To Live Each Moment

Janet Britton had just turned thirty-three when she found out she had cancer. Her children needed her. So did her husband. She didn’t have time for surgery, radiation treatment or chemotherapy.

But the lump was malignant, and, without her permission, Janet was hurled into a world of dazzling operating rooms, icy bedpans and endless tubes and needles. With her we experience the terror of the unknown, the exhaustion of living in a rebellious body, the frustration of dealing with insensitive friends and health-care professionals and the relief of finding others who truly understand.

Intending her story to be a gift of words for her young children, Janet describes the emotions and events of her treatment with both laughter and tears. Because cancer strikes three out four American families, few escape its effects. Cancer changes everything. It destroys some, but it can also nudge some to begin to live each moment with joy and purpose.

As Janet battles a potential death sentence, she seeks strength through God and discovers what it truly means to be alive. While others support her in her fight, Janet continues to support her own loved ones, struggling with addiction, abuse and the impact of suicide.

Now, thirty years later, after a second bout of cancer, Janet reissues her book for the wife of her granddaughter’s basketball coach, just diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty-three. Janet encourages this young mother by pointing out the improvements of treatment in the last three decades. Janet knows that though medical protocol has changed, emotions of those dealing with cancer remain the same.

At the end of this edition, Janet updates readers on the original characters in her memoir in a new postscript titled, “Still Living Each Moment.”