Jeri Walker is a freelance editor and writer that I got to know a few years ago when I was trying out a new (for me) social media site. I’ve since ended my relationship with the social media site but not with Jeri. She welcomed me from the start and when I first visited her blog, I was impressed by her professionalism and focus. She offers many tips and tools that are down-to-earth (not that pie in the sky “buy my book and you will soon have hundreds of thousands of new followers and readers” blah blah blah). She conducts in-depth interviews with established writers (self-published and otherwise). Her blog is WB Word Bank at jeriwb.com and I recommend you bookmark it.

She even has some of her own writing available for purchase at Amazon. I really enjoyed her collection of short stories Such is Life. You can read my review here.  Suffice to say, her stories reminded me of an early Joyce Carol Oates. You can also visit her Amazon author page here.

Jeri is a truly exceptional person. She’s resilient, having weathered, survived and bested a childhood and marriage that I know would have sent me far over the edge and into the void. And, of course, because she is so tough, she has breast cancer. In her words:

“my type of breast cancer is a triple-negative breast cancer. That means it can’t be helped by hormone treatments of estrogen or progesterone. Such cancers also do not respond to targeted Herceptin protein treatments. It does tend to respond well to chemo. Nope, rare bird that I am gets a type of breast cancer only seen in about 15 percent the women diagnosed.”

Life can be so pathetically unfair. And I know Jeri is one of many who steels herself to do what she doesn’t really want to do: ask for help. But there’s a gift for those of us who have decided to give her a little support. She’s writing it all down. We get to read all about the cancer diagnosis, the treatment, the side effects, her mental state, her love, her play with art to make meaning of all this. We even get to see her boobs.

If you care to donate, here’s Jeri’s GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/the-abandoned-boob-chronicles

And, by the way, f**k cancer.