The Dead Girl's Guide to Terminal Cancer: A True Tale of Anxiety, Horror, & Hope

This darkly humorous and poignant memoir chronicles her defiant journey through misdiagnosis, medical apathy, and the
harrowing realities of end-stage cancer care.... A book that will show you to never doubt your intuition and hand your power over to others. A book I couldn't put down. Gina's story will inspire you to fight for yourself, even when all seems lost.
- Taryn Gray, Centred Magazine (Australia)

This is not a normal cancer story. It has some sad parts. It has some moments of joy in random and odd places. It has terror. It has an abundance of anger, ego and self determination. I suppose I could name all the adjectives and they’d fit somewhere that year.

I spent a lot of 2019 with my heart in the wrong place. Not metaphorically, but physically. My tumors created their own black hole, and it was moving my organs across my chest. I lived most of the year with my lung either partially or fully crushed. I was a list of medical problems too long to fix.

If we were to meet in January of 2019, and not again until January 2020, you wouldn’t know I had survived eight different death sentences. In fact, you might think I took the year off, or had just returned from an extended vacation.

But I went to hell. It was a trip—not sure I’d call it a vacation. Which begs the question: How did I not only cheat death, but come out of cancer healthier than I went in?

Honestly, it’s not all that complicated. Anytime someone asks me what saved my life, I answer truthfully.

Pudding.