Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer during Covid

Just after Covid arrived in North America in spring 2020, journalist Helen Epstein was diagnosed with endometrial cancer — one of a predicted 66,570 new cases of cancer of the uterine body in the United States in 2021. About 600,000 American women have had it.



A candid and eye-opening account of a medical steeplechase of surgery, chemo and radiation therapy, Getting Through It brings together reporting, statistical research and elements of memoir to tell a timely and important story about the changing nature of the contemporary medical world.



Advance praise for Getting Through It:



“In this eloquent narrative, journalist Helen Epstein brings her decades of skill to the tasks of chronicling the ‘badge of illness’ that a gynecological cancer diagnosis brought her. Unsparing in its measure of fear, chemically induced forgetting, and loss of control, we are treated to an honest appraisal of the cancer experience. This book is at once a reminder of our expectation of independence and the need for dependence that makes us deeply human.” — Susan M. Reverby, McLean Professor Emerita in the History of Ideas and Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies, Wellesley College



“A fast read and eye-opening memoir that both doctors and patients will find valuable. Frank and funny, Epstein describes the myriad of life complexities, doubts, unanswered questions, and fears experienced by cancer patients and the people who love them.” — Audrey Konow, MD, Internist/Hospitalist, Providence St. Jude Medical Center



“Getting Through It is a profoundly important book – not only for cancer patients, but for their families, friends, policy makers, and health care professionals. Epstein writes with breathtaking clarity about the challenges of undergoing treatment for a silent killer. Candid, compelling and psychologically astute.” — Helen Fremont, Author of After Long Silence and The Escape Artist



“In this astonishingly candid book, Helen applies her laser focus to the day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute experience of experiencing cancer and its treatments during a pandemic. She describes a cast of fascinating doctors and nurses and the sometimes unexpected behavior of friends. Most beautiful is the inspiring portrait of her marriage with a partner who is there every step of the way. An enormously engaging, compulsively readable memoir.” — Susan Miron, Book Critic-at-Large