Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-Tankerous Mommy: The Mommy in the Book.

 

Twenty-six years I was diagnosed with breast cancer and wrote a version of what's now Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy. The book was turned down by mainstream publishers who didn't see a market for it and believed that breast cancer wasn't something young women would be concerned about.  

In October 2001, Rosie O Donnell, whose mother had died of breast cancer,  announced the publication of the book on her national talk show. Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy went on to be recommended by health care professionals and cancer support groups across the county. 

However, getting the book into bookstores and overcoming the stigma about cancer continued to be a struggle for years.  

When Nutcracker Publishing introduced the Tickles Tabitha character and
implemented the Crack Open a Book Cancer Education curriculum it was a major milestone.

Today's kids and even their parents are usually surprised to hear that when I first became an author there was no way I would have been allowed to read Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy at elementary schools.  Talking about cancer- much less- breast cancer was taboo. 

Cancer was not the only topic that was off-limits.  Mental health issues weren't being discussed either.  My Tickles Tabitha title hit on the depression and rollercoaster of emotions a family battling cancer endures in an era when it was just not talked about.  I've often felt as if I'm either a step ahead or miles behind popular perception when it comes to social norms.

Much has changed since the publication of my book, beginning with its author.  

Several years ago I retired to the mountains of Tennessee,  but October is a month I can't let pass without acknowledging Breast Cancer Awareness.  For me, it's been a journey filled with pink pumpkin events and personal angst usually brought on by public speaking. 

I'm proud to say that Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy helped pioneer cancer resources for children. Talking to children about cancer is no longer deemed inappropriate, and the word breast can even be said aloud to a grade school audience. 

The stigma, shame, and embarrassment  I once felt about my breast cancer and the book I wrote on the topic,  due to the ignorance of others, is long gone.  

I once had another cancer survivor tell me she just felt sorry for the children in the book because the mommy was so mean. I guess she didn't realize the mommy in the book was based on me... only nicer. We can't all be perfect mothers delusional, but if I've learned anything along the way it's that Tickles Tabitha's Mommy is not as mean as I thought she was. 

Despite all that's changed Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy remains as relevant today as it was the day I wrote it. Young moms are still being diagnosed with breast cancer. Families are still dealing with mental health issues pertaining to cancer,  young children are still affected by it, moms still feel guilty about it, 

AND women, especially young women,  still have to be their own advocate when it comes to breast health!

I found my lump when my four-year-old jumped onto my lap and I put a hand up to protect my chest. I was 34 with no family history of breast cancer.  Mammograms were not advised for someone my age and today they're still not. 

If you're too young for a mammogram please do a self-exam.  

October (Halloween/Fright Month)  is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Whoever decided that must have had a wicked sense of humor. 

Even after 26 years, waiting for the results of my mammogram is still scary.  Relieved to report mine came back clean!  

BREAST Cancer: Yesterday’s Risqué - Today’s Yawn

Artist AleXsandro Palombo  series called “Survivor” that imagines what well-known female cartoon personalities ...

A few decades ago I deleted an entire segment in the TicklesTabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy manuscript, because talking about breasts in a children’s book about breast cancer was just too risqué.

When it comes to addressing topics others deem risqué or offensive, it appears I’m no longer a step ahead of popular perception, but have fallen on my unbleached butt and can’t get up.

I've fallen and can't get up!

Now that I’m almost retired, I spent my summer arranging potential “Summer Adventures 2016” journal entries for my grown children, ensuring my landscaping survived the hottest East TN summer in years, doing DIY projects in the basement, and -every once in a while- checking in to see what type of stories and/or experts the media is looking for these days.

Some of what I learned sure was… educational.

For example, I learned that freelancers were looking for experts on butt bleaching. Even more enlightening, I learned that I need not have bothered running a google search on butt bleaching, I could have just asked my children what that was.

In my previous blog, I gave some of the backstory and backlash regarding the controversy surrounding my children’s book about nuclear power plants.  In the wake of Fukushima it is not difficult to understand why a children’s book about nuclear power plants might not be a welcome edition on everyone’s book shelf, but a children’s book about cancer?  

“Why would you ever want to do a book about nuclear power,” asked one of my colleagues, “after establishing a career based on a sweet, beloved, children’s book about cancer?”

His comment only goes to show: Yesterday’s controversial and risqué is today’s yawn.

In the late 1990’s, when I first pitched my sweet, beloved children’s book about cancer it was not considered so sweet. It is unimaginable today, but back in 1994 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was discussed in hushed tones amongst adults, over the heads of bewildered children.

Talking to children about nuclear power would have been far less controversial than a children’s book about cancer. Especially one that included the emotional mood swings (depression) pictured in Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy.  If cancer wasn’t depressing enough, one critic (another writer) told me the mommy in my story (a nicer version of myself) was just too mean!  

I did receive some positive critiques from several well-respected mainstream publishing houses. They loved the story, but there just wasn’t a market for it. After all, young mothers with children didn’t usually get breast cancer… I was just unlucky.  They left out the part about me being unlucky.

I didn’t know it at the time, but for any unknown aspiring author to receive any comments at all from an editor was huge. I thought they felt sorry for the cancer mommy, so I packed up my manuscript and focused on LIVING.  

Today it’s common knowledge that young women do get breast cancer, good moms aren’t always nice, and even moms without cancer get depressed. If you’re in the book business you know that editor’s affiliated with large publishing houses care about marketing potential and not the feelings of aspiring writers, whether they are dead or alive!  

Just about everything I experienced back then sounds unbelievable to young people today, and makes for humorous story-telling. If only living it had been as funny! This October it will be fifteen years since my children's book on cancer was published, and made its debut on the Rosie O Donnell talk show. 

We used to have a saying when I was a kid: Last laugh’s the dog’s laugh.  Woof, woof, is sort of how I feel when I reflect on my experience writing and publishing Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy!  

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month! 

And a reminder to women of all ages to examine their breasts!

October is a bittersweet month for me. I love this time of year, dressing up for Halloween, the cooler temperatures, the beauty of the leaves as they change color.

October is also the month I lost my friend Laura Bouldin Karlman to cancer, and this October I am sad to write that her mother Barbara Bouldin's family has requested Hospice services for her.

Once again I am reminded why I established Nutcracker Publishing in the first place and I have been busy trying to remind everyone else.

My efforts have paid off and I have received some national press. This weekend I will be flying to Tampa, Florida to film a segment for the syndicated lifestyle and entertainment program Daytime.

You can read about it below in Nutcracker Publishing's latest press release:

#Beat Cancer: Author and Cancer Survivor Amelia Frahm talks about establishing a Career while beating Cancer.

Raleigh, NC---Amelia Frahm, the award-winning author of Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy, and creator of Crack Open A Book! cancer education programs will be in Tampa, Florida, October 26th, to film a segment for the syndicated lifestyle and entertainment program Daytime, on how she established a career while beating cancer.

“Somewhere along the way I quit thinking of cancer as my diagnosis and began thinking of it as my career,” says Frahm.

She will share with Daytime viewers how the courage, motivation, and perseverance she used to battle cancer prepared her for the rejection, humiliation, and even bad-luck she experienced in order to establish her career as a successful author and publisher.

A career was the last thing on Frahm’s mind when diagnosed with Breast Cancer 15 years ago. She was 34 years old, the mother of two toddlers, and all she wanted was to find a children’s book to help explain what she was going through to her children.

Diagnosed during a time when talking to children about cancer was considered unconventional, Frahm’s experience resulted in her originating the Nutcracker Publishing Company, and publishing Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tanerkous Mommy, a children’s book about a family surviving the emotional and moody behavior of  a mom battling cancer.

Her book was released in October 2001, and made national headlines when it debuted on the Rosie O Donnell Talk Show amidst an Anthrax scare that shut down O Donnell’s New York City studios.

Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy is recognized across the country as recommended reading for families coping with cancer. Last year Frahm’s company, Nutcracker Publishing, introduced a blonde pig-tailed Tickles Tabitha and launched the first cancer education school program, created by a cancer survivor, designed specifically for elementary aged children.

Frahm has appeared on radio and TV segments across the country, and is a member of the National Cancer Survivors Speakers Bureau. In August her story was recognized by the National StandUp2Cancer Foundation:
://www.standup2cancer.org/blog_su2c/2009/08/with_you_we_stand_-_81809.php

This October, she and Tickles Tabitha were pictured on MSNBC Today First Person at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33245310.
-end-

I wish Rosie O Donnell would pick on me; I could use the publicity.

Many of you know that in October of 2001, I won what for any writer, much less an unknown, one-woman independent self-publisher, was the equivalent of winning the lottery- an appearance to promote my book, Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy on the Rosie O Donnell Show.

Suddenly I went from being the town idiot, who’d invested hard-earned money to start a business she knew absolutely nothing about, so she could publish a children’s book-- God forbid-- about a mean ole Mommy with CANCER, to a nationally recognized Expert.

I was still teetering to obtain balance on the publicity pedestal when I got knocked off and onto my butt by the Anthrax virus. Anthrax had been found in NBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza where the O Donnell show aired and my appearance was cancelled.

It was devastating, humiliating, and a crushing blow to my mother, mother-in-law, and other significant others who’d bragged to their friends about my upcoming appearance.

It was an even bigger disappointment for all those pretend friends, snooty relatives, and colleagues (you know who you are) who were hoping to see me make a fool of my self on national television.

As for me my non-appearance on the Rosie O Donnell Show was the best publicity my book and publishing company has ever received.

A press release about my non appearance was picked up by the wire and I got calls from across the country. I didn’t make it to NYC but my book did and O Donnell recommended it on her show and gave copies to her studio audience.

Today I realize an endorsement from Rosie is just too old school. I've concluded the best thing Rosie O Donnell could do for an author is insult them publicly.

I'm no longer aspiring to guest on The View instead all I ask is that Rosie say she hates Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy and the witch who wrote it.

Come on Rosie, feud with me.

I’ve got several thousand copies of Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy I’d like to sell. Not to mention, the "real" Tickles Tabitha is all grown up and with a few nasty remarks from you, I might could afford to send her to college.