8 Steps to Getting Real with Cancer is a practical step-by-step guide for newly-diagnosed cancer patients and those who love them. Empowerment is the key theme throughout this book as Marianne McDonough, a breast cancer survivor, addresses the critical first weeks following diagnosis when patients suddenly face wrenching decisions, intense stress, and their own mortality.

When someone says you have cancer, it’s like stepping into the cockpit of a commercial airbus, sitting at the controls, and wondering what all those strange buttons do. At first you don’t even know the destination much less the timing. You have no idea how to fly the plane, but there you are, a pilot learning how to something you never wanted to learn. Moreover, you feel as though you have already crashed. Author Marianne McDonough understands. From her own experience in 2012, she believes the initial weeks of cancer are the hardest part and, as a result, focuses on writing for newly diagnosed