Category:  Health/Wellness Publisher: GreatUnpublished.com ISBN-10:  1588980855 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 195 Copyright: Jan 1 2000 "Crossing the Chemo Room" is the true story of Lonna Lisa Williams who fought a rare type of breast cancer. Journey with her, her family, and her friends as they encounter treatment, anxiety attacks, fear, recovery, and joy of life after cancer--all while learning to reach out to others who also face a life-changing event or know someone who does. "Crossing the Chemo Room" is my nonfiction cancer survival story. After enduring a tragic childhood (being the only survivor of my immediate family), I got married, divorced, remarried, obtained a Master’s degree, and taught college English. I had children and got a science fiction book published. Then I found out I had a rare form of breast cancer--when my youngest child was just a baby. My doctor called me one in a million. After surgery, a CT-scan, and a bone marrow biopsy, I entered The Chemo Room. I was usually the youngest person there, observing my strange medical world as chemicals seeped into my veins via I.V.s. Crossing the Chemo Room is my collection of true stories (in a creative essay, short story, and journal format) about the people and inspiration I discovered on my journey through cancer and into recovery. I include helpful resources and survival tips. Now, five years later, I am healthy. I hike in the mountains and ice skate with my children. I enjoy sharing my story with other cancer patients and their friends and families. Excerpt I've got a headache--the right side of my scalp hurts. "Brain tumor" crosses my mind as I furiously scrub the kitchen floor while the children sleep and Edd teaches a night class. Why not throw a brain tumor in with the rest of my problems, God? I think, angry as David in one of his Psalms or as Job when he cursed the day of his birth. I wanted a year without doctors. Last year we spent over $6000.00 on private insurance and uncovered medical bills. I wanted a year of peace. Haven't I endured enough already? I want my dreams for the future intact, God--not threatened by a disease. I pick up my blue-covered New King James Bible. It feels heavy yet flexible in my hands, its thin paper edged with silver. Needing comforting words, I open it and flip the pages. I'll be reading this book a lot in the next few months, I think. My fingers find the middle, Psalm 116: "I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call upon him as long as I live. The pains of death encompassed me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple: I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living." Of course, none of us knows our measured life, I realize, as I close the book and place it near the microwave. I put away the mop and hunt for the sheepwool duster. Grandma Ruth (Edd's mom) has smoked for over fifty years and still lives--though her emphysema demands that she stop smoking or face disability and death sooner than she should. Edd could die in a car wreck one night after teaching late. Any one of us . . . . These thoughts haunt me as I dust and vacuum the house, then pace the carpet until Edd comes home. He feels awful. He eats Oriental noodle soup then falls asleep, sprawled on the sofa, his Nyquil dose untouched on the T.V. tray. I walk softly toward our bedroom, checking to see if both housedoors are locked, then glance at the smoldering fireplace. Would any sparks fly out between the screen holes? Is it safe to sleep? I glance back at Edd, in his red and white-striped Santa Claus nightshirt, curled up without a blanket on the sofa. Should I cover him? The room's still warm, and I may wake him if I do. So many classes . . he works hard. I figure he'll wake up and climb into bed when the room chills. I place my hand on the cold bedroom doorknob. Once opened, the door sucks out cool air. I see Jonathan cuddled at the headboard of his crib that adjoins our queen-sized bed. He holds one small hand upward. What do babies dream? Jessica, hidden by her patchwork quilt, shows me only her tousled hair above the toddler bed at the foot of our bed (we like to sleep near our children--feel their life-force around us). I stand in the doorway between two rooms--one warm and lit by the brass lamp and fireplace, one cool and illuminated only by the nightlight. Colors--orange and yellow and green--mingle with grey and black and pale white. I don't want to leave them, I think, as I stand between Edd and the children, as I hold them between two worlds. God, you have shoved my future smack in my face--I cannot help but think and write. Please let me see Your hand holding me--as Moses said, in his last blessing upon Israel, "underneath are the everlasting arms." The mother eagle flies beneath her young so that they cannot spiral downward.

Story of Life, by Janet Zimmerman, The Sun
"I lift my arms above my head and twirl around the kitchen, nearly knocking over a teapot. Edd hears my stomping feet and leaves his computer to investigate. I bow like a dancer and stretch my hands toward him . . . " This little gem of poetry, and joy, comes from the opening paragraphs of a book about cancer. It is a story with a happy ending. Williams' book is a cross between the facts of cancer and moving details about her life. She offers crisp observations about her feelings before and after cancer, the hair loss and nausea, the exhaustion and the friend she lost to lung cancer. Her prose is poetic and literary. She uses it to turn something ugly to loveliness.

Cancer, Chemo, and Coping, by Ken Carreiro, The Mountain News
One of the valuable features of "Crossing the Chemo Room," by mountain resident Lonna Lisa Williams--her story of being diagnosed with lymphoma and successfully treated for the disease in 1996--is the concluding section of the book dealing with Internet sources concerning cancer, books and booklets on the subject, and a short summary of what she personally learned from her ordeal.

Cancer Patient Turns Illness to Tale of Hope, by Denice Hilts, The Press-Enterprise
Lonna Williams had just published a book and given birth to her fourth child in 1996 when she was diagnosed with a rare form of non-hodgkins lymphoma. The youngest of her four children, Jonathan, was just 8 months old, and Williams was juggling English teaching jobs at three campuses. Now Williams, 43, has turned the latest chapter of her life into a book, "Crossing the Chemo Room," which she said she hopes will inspire and inform others who are touched by cancer.