something tangible to use during a confusing time,” Dr. Barr says. 

About Niki Barr, Ph.D. (@NikiBarrPhD)

Niki Barr, Ph.D. founded a pioneering psychotherapy practice dedicated to working with cancer patients in all stages of the disease, along with their family members, caregivers and friends. In her book, she describes an “emotional wellness toolbox” patients can put together with effective and simple strategies, ready to use at any time, for helping them move forward through cancer. Dr. Barr is a dynamic and popular speaker, sharing her insights with cancer patients and clinicians across the nation.