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!

I’m tickled pink to show off our Tickles Tabitha character and announce that we’re bringing Cancer Education to the classroom. Nutcracker Publishing is presenting CRACK OPEN A BOOK© the first cancer education program to be offered to elementary students.

We’re cracking open Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy; trying on wigs, playing doctor, learning about good manners, and character traits such as kindness, and courage, while discussing the issues that affect children when a parent is diagnosed with cancer.

I know many of you will be surprised to read it’s the first time cancer education has been offered to elementary students, but Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy has not always been welcomed amongst the mainstream, and certainly not in elementary school.

In 1994, when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. talking about cancer to my own children was considered a radical idea, and talking about it to an elementary classroom was un-imaginable.

Now, Tickles Tabitha is going to school and taking her book with her.

CRACK OPEN A BOOK and the Tickles Tabitha character will also be available to health care centers, cancer awareness organization, or anyone wishing to promote cancer awareness.

I know from personal experience that creating a dialogue to talk about cancer or any issue helps alleviate anxiety and contributes to emotional and physical good health and that's what CRACK OPEN A BOOK is designed to do.

When I published Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy in October 2001, I was advised, cancer was a niche topic, young women with children didn't usually get cancer, and no parent wanted to read their children a book like that. Despite that it caught the attention of the media immediately and went on to be recognized across the country as recommended reading for families coping with cancer.

While I received invitations to talk to students about reading, writing, or the publishing process, I was never asked to talk to students about cancer.

It's only within the last few years that public perception has shifted regarding some of the often whispered issues pertaining to cancer. Public figures like “Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts, White House press secretary, Tony Snow, and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, have drawn attention to this change of attitude.

When I approached parents in my community this year and asked if their children could participate in my focus group, and told them the topic was cancer, they didn't blink.

After having walked a step ahead of the beat for more than a decade, I'm somewhat relieved to discover the mainstream appears willing to quit whispering, stop tiptoeing and start educating our children about issues surrounding cancer.