In Danger: A Memoir of Family and Hope

(Paperback)

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Description

One woman's powerful story of how her mother's death saved her life. When Josepha Dietrich was 21, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Four years after her mother's death, the disease reared up in Josie's own cells, this time more aggressively. She was 35, and her high-needs baby son was not yet one. As the daughter of a woman who had sought out alternatives to conventional medicine, Josie used her own knowledge and her mother's experience to find solutions for herself. Later she also used this experience to help her son rise up out of his profoundly autistic state. In Danger is Josie's journey through life with breast cancer from inside the experience, capturing her energy and force-of-nature personality. She reflects on the literary works that inspired her, from cancer literature to other medical memoirs, works that helped her to explore disease and the human condition, and shed light on its darker aspects. At its heart, this moving memoir delves deep into how it feels when everything you love is in danger.

Reviews

'In Danger is much more than a breast cancer memoir - though it covers that territory eloquently and courageously. It is also an insightful meditation on the push and pull of mother-daughter relationships, on what we inherit through blood and example. At once gentle but unforgiving, the book uses the mirror of art, particularly literature and music, to paint hard, exhilarating truths. Both younger and older generations of women will be drawn to its energy and honesty.' - Kristina Olsson

Author Bio

Josepha (Josie) Dietrich is an English emigrant to Australia. She lives in Brisbane in the home that she and her partner built on passive-house principles. After coming out of a long reign of being a carer, she's worked as a research assistant for universities on projects to improve psychiatric discharge planning and women's wellness after cancer. Her prior long-term work was in the After Hours Child Protection Unit, assessing children's risk of harm alongside the Sexual Offences Child Abuse Unit of Victoria Police. To remain sane during this period, she flitted off overseas for months at a time to climb cliff faces while sleeping on beaches or in abandoned shepherds' huts. After her cancer treatments finished and in light of her experience caring for her dying mother, Josie joined the advisory committee of CanSpeak Queensland as a cancer and consumer advocate.