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: Miracles We Have Seen by Harley Rotbart

Miracles We Have Seen
by Harley Rotbart 

America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget

In Miracles We Have Seen: America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget (HCI Books), Dr. Harley A. Rotbart provides an assembly of essays written by peers in the medical profession, including deans and associate deans of medical schools, academic department heads at leading university medical centers, and national opinion leaders in an array of medical specialties.

These astonishing, first-person essays are written in everyday language for the delight of all readers, and depict medical outcomes that defied all expectations and, in some cases, science itself.

Dr. Rotbart writes, “Occasionally in the course of caring for our patients, we encounter events that truly stun us. Unforgettable occurrences…far exceeding the wide berth we are trained to allow for surprise.” His collection of miracles tells stories of impossible cures, miraculous timing, and recoveries from hearts stopped longer than survivable, catastrophic injuries, and freak accidents and occurrences, including:

•    A nine-year-old boy who was decapitated in a horrific car accident but survived without neurological damage.
•    A woman who conceived and delivered a healthy baby – despite having had both of her fallopian tubes surgically removed.
•    A young man whose only hope for survival was a heart transplant, but just as he developed a potentially fatal complication making a transplant impossible, his own heart began healing itself.

As the physicians recount their very personal reactions to these remarkable clinical experiences, it is apparent that while some miracles are more emotional than physical, the event left a lasting imprint. In most instances, says Rotbart, the miracles actually directed them in their choice of specialty and has influenced much of their professional decision-making throughout their careers.

Please see a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece written by Jacalyn Duffin, a hematologist and historian at Queen’s University in Canada, that highlights religious and medical miracles at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/opinion/pondering-miracles-medical-and-religious.html?emc=eta1&_r=0.

Although Miracles We Have Seen gives special insight into the lives and souls of doctors and how the miracles have affected them and their patients, Rotbart notes, “While faith and prayer certainly play an important role in many of our patients’ lives, as well as in some of the vignettes in this compilation, this is not a book about religion. Rather, this is a book about optimism and inspiration…what we don’t know or don’t understand isn’t necessarily cause for fear, and can even be reason for hope.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harley Rotbart, MD (Denver, CO), has been a nationally renowned pediatric specialist, parenting expert, speaker and educator for over three decades. He is professor and Vice Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. He is the author of numerous medical and scientific publications, as well as books for lay audiences including No Regrets Parenting and 940 Saturdays. Dr. Rotbart has been named to Best Doctors in America every year since 1996, as well as receiving numerous other national and local awards for research, teaching, and clinical work. He serves on the advisory boards of Parents magazine and Parents.com, and is a frequent consultant to national and local media outlets. He is a regular contributor to Parents and The New York Times.

For more information, please visit www.hcibooks.com/p-4378-miracles-we-have-seen

Miracles We Have Seen
HCI Books
Available at amazon.com
ISBN 9780757319372
###

Editorial Reviews

“Doctors tell the human side of medicine in these stories―revealing the heart and soul that go into truly ‘caring’ care.”  ―Jimmie C. Holland, MD, Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, author of The Human Side of Cancer: Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty

“As a witness to one of the miracles recounted in this uplifting book, I welcome Dr. Rotbart’s extraordinary collection of compelling testimonies from leading physicians. Take a look, and have your faith in God―and in his agents of healing, doctors―renewed!”  ―Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“For patients, their families, and all the rest of us, Miracles We Have Seen is a welcome reminder that even the most dire diagnoses can have happy endings, thanks to the inspiring dedication of doctors.” —Diane Debrovner, Deputy Editor, Parents Magazine

“Deeply moving and eloquently written, this remarkable collection reminds us how the art and science of medicine intersect with good luck, coincidence, and the unfathomable. For physicians, these essays call to mind our own stories that inspired us toward the healing of our patients.”  ―Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, past President, American Medical Association

“These powerful and true stories by physicians offer hope from where faith intersects with science and real healing begins.”  ―Jeffrey J. Cain, MD, past President, American Academy of Family Physicians

“Miracles are all around, we just need to pause and be still, and recognize them. This book is a testament to the medical miracles that happen every day when skill, science, and spirituality meet.” ―Rev Mpho A Tutu van Furth, Executive Director, Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and co-author, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of Made for Goodness

“We read so many accounts of freak accidents and rare diseases bringing misery into the lives of people who deserve better. That is why it was so refreshing, so soul-restoring, to read these accounts of near tragedies that were prevented by human efforts, good will, and caring.” ―Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People and Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life

“Miracles We Have Seen opens a window into the complex world of the art and the science of medicine for all to see the compassionate miracles dispensed there. Take a good look . . . you will be inspired!” ―Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS, 17th Surgeon General of the United States

“These stories by doctors who are true healers have moved me to tears and opened my heart. Each, like the great doctor-writer Chekhov, brings to medicine a sense of compassion, deep vulnerability, love and hope for those who suffer, and the ability to acknowledge that human life is a precious gift.” ―Ruth Behar, author of Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in Between Journeys, and the Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan