The Sensitive One

At age fifty, Susan Morris is diagnosed with breast cancer--and she's floored. Desperate to pinpoint the cause, one night she decides to type a question into her search engine: "What are the risk factors of getting breast cancer?" She's surprised to discover research showing that long-term exposure to stress and traumatic childhood experiences can both increase the risk of breast cancer.

The Sensitive One is a braided memoir that alternates between Morris's childhood--as a sensitive child and then teenager who shouldered the burden of caring for her younger siblings as her dad's alcoholism tore at the threads of their home life--and an adult who for a decade-plus has been living a trauma-free life with a caring husband and rewarding career in nursing . . . only to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

This is a story of redemption--of a woman who manages to escape harrowing circumstances and start anew--but it's also a story of how our legacy lives within us, and how healing from the adverse effects of childhood can truly take a lifetime.