Resources

Organizations providing support & information 

• Cancer Information Service (KID) at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) Heidelberg www.krebsinformationsdienst.de/hirntumor

  • Offers include: A free medical phone helpline (0800 - 420 30 40) and an extremely detailed online portal specifically dedicated to brain tumors, covering topics such as neuropsychological impacts and daily life.

• Yes We Can!cer https://yescon.org/hd/hirntumoren/

  • Offers include: A free app connecting cancer patients and loved ones to chat and support each other, as well as YES!CON—Germany's largest digital and in-person cancer convention.

• Deutsche Hirntumorhilfe (German Brain Tumor Association)

https://www.hirntumorhilfe.org/

• • Offers include: A phone information service, scientifically sound yet accessible patient magazines (brainstorm), and an annual Brain Tumor Information Day.

Personal Stories

• Inez shares a part of her journey as one of the "Tiny Love Stories" in the The New York Times

• Numerous personal stories of brain tumor survivors who share their personal journeys from diagnosis to everyday life |auntymbraintumours.com

• Shock diagnosis brain tumor: How Dominik Rettig has been living with cancer for 20 years (WAZ) Read the article on WAZ

Books*

*Note by Inez:  "I found these readings very helpful - though I don't think that any one of these books provides a formula for the “right” way to live with cancer. While they do not promise that everything will be all right, they do offer different ways of navigating a reality that is really difficult and, at times, really painful."

Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman – The Daily Stoic
366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Publication year: 2016 | Publisher: Portfolio | ISBN: 978-0-7352-1173-5

What the book is about: The central idea of this book is to direct attention and energy towards what remains within one’s sphere of influence: personal choices, responses, priorities, and the way the present day is approached. This idea resonates a lot with cancer patients who have to cope with many things they cannot control such as test results, the body’s response to treatment, or uncertainty about what lies ahead.

When to read it: With its 366 short reflections, the book is particularly well suited as a daily companion. It does not require long periods of concentrated reading. A single reflection in the morning or evening can provide a moment of perspective and orientation.

Ryan Holiday – The Obstacle Is the Way
The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
Publication year: 2014 | Publisher: Portfolio | ISBN: 978-1-59184-635-2

What the book is about: This book explores how people can respond to circumstances they did not choose and cannot simply change. Holiday draws on Stoic philosophy to explore how a person can retain a sense of agency even when circumstances themselves cannot be controlled. The book's central idea is that an obstacle may not be removable, but the way a person responds to it can still be shaped. 

When to read it: The book can be particularly valuable during periods when someone feels the need to regain courage, direction, or a sense of personal agency. It is an energetic and motivating read and may therefore be most helpful at times when encouragement to move forward feels welcome.

Viktor E. Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
English edition: 2006 | Publisher: Beacon Press | ISBN: 978-0-8070-1427-1

What the book is about: Viktor Frankl addresses one of the most profound questions a person can face: What can sustain human beings when they encounter suffering and circumstances they cannot change? Drawing on his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps and on his work as a psychiatrist, Frankl explores the human search for meaning even under conditions of extreme suffering. In the context of cancer, this does not imply that the illness itself must have a meaning or that suffering needs to be transformed into something positive. Rather, the book opens a different question: What continues to give a person’s life meaning now? (Spoiler: Meaning may be found in relationships, love, responsibilities, experiences, unfinished aspirations, or simply in how a person chooses to meet the life that remains before them.)

When to read it: This book may be particularly meaningful when questions about purpose, hope, mortality and what truly matters begin to come to the foreground. Frankl’s account of the concentration camps is emotionally demanding, however. It is therefore a book for which the right moment can matter as much as the book itself.

William S. Breitbart (ed.) – Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy in the Cancer Setting
Finding Meaning and Hope in the Face of Suffering
Publication: 2016/2017 | Publisher: Oxford University Press | Print ISBN: 978-0-19-983722-9

What the book is about: This book brings the question of meaning directly into the context of cancer. Developed from work in psycho-oncology and palliative care, meaning-centered psychotherapy explores how people living with cancer can continue to experience meaning, identity and hope when illness has changed many of the assumptions on which their lives were previously built. One of its most important ideas is that illness can become a significant part of a person’s reality without becoming the entirety of who that person is. Sources of meaning can remain in relationships, memories, creativity, experiences, personal values, the legacy a person leaves to others, and in what still matters in the present.

When to read it: This book is particularly relevant when questions about identity, mortality, purpose and hope become more prominent. Unlike the other books in this selection, however, this is primarily a professional and therapeutic text. It is therefore better suited to deeper exploration, or to professionals and others who want to understand the psychological framework behind meaning-centered cancer care, than as light reading during treatment.