Kate Cramond
Beating My Breast: A diary of life and connection
Ginninderra Press, 2019
If there are any perks from breast cancer, Changing Your Life should be one of them. Yeah, right. Nearly a year out from my diagnosis - just when everyone expects me to dust myself off and move on - I’m dull and dreary and utterly bogged. So I start a diary - hoping to sift through the quagmire in my head, and make sense of what’s been going on in my body. Maybe even to crack the code to that big one: why me? Over the next year, I pull apart my history - diet, lifestyle, mental state - looking for clues. My attempts at self-realisation get an airing, and my adolescence shaped by tragedy and change. Over time, I describe my treatments - a horror show that mutilates my boob, kills my reproductive cycles and flattens me with side effects. But surprisingly, it is my stories that carry me through. The contrast between young me and older me. My brother and nephew, long gone. My love of the outdoors. Rocks and bush. And the rocks I carry with me still.
About the Author
Kate Cramond grew up on an orchard in South Australia, and fondly remembers climbing trees and pelting her brothers and sisters with apples. At university she studied biological sciences, in between bushwalking, climbing mountains and driving all over the place. After that she settled into an assortment of environmental jobs, in between writing stories, marrying and raising two awesome daughters. Getting breast cancer wasn’t exactly on her ‘to do’ list, but it did give her plenty to write about. She hopes her words will help others (and make her many confessions worthwhile ☺).
