Mom Shares Cancer Journey in Funny and Touching New Memoir, Nearly Departed
I spend an unhealthy amount of time on social media. I know this because my screen time report likes to shame me every so often. I won’t say my Instagram addiction is a good thing, but finding Gila Pfeffer’s account certainly inspired me to take my reproductive health into my hands. All it took was stumbling across a single clever post by the Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences author and it was follow-at-first-meme. Perusing more of her posts I saw that we are both from New York (I’m from Brooklyn, she’s from Staten Island), both moms of four, and both share the same dry sense of humor.
Humor to Entertain and Empower
Gila uses that relatable sense of humor to entertain her followers with her rye observations and to highlight the importance of breast cancer prevention, an issue that has unfortunately impacted her whole life. On the first day of every month you can depend on Gila to share her monthly #feelitonthefirst posts, a series of comical photos where Gila poses holding various pairs of items over her chest as a reminder to her followers to perform monthly breast exams on themselves. While self-exams are absolutely not a substitute for annual mammograms, they empower women to take control of their health and follow up with their doctors if anything suspicious is found.
Gila is passionate about breast cancer prevention because not only did her mother pass away from the disease, but she is a breast cancer survivor herself. In her new memoir, Nearly Departed, Gila chronicles her breast cancer journey from the moment she learned her mother might have the disease (while standing in the middle of John F. Kennedy international airport on her way to study in Israel for a semester) to making the brave personal decision to save her own life with what was supposed to be a preventative double mastectomy.
Permitting Readers to Laugh During the Challenging Moments
Gila’s mother unfortunately succumbed to the disease at the young age of 43, leaving behind a bereft husband and five grieving children. She then became a breast cancer expert against her own will, using all of the knowledge she gained to ensure the disease wouldn’t take hold of her and her family the way it did for her and her siblings. Although “Nearly Departed” is a story of loss, it’s also a story of survival, and one that Gila tells with her natural sense of humor peppered throughout, giving readers permission to laugh even during some of the heaviest moments.
Gila did everything she could to stop cancer from reaching her: scheduling regular screenings, having all of her children before the age that her mother was diagnosed, and taking a blood test to determine if she was a carrier of the BRCA gene mutation. The BRCA gene test determines if someone is a carrier of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation, which lets the patient know if they have an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
No surprise to Gila, the results came back positive. With this, Gila opted for a prophylactic double mastectomy, a surgery where she would have both breasts removed to lower the chances of developing breast cancer. The procedure ended up saving her life sooner than anticipated – not because it prevented an occurance of breast cancer – but because cancer cells were found.
Despite all that Gila did to not be in this position, cancer found its way in. Gila’s oncologist felt confident that she would have a positive prognosis, but still suggested chemotherapy as a precaution. But make no mistake, this was not “chemo-lite”. Hair loss, nausea, weakness, various side effects, and a long list of medications that would rival a CVS receipt were all part of the grueling process of eight-hour treatments every two weeks for four months.
After completing her chemotherapy treatment Gila also opted to take another precaution by having her ovaries removed to prevent estrogen production which could lead to a recurrence. Gila’s journey had an immediate impact on her sisters and led them to make decisions about their own health, helping to save their own lives as well.
Nearly Departed is an Empowering and Beautifully Written Memoir
To say that Gila has been through a lot is the understatement of the century. Nearly Departed is an empowering and beautifully written memoir weaving humor, raw emotion, and education. Countess readers will be inspired by Gila’s bravery in taking control of her health, despite the difficulties she faced, and coming out the other side healthy and here to witness all of the family’s milestones she might have missed out on if she didn’t take steps to save her own life.
To learn more about Gila Pfeffer and Nearly Departed, visit gilapfeffer.com and follow her on Instagram, Threads, and X. Nearly Departed is available now at your local bookstore and online retailers. Just make sure to also purchase at least one box of Kleenex before reading- you’ll need it.
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