Here is a true story of one woman’s experience with surviving the life-altering effects of cancer. Linda Yates is an ordained United Church minister. During her final year in seminary, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and several rounds of chemotherapy. She graduated from university but was unable to be ordained until 1999. After being given a clean bill of health, she became an active minister in rural Nova Scotia.

Two years later, Linda was told that the cancer had spread to her bones and was incurable. Her research revealed a life expectancy of two years. Reeling from the diagnosis, Linda became aware of other women who had received similar terminal diagnoses. She gathered the women together where they supported one another, prayed for each other and, eventually, buried one another. Two years from the point of diagnosis of advanced cancer, Linda was told that a mistake had been made and she did not, in fact, have cancer. A year later, as minister, she buried the last member of that wonderful group of women sojourners.

Feeling that something amazing and rare had occurred within that group, Linda began to think about writing about her experience. Her concern about how the Canadian health care system functions (or doesn’t), the particularities of being a woman with cancer and the special position of having been given up for dead and then resurrected again all combined to inspire her to record her experience. Just Wait…There’s More is a sometimes humourous, sometimes deadly serious look at the bizarre and often crazy life of living in the land of cancer.

Linda Yates is a slightly irreverent United Church minister. Prior to going into ministry, she managed the Dalhousie Infectious Disease Research Laboratory. Today, she lives and works as a minister in rural Nova Scotia, focussing on women’s issues, family violence, and youth.