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Arts & Entertainment

Breast Cancer Survivor Helps Women Regain Lives After Treatment

Gina Maisano will sign her new book recounting how she survived breast cancer twice at Book Revue on Oct. 15.

Gina Maisano hasn't just survived breast cancer once; she's survived it twice.

"If I wasn't screened at age 35, I wouldn't have found my very aggressive breast cancer, and I wouldn't be here talking to you," said Maisano, of Port Washington.

Maisano has used her experiences as a two-time breast cancer survivor to create the No Surrender Breast Cancer Foundation and to write "Intimacy After Breast Cancer: Dealing with Your Body, Relationships and Sex," which she will sign copies of at Book Revue on Oct. 15.

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"I was going through treatments and running this all at the same time," she said of her foundation and her second cancer diagnosis. "After my treatments were over, I realized how much they don't tell you after you finish."

Maisano explained this revelation spurred her to write the book.

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She said the first part of the book covers everything that happens after treatments end – the psychological impact, the emotional toll, and more. "I take a reader through all of that and how to overcome all of those things," Maisano explained.

The book also gives tips on dieting and cosmetics, how to get your looks back, care for your skin and hair, and how to lose the weight gained from chemotherapy, according to Maisano. "The sick joke is that [chemotherapy] is a good way to lose weight – it's just the opposite," she said.

The second half of the book covers how to regain one's sense of sexuality, how to overcome marital rough patches and how single women can deal with dating after treatment, Maisano explained.

"A doctor doesn't tell you all of this, and a doctor doesn't know what it feels like unless they have had breast cancer," she said. "I had two [types of cancer] and I've had nine different types of chemotherapy … I can talk to any woman who's going through this."

Maisano was working as a caterer when she was first diagnosed in 2001 with a triple negative, invasive ductal carcinoma. It was treated with a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. Six years later, she was diagnosed with an invasive lobular carcinoma, after which underwent a bilateral, skin-sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction, and nine months of chemotherapy and radiation.

"When I got breast cancer for the first time, I found that I knew no one who had breast cancer, especially the one that I had, an aggressive and rare form," she explained. "I reached out to other women, all in the various stages in their breast cancer journey. When I was doing a little better, I would help women who were newer to it than me."

On Oct. 7, her foundation will host "There and Back: A Celebration of Survival" from 7-9 p.m. in Plandome – an event featuring a fashion show where all of the models have or have had breast cancer.

"We will be celebrating women who've survived and have been there and back," Maisano said. "All of them are absolutely beautiful."

For more information on the foundation, visit its website.

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