Local author thrives by the sea
Stephanie Butland has just published her second book on her experience of ‘dancing with cancer’. Thrive: The Bah! Guide to Wellness after cancer offers practical advice and help for coping, once the doctors have declared a patient well enough to leave their care. Here Stephanie tells The Ambler why she still wants to share.
It’s almost a year since How I Said Bah! To Cancer, my story of my dance with cancer and how thinking differently helped me to cope better, was published. At the time, I’d just completed the first draft of my second book, Thrive: The Bah! Guide to Wellness after cancer.
I wrote the first book because I wanted to share some practical, no-nonsense tips for thinking differently in order to make coping with cancer easier. The idea for the second book was born when I realised that the point at which the medical profession is done with you is not likely to be a high point, physically, mentally or emotionally: you need some help and that’s what this book is here to do.
With more and more people surviving a dance with cancer, I believe that we, as a society, need to be thinking more about the aftermath of the disease and how to help ourselves and each other through not only physical treatment but mental and emotional consequences. As part of the research for this book I spoke to a lot of cancer survivors: none of them had skipped away from their last hospital appointment singing a song. Most, like me, were glad to be one of the lucky ones – but also exhausted, scarred, and with a range of health problems brought on by treatment. (Interestingly, a lot of people post-cancer seem to move to be close to the sea!)
So Thrive focuses on moving on from a major physical, social and psychological trauma, using a blend of storytelling, practical advice, humour, thinking techniques and strategies, visualisations, meditations, questions, candour and common sense designed to help those who have had a cancer to get from survival to a place where they are truly thriving.
I’m looking forward to all of the things that go with launching a new book – talking to people, signings, reading articles in the press and thinking, my goodness, did I actually say that – but the thing I’m looking forward to most is to continuing the post-cancer life I have now, here, in the place where I grew up.
Stephanie Butland lives near Amble with her family. When she isn’t writing she trains thinking skills and creativity throughout the UK. If she isn’t home there’s a good chance she’s walking along the beach at Druridge Bay, or eating salted peanut ice cream at Spurrelli’s.
Stephanie’s books, ‘How I Said Bah! To Cancer’ and ‘Thrive: the Bah! Guide to wellness after cancer’ are available from all good bookshops and online at Amazon.
The launch of ‘Thrive’ will take place in Waterstones Newcastle on Thursday 13th September at 6.30pm, in conjunction with New Writing North.
Stephanie’s blog and website is at www.bahtocancer.com. For signed copies of her books and enquiries about speaking and appearing at events, please email her at bah@bahtocancer.com.
Related article: Bah to cancer
