Cancer A Coping Guide for Those with the Big C and Those who Love Them

Elaine M. Decker is a social satirist and a recovering Type-A personality. She recently retired to devote more time to her writing and to refining her napping techniques. After graduating from Brown University with a degree in art, Ms. Decker lived and worked in the metro NY area for 25 years. Following an early career in computer programming and systems, she climbed a Fortune 500 ladder into consumer marketing. From there she dabbled in communications, producing videos and creating websites. Continuing on what was clearly a logically thought out career path, she migrated into development and nonprofit management, from which she retired in 2011. Somewhere in the middle of this path she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She began keeping a journal of her own thoughts and experiences, along with those of other men and women coping with the Big C. Twenty-two years later, her retirement afforded her the time to put all of this together into CANCER: A Coping Guide for Those with the Big C and Those Who Love Them. A New Jersey native (when Jersey wasn't cool), Ms. Decker relocated to Providence, RI in 1992 (when Providence wasn't cool, either), where she lives with her husband and cat. She's been writing social satire for decades, but she also writes on serious topics. Over the years, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Marketing News and The Privacy Journal. Selections from her blog and book, Retirement Sparks, appear in her monthly column in the RI publication, Prime Time.