Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences

A sharp, funny, and heartfelt memoir of losing both parents to cancer and the daring choices Gila Pfeffer made to avoid the same early demise By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, having lost her mother to breast cancer and her father to colon cancer. A simple blood test confirmed she carried the BRCA1 gene—which put her at high risk of developing cancer herself. Determined to break the cycle of early death in her family, Gila decides to undergo an elective double mastectomy. This memoir follows her journey as she becomes a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, grows up, falls in love, and enters motherhood, before her life is derailed yet again. Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast. After enduring eight rounds of chemo and the removal of her ovaries, she takes her last-ever dip in the mikvah waters as a bald, menopausal, thirty-five-year-old mother of four.... How far would you go to save your own life? In this funny and heartfelt memoir, Gila Pfeffer recounts losing both parents to cancer and the choices she made to avoid the same early demise. By the time she was thirty, Gila Pfeffer was the oldest living member of her family, with both of her parents dead from cancer. She underwent genetic testing and after learning that she carried the BRCA1 gene decided to undergo a double mastectomy. It wasnt a choiceshe had to stay alive. Set against Gilas Orthodox Jewish upbringing on Staten Island, this memoir follows her journey to break the cycle of death in her family. After becoming a reluctant expert on how to sit shiva, she transforms into an independent adult, falls in love, and becomes a mother before her life falls apart yet again. Her double mastectomy reveals cancer already growing in one breast. After enduring eight rounds of chemo and the removal of her ovaries, she takes her last-ever dip in the mikvah waters as a bald, menopausal 35-year-old mother of four. Drenched in Gilas dark humor honed over years of repeatedly surviving the worst, Nearly Departed is a story about thriving despite poor odds, balancing life in the secular world while remaining true to her faith, and leaving a better legacy for her children than the one she inherited.