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New book details cancer fight by nursing faculty member Diane Manahan

A new book details the five-year fight against cancer by nursing faculty member Diane Manahan.

2007-05-07
By Sara Gilbert Frederick [special to The Free Press, Mankato, MN, published 5/6/2007]

It was the way Diane Manahan lived, as much as the way she died, that made her sister-in-law want to write a book about her.

Manahan, a longtime nurse and nursing teacher at Minnesota State University, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995. Five years later, at age 60, she died at her Mankato home with her husband, Bill, a physician, at her side. In the interim, she lived each moment as fully as she could.

But that, says her sister-in-law Nancy Manahan, wasn’t a big change for Diane.

“She didn’t just become an extraordinary person when she was diagnosed with breast cancer,” said Nancy Manahan, who co-authored “Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully,” a book about Diane’s life and death, with her partner Becky Bohan. “She had always been an extraordinary person.”

Which was why Nancy Manahan and Bohan thought they should put her story in print. They had read a book about afterdeath experiences and both found comfort in the stories. That got them thinking about their own experiences with Diane, who went out of her way to include friends, family and many others in her fight against cancer.

She invited many of them to share her chemotherapy treatments with her, spending those two-hour chunks in one-on-one discussions about life, death, spirituality and more. She talked about her experiences with the students in her classes at Minnesota State University. She even interviewed morticians to select just the right person to handle her body upon death.

“We thought, we have so many stories about this one person who was so important in so many people’s lives,” Bohan said. “So we started to gather up the stories and put them in writing.”

Bill Manahan was more than happy to help. He handed over all of his wife’s files, including medical records, stacks of e-mails, an online journal and other notes and writings.

“It wasn’t so much whether or not I wanted to share it,” he said. “It was more that I knew Diane would have wanted to share it.”

“Her voice was so eloquent in all of it,” Bohan remembered. “It covered everything from the diagnosis through her journey with the disease. And as we went through it, we thought, this is a story that needs to be told, this is so very powerful.”

Their book, which was published by Beaver’s Pond Press earlier this year, is already resonating with readers. When the authors came to Mankato’s Barnes & Noble for a reading and signing last week, they had to haul down boxes of the books with them because the store had already almost sold out of its allotment. The chain of bookstores also had committed to carrying “Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully” in 21 of its outlets throughout the state.

The poignancy of Diane’s story, her fiveyear battle against the disease, her decision to die at home, even her family’s experience at the crematorium is the main appeal. But the authors also drafted a supplemental guidebook with practical suggestions for dealing with a serious illness or death, including the holistic treatment plan that Diane and Bill designed.

“Our goal was to extrapolate on the lessons we learned from Diane,” Bohan said. “We thought that the way Diane modeled her living and her dying process could really speak to a lot of people.”

But the book isn’t the only way they remember Diane. On May 13, they’ll be hosting a gathering of friends and family at the memorial bench in Sibley Park. “That’s where she spent countless hours walking and playing with her kids,” Nancy Manahan said. “And it’s near the picnic shelter and band shell, where 300 to 400 people came for her life celebration in July 2001.”

Although copies of the book will be available at the park, the gathering, Manahan says, will be less about the book and more about Diane. “It’s a time to share memories and experiences, to talk about what we learned from Diane,” she said.

“It’s about Diane and her message, her legacy.”

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