Breast cancer is not a laughing matter. Or is it? Perhaps you don’t know Gila Pfeffer, author of the memoir Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences. winner of the 2024 Gilda Prize.
At age thirty, having lost both her mother and grandmother to cancer, Gila began taking all the preventative measures she could. “My mother died of breast cancer at forty-two,” she recalls. “By the time she had her first mammogram at forty, she already had a cancerous tumor the size of an orange, which turned out to be stage 3 cancer. Her mother, who had been sick for many years before dying of breast cancer in her forties, was likely also diagnosed around age forty. I thought, Enough of this. We need to tackle it.”
When Gila heard about the possibility of a double mastectomy, she decided to go for it. Even so, it was almost too late. Cancer was already growing in one of her breasts. But after eight rounds of chemo, plus the removal of her ovaries and the loss of her hair, she survived with her sense of humor intact, plus a desire to empower others who find themselves in similar circumstances.
Although Nearly Departed, an account of the author’s tragic journey, might be called dark humor by some, comedians Iliza Shlesinger and Sarah Cooper describe it as “laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreakingly hilarious.” Descriptions Gila is pleased to point out.
A humorist herself, Gila’s works include the widely shared An Open Letter to Tiffany & Co, a piece about the jeweler’s advertising campaign for a ring to help women remember they survived cancer in which she notes, “I’m writing to express my sincerest thanks for creating a ring for women like me who can’t seem to recall having lived through cancer… Tiff—can I call you Tiff? You understood that a person could undergo a double mastectomy with reconstruction from their stomach fat and muscle followed by chemotherapy, which made them lose their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes; that they could have their ovaries removed, setting off early menopause at the age of thirty-five, while tending to the needs of four young children and simply not remember any of that. At least not without a fantabulous ring.”
In addition to now being a seventeen-year cancer survivor and a mom of four, Gila has also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Today.com, Oprah Daily, AARP, and more. And she speaks to audiences across the United States and England about women’s health and empowerment through prevention as well as the importance of employing humor in challenging times.
As if that’s not enough, she also posts a “Feel It on the First” social media campaign that uses tongue-in-cheek photos and video reminders to prioritize breast health. “My aim is to make people laugh and view breast cancer prevention through a less scary lens. It’s about empowerment, and it’s working.” The author says the posts “have directly led to earlier diagnoses and treatment for some very grateful women.” They are also the inspiration behind her newsletter, Feelin’ It, where she unpacks women’s health, middle-age problems, poignant human interactions, and other things, always filtered through a humorous lens.
The author describes herself as “A Staten Island escapee and nice Jewish lady currently living in New York City and London. In case you’re not sure but too embarrassed to ask, my name is pronounced as it is in the classic Jewish banger “Hava-nagila” and not like the Gila monster, which is a lizard native to Arizona and whose venom led to the development of Ozempic. That is pronounced hila.”
Although Gila uses humor in her writing and talks, she says writing the hard part of her story “with all its warts” was the hardest part of writing the book. “It was having a deadline that kept me going—that and thinking about how much a breach of contract would cost me.” Meanwhile, the author adds that she is “theoretically writing another book, a novel.”
