Botox and the Beast: A Woman's Journey with Follicular Lymphoma, Identity, and Resilience

Every morning at 7:00 - before the coffee, before the kids, before the first call with colleagues across six countries - Mia's first thought is her: the beast that sleeps on her shoulder.

From the outside, Mia has it all figured out. The career, the marriage, the two small children, the almost-wrinkle-free forehead (all right, she had a little help there). Then, on a perfectly ordinary Friday, her fingers find a small lump on her neck. And it doesn't go away.

What follows isn't a race toward a cure, but something quieter and stranger: watch and wait. You have cancer, but for now the doctors do nothing. The beast doesn't attack. She just breathes on your shoulder while you make the coffee, drive your daughter to ballet, and try to remember to buy lemons for the morning.

Botox and the Beast is a fiercely honest - and unexpectedly funny - memoir about the life that keeps going while you're falling apart, and about putting yourself back together, piece by piece, by your own blueprint rather than everyone else's expectations. It's for anyone who has ever heard a sentence that begins with "I'm afraid..." and had to get up the next morning anyway.

Because while the beast sleeps, life doesn't wait.