My Angry Breast: The Latest from A Sense of Place Publishing

My Angry Breast tells a personal journey through diagnosis, chemotherapy, mastectomy, and the aftermath of hearing those devastating words: “You have cancer.”

Having experienced the trauma of a cancer diagnosis through her father’s final years, Robyn’s passion was to find a better way.

The book is haunting, touching, emotionally inspiring, and – for anyone beginning their cancer journey – a gentle source of wisdom.

For anyone supporting a friend or relative living with cancer, My Angry Breast is also a practical guide. There is so much help on offer.

Robyn Robins is unique in that she studied how to combine the benefits of both Western and natural medicine to achieve the best possible outcome. She calls this her Chemo/Turmeric Dance.

In the 1970s, pumpkin seeds, grape juice, and hands-on healing were all she could find to help her father. Today, however, there is a wealth of practitioners with expertise in herbal medicine and alternative healing techniques which can be effectively used in tandem with Western medicine.

In the face of breast cancer, Robyn refused to follow a one-size-fits-all path. She drew on the latest 21st-century advancements while staying true to her personal beliefs. My Angry Breast is her candid, empowering story of how she wove together her healing journey.

My Angry Breast offers hope and insight into the cancer experience, along with an informative guide to what Robyn considers contributory factors in today’s cancer epidemic. This includes information on integrative cancer clinics, natural medicine, scientists, practitioners, and authors whose work can contribute to a return to wellness.

The book is made more urgent by the fact that, after ten years of living a healthy, productive lifestyle, Robyn was once again faced with a vicious and fast-growing cancer. But this book is not a cry for help – it’s a path forward.

EXTRACT

We go to a beauty parlour and emerge looking different, I was now physically not the same as
when I had stepped onto this pathway. The chemicals and the learned expertise used by
beauticians are not the ones oncologists wield. Yes, I had been given a make-over but one that
would not wash or wear off in the near future. Whereas the pedicure or blow dry might make me
feel uplifted for a time, my make-over was deeply ingrained.

When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone I did not recognise. The little girl, the lovely
teenager sparkling with hope, the young mother weaving dreams for her babes had blended to
become a stranger. I wondered, Where do dreams go? Do they ever die?

Lee gave me a beautiful hand knitted scarf and hat. Nicky wrapped me in scarves and the
most delightful red beanie I wore thinking it looked like red hair. I still smile when remembering
some youngsters comment, “Funky hair!” I chuckle when remembering a later comment,
“Thank goodness you have hair and no longer wear that awful red beanie!”

Writing this from the other side of chemotherapy and memories of a bald head, I treasure these lovely knits.

When my hair grew back white and curly, Nicky’s boy who had seen the wig, the bald-look, the
bandanas and the beanies asked, “Is that your real hair?”

I instinctively replied, “No, my hair is …”

Nicky finished the sentence with a giggle, “Blonde out of a bottle.”

The image I was not so long ago was how I still thought of myself. It was no wonder the
emancipated bald reflection that had become a white-haired ‘old’ lady did not compute with what
I ‘saw’. I was not a white-haired old lady, but the change was sudden and permanent. I could
go to my hairdresser and he would transform the white frizz into a lovely blonde, but I was not
the inner person I had been a short time ago.

Nicky said, “You’ve been fighting for your life.” That changes you on a cellular and heart level.