Like Barbara Delinsky, I come from a family touched by breast cancer: my mother’s mother, my own mother (twice), and two of her sisters. All of them gone because of the disease. Delinsky’s mother died of breast cancer when she was eight. Partly, this was due to not having enough medical knowledge about the disease when they contracted it to treat it aggressively or to detect it early.

Delinksy and I lived with the threat of that diagnosis for years and I began to worry about my own daughter and what she would face. So far, my daughter and I are still waiting. But Barbara Delinksy got her medical news in 1994 and she underwent a bilateral mastectomy (both sides). Both of her sisters had breast cancer as well.

Braving it with her sisters helped her cope and telling her story through the words of a secondary character in a book she wrote a decade ago opened an even bigger opportunity for support for many other women. "The readers kept writing about this secondary character. They were so inspired by her," Delinsky says.

That was when the germ of another book took form. The result was Uplift; Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors, which came out in 2001. Delinsky gathered practical information from 350 women, such as what to do when your doctor tells you that you can’t use deodorant during treatments or what kind of clothing to wear after surgery. There is also plenty of emotional advice and encouragement. And, all of it is in the words of other cancer survivors, not just Delinsky’s. This year’s updated edition also has a section where the voices of 5-year survivors speak about their experience.

In addition, all of Delinksy’s royalties go to breast cancer research. She herself formed a foundation to fund two breast cancer fellowships. One goes to train a breast cancer surgeon and another funds surgery, training, and research.

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