Being Positive in the Face of a Brain Tumor
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Sophie Kinsella is amazing in a variety of ways.
First is the fact that she is a prolific writer.
As it turns out, Sophie Kinsella is the pen name of Madeleine Wickham. For her first seven books, she wrote using her given name. Taking her own middle name and her mother’s maiden name, she then began to write as Sophie Kinsella. Under this pen name she became famous for her Shopaholic series of novels. There are ten books in the series and the first two were turned into a movie, Confessions of a Shopaholic, in 2009. Under her pen name, she has also written more than a dozen stand-alone novels. That’s quite a lot of books for a woman who is currently fifty-four! (She was born in December, 1969.)
Let me also mention that she has sold over forty million copies of her books in more than sixty countries and her work has been translated into more than forty languages!
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Second is the fact that she has courageously – and VERY recently – fought her way back from major illness.
According to a note at the end of her new book, What Does it Feel Like, this is the most autobiographical book she has written. The note is dated April, 2024, which is astounding because she tells us that in the autumn of 2022, she began to feel unwell. This led to the diagnosis of a brain tumor, a glioblastoma, which is a very aggressive cancer. She survived an eight-hour operation plus chemotherapy and “radio-therapy” (as radiation treatments are called in England). And here she is publishing a new book less than two years later!
The book is gripping because it gives an eye witness account of her medical journey. My favorite part was Chapter 12 where a doctor asks her, “Are you getting enough sleep?” Her immediate response is given as internal dialog. In her own head she says, “I crawl into bed at 8:00 tired out and nauseous and longing for oblivion. I wake up twelve hours later – or thirteen or fourteen. I’m greedy for sleep. I want only sleep. I seek unconsciousness like a crack addict seeking a hit.” But after thinking all that, she censors those thoughts and tells the doctor, “Oh yes. I think so. Plenty. Thanks.”
When the doctor asks next if she is feeling sick from the chemo, she likewise tells us in detail how awful she is feeling while telling the doctor, “I feel a bit sick sometimes. But it could be worse.”
When the doctor asks about fatigue, we again get the full scoop while the doctor hears, “I feel a bit tired sometimes. But it could be worse.” And indeed, that is the title of the chapter, It Could Be Worse.
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Which takes me to the third way Sophie Kinsella is amazing – she’s a very positive person!
The book starts in the time before her diagnosis. In this section of the book, journalist after journalist ask the main character, Eve, who is the fictional version of Sophie Kinsella, “What does it feel like…” to be a famous novelist, to be the mother of five, to be walking the red carpet at the premiere of her book-turned-movie? In all of these cases, Eve is aware of all her good fortune in life.
The book goes from there to chapters that find her baffled and confused and in bed with a bandaged head as doctor after doctor ask her, “Can you feel this…” as they poke and prod her here, there, and the other.
By book’s end, which is fourteen months post diagnosis, she and her family are participating in a charity walk for brain tumors. She feels again as if she is walking on the red carpet of life! And the author calls this last chapter, Happy Ending.
Wow! All that positivity in a book about an aggressive brain tumor. Suffice it to say I find Sophie Kinsella – and this novel – amazing,
Magical healing to you, Sophie Kinsella. The world needs more of your books!
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Click here to learn more about What Does It Feel Like? on Amazon.
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