SHANNON -- Two decades after being diagnosed and treated for childhood brain cancer, Maggie Bushway has written a memoir about her experience.
"Pearls: A Memoir on Childhood Brain Cancer and Hope" published in August and combines the beginnings of the book she started writing 20 years ago, her father's blog posts and her current-day reflections.
"I started this when I was 8," Bushway, 28, said. "I was in chemo, and I wanted to write a book about my cancer experience to give other kids with cancer hope. But I eventually got too sick to finish it ... Last year, I found my manuscript, and I found a box full of my dad's blog posts from that time. He recorded everything. So I went back and was reading my perspective and his perspective, and then I realized that I had an adult perspective looking back. So I decided to put them all together."
Her father, Rob Bushway, is credited as co-author of the book. Along with the blog posts, he wrote the book's afterword, reflecting on the box of blog posts that had been printed and saved by his mother, rediscovered after her death.
"That's one of my favorite things about the book," Bushway said. "It's something we wrote together, even if we were doing it at different times and we didn't know we were doing it together."
Bushway was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and moved to Mississippi at 17 for college, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism from the University of Mississippi. Alongside writing a memoir, she operates a videography and graphic design business called 501 Media.
She was diagnosed with a Stage 2 astrocytoma in the right insular cortex at age 7. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments for two years, until she was 9 years old. From ages 9 through 12, she was in and out of the hospital due to seizures.
Treatment, medications and surgeries -- including removal of her brain's right temporal lobe, amygdala and hippocampus -- have helped decrease the amount of daily seizures she experiences. Though she continues to live with the after-effects of childhood cancer, Bushway has been in remission for 19 years.
The book's title, "Pearls," came from a passage her father wrote on his blog.
"Like a grain of sand caught in an oyster shell, Maggie's tumor has proven to be quite the irritant in our lives, providing us with tremendous battles even after being removed," Rob Bushway wrote. "Just as a pearl takes years to develop, the beauty of pain and suffering may not be realized for years to come. To fix the irritation or wish it away will rob you of the joy of seeing the pearl of God's priceless purpose in it all."
"As soon as I read it, I was like, 'That's the premise of the whole book,'" Bushway said.
Through diagnosis and treatment, Bushway and her family found hope in their faith.
"We really only had God to lean on," Bushway said. "My type of cancer and tumor was very rare, and so we couldn't look at other patients to see, 'They got better so I'm going to get better.' We just had to trust that God knew what he was doing."
Publishing "Pearls" is a realization of a long-held dream, a gift to her younger self. It's also an offering of hope to other children on similar journeys, along with their families.
"I hope that they're able to see that while you're in the midst of something really difficult, and something that you can't see how this will ever turn out for good, that you'll be able to look back on it and see what led you to be who you are," Bushway said.
Bushway and her father will host a "Coffee With the Authors" event at Lost+Found Coffee Company, located at 910 Robert E. Lee Extended in Tupelo, on Saturday, Oct. 12, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
They'll sign copies of "Pearls: A Memoir on Childhood Brain Cancer and Hope" and participate in a discussion about the book followed by a question and answer session with attendees.
A limited number of books will be available for purchase at the signing, and copies are available online at Amazon.