Overview

Detour: A Side Trip Through Chemotherapy and Poetry evolved from 9 months of emails as the author entered the world of Stage IIIB cancer treatment. Starting on her first day in chemotherapy, she describes the process with keen observation and some humor, delving into an arsenal that includes religion, philosophy and nature. Written for friends and family (about eighty got her daily missives), these emails started out as a way to calm them down and keep them updated on her progress. Using denial as a shield, she eventually segues into reflections on the unexpected impact of cancer on her life, and then into the surprising comfort of poetry. A year later, someone suggested her positive experience might make a useful book

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9781632133366

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As Diana Vidutis notes in her affecting memoir, Detour, cancer cells lie sleeping within every person's body. Why they one day awaken to attack the host they depend on is a mystery. Vidutis' diagnosis is also a mystery for her to unpack, but it becomes a soul journey. What makes her journey even more memorable is that she encounters along the way what the ancient Celts called an anam cara, a soul friend, in poetry. This is the story of someone who has stared down the ugly face of death and in dozens of small wonders--such as the unexpected presence of a hummingbird, the passing of a shooting star, the sound of the ocean, the birth of a child, the discovery of long lost relatives--finds reaching toward her the outstretched hands of life. --Judith Valente, PBS-TV journalist, author of Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith and The Art of Pausing

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