{"id":48758,"date":"2025-09-28T13:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48758\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T13:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T13:00:10","slug":"iowa-author-tells-survivors-stories-in-carried-through-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48758\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa author tells survivors\u2019 stories in \u2018Carried Through Cancer\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Kim Harms<\/a> was going through breast cancer treatment at age 40, she found strength in her faith, her family and friends, and in her talent for writing.<\/p>\n

Formerly a journalist for the Nevada Journal, Harms reached out to breast cancer patients and survivors across the country, adding their stories to hers in her first published book in 2021, \u201cLife Reconstructed: Navigating the World of Mastectomies and Breast Reconstruction.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The Huxley mom of three boys, who works part-time at her community\u2019s public library, decided on a bilateral mastectomy, which is the removal of both breasts, and reconstruction, a slow process that involved two surgeries over the course of about seven months.<\/p>\n

In 2023, on the anniversary of her first diagnosis, Harms was in her oncologist\u2019s office having a lump checked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI left there thinking I probably had cancer again. I could just tell they were suspicious of the lump,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now 49, Harms has gone through 16 rounds of chemotherapy to knock out the cancer a second time. She had already completed a book proposal for her devotional prior to getting her second diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think God allowed all of this to happen for a reason,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After going through cancer a second time, Harms has been through it all \u2014 a lumpectomy, mastectomy, reconstruction, hormone therapy, two kinds of chemotherapy, hair loss, radiation. All the experiences added to her capacity for empathy, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know God orchestrated it all to work out. Like, \u2018I\u2019m letting you go through all these crappy things because it\u2019s going to help you be able to encourage people in a different way,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarried Through Cancer\u201d will be released Sept. 30, and a book launch will be held Oct. 2 at Public House 421<\/a>, 421 Main St., in Slater. The event will include a program at 7 p.m. and will also be a fundraiser for Can Do Cancer<\/a>, a central Iowa-based nonprofit, and the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Live music will be performed by violinist Michelle O\u2019Tool.<\/p>\n

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Still \u2018in the cancer world,\u2019 but feeling good<\/p>\n

Harms\u2019 brunette hair has grown back. Shoulder-length and wavy, it frames her face that is quick with a luminescent smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling really good now. And I love having hair again,\u201d Harms said.<\/p>\n

She still gets occasional treatments and is still \u201cvery much in the cancer world,\u201d but her life has regained normalcy.<\/p>\n

Her husband Corey has been a foundation of bedrock as Kim navigated her cancer treatments. Their sons Carter, 24, Owen, 22, and Lewis, a senior at Ballard, have been great emotional support for their mom as well, doing whatever they could to make her smile and laugh along the way.<\/p>\n

One day after Harms lost her hair due to chemotherapy, the rest of her family put on wigs and posed for photos with her sporting her baldness, her head tipped back as she laughed.<\/p>\n

More: Iowa State’s University Museums, home to 30,000 items, is 50<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Carried Through Cancer\u2019 is a faith-based devotional<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life\u2019s been really hard the last several years,\u201d Harms said, her voice trembling with emotion. \u201cBut God\u2019s been so good. So good. I just want other people to see that. If I can give people a little bit of the hope I\u2019ve found, that\u2019s what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her hope is that people will read her new book, \u201cCarried Through Cancer,\u201d and \u201cfind encouragement in a really hard place. My faith got me through cancer. A lot of people who are in places like that are looking for hope, and I want to give them hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a \u201cvery different book\u201d from Harms\u2019 first one, which was for a niche market of women who are going through mastectomies and breast reconstruction, so it was specific to breast cancer and specific to that type of treatment.<\/p>\n

Harms\u2019 new book is filled with the stories of more than 50 different women across the country. Some women\u2019s stories are featured in more than one chapter of the 70-day devotional.<\/p>\n

Informally broken into weeks, the first five days of every week features the story of a cancer survivor, day six is a caregiver\u2019s story and day seven is one of Harms\u2019 personal experiences.<\/p>\n

Unlike Harms\u2019 first book, \u201cCarried Through Cancer\u201d is not only about breast cancer. The women interviewed are fighters and survivors of a vast array of different cancers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to open this up to anybody who\u2019s been touched by cancer,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were quite a few women from Iowa, but the people I interviewed were from all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing God\u2019s purpose in the cancer journeys<\/p>\n

Because it is a faith-based book, Harms talked to her sources about how they saw or felt God working within their cancer journeys.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s a very specific thing. One woman said it hit her in the shower. She just suddenly knew why God had put her on this path,\u201d Harms said. \u201cOthers are very broad: \u2018I can look at my cancer and these are the improvements in my life since then.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited that I\u2019m sharing so many people\u2019s stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Greenfield, a retired Air Force Lt. Col. from Huxley, is one of the women Harms interviewed for her new book.<\/p>\n

When Greenfield reads what Harms wrote in her section of the book, it makes her cry all over again.<\/p>\n

\u201cKim writes so beautifully. She captures something that\u2019s the emotional side, which is sometimes difficult for me,\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cShe writes it beautifully, perfectly, exactly the way it was intended.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s tears of joy because she just nailed it. Reading it leads me to tears every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronna Faaborg covers business and the arts for the Ames Tribune. Reach her at rfaaborg@gannett.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kim Harms was going through breast cancer treatment at age 40, she found strength in her faith,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2121,343,220,35533,427,35534,288,1031,35530,1239,258,35537,3269,35532,4528,93,103,4527,35531,35538,61,60,340,342,5182,339,354,11013,35536,43,333,1029,1017,11007,12785,35539,341,35535,35540,5628,329,4543,3066,38,336,1184,11008],"class_list":{"0":"post-48758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-womens-health","9":"tag-affiliate","10":"tag-ai","11":"tag-ames","12":"tag-and","13":"tag-belief","14":"tag-books","15":"tag-books-u0026-literature","16":"tag-breast","17":"tag-breast-cancer","18":"tag-cancer","19":"tag-cosmetic","20":"tag-cosmetic-surgery","21":"tag-des","22":"tag-enabled","23":"tag-entertainment","24":"tag-health","25":"tag-highlights","26":"tag-ia","27":"tag-ia-sharing-news-des-ames","28":"tag-ie","29":"tag-ireland","30":"tag-literature","31":"tag-local","32":"tag-local-affiliate-health-and-wellness","33":"tag-medical","34":"tag-medical-literature-u0026-resources","35":"tag-medical-procedures","36":"tag-motivational","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-overall","39":"tag-overall-positive","40":"tag-positive","41":"tag-procedures","42":"tag-religion","43":"tag-religion-u0026-belief","44":"tag-resources","45":"tag-self-help","46":"tag-self-help-u0026-motivational","47":"tag-sharing","48":"tag-story","49":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","50":"tag-surgery","51":"tag-top-stories","52":"tag-u0026","53":"tag-wellness","54":"tag-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}