Sofietivity "Always keep seeing bright spots"

In 2020, Sofie Guns, then a fledgling forty-something, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Three years later, she was diagnosed with metastases. Sofie, married and mother of two teenage daughters, fell into a black hole. She sought support and comfort from her caregivers, but did not find it. The contrast with the initial diagnosis could not have been greater. 'There is a good framework for women who are first diagnosed with breast cancer, but it is completely lacking when metastases are discovered. While that second one is actually worse,' she says of it. 'Like the light went out.

Busy bee Sofie searched in vain for support and information about metastatic breast cancer, meanwhile kept her family going and kept working, with a lot of support from her colleagues. The rollercoaster she ended up in, how she went head over heels and scrambled up again and again, she describes in a spirited way in her book Sofietivity, using her diary excerpts. It is a beautifully published book that she wrote especially for people in the same situation, so that they would not end up in the cold, as it happened to her. The book fills a gap. It is not a doom-and-gloom book, on the contrary. There is a silver lining to all dark clouds, and Sofie constantly invites the reader not to lose sight of that edge. With her book, she also wants to reach caregivers, so that they too understand that support in the face of metastases must be more than "just let it sink in, ma'am.

Sofietivity contains many great moments from Sofie's life. For example, she very recently married her husband Kenny, who took a knee during a vacation in Lapland and asked her to marry him. That marriage was consummated and celebrated in Greece, which she prepared meticulously for a year. The many photos in the book show a happy couple and a beautiful family, able to put aside the pitch-black diagnosis at times and enjoy life. Of this, she writes, "if anyone ever asks me if happiness is possible after a tough diagnosis, I wholeheartedly say yes.

A resounding yes also says Pink Ribbon to this beautiful support book by Sofie Guns. Sofietivity was created in collaboration with Beatrijs Vermaercke. Publisher Foxtaw 2025.

More info and ordering can be found here: https://www.foxtaw.be/nl/shop/

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