Otherwise grossly unremarkable is the record of the near total destruction of one woman’s physical and emotional self from misdiagnosis to stage three diagnosis, through treatment after treatment, and onward to recovery and survivorship.

At only 35 years of age, Ashleigh Matthews found a dense mass in her breast that was eventually diagnosed as stage-three, grade-three multifocal invasive mammary carcinoma: breast cancer. This memoir tells the story of a regular woman facing an irregular cellular divergence at a young age. Cancer always sucks, but being in your mid-30s at diagnosis adds an extra layer of garbage thrown on top. There is no silver lining here, rather this book is an honest and raw chronicle of what the human body can endure and from what depths the human spirit can forge a new path home from. Otherwise grossly unremarkable demonstrates that any person that hears the word cancer used to medically describe their body becomes a survivor of cancer at that very same moment.

Ashleigh Matthews holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is also a textile artist and sewist. In addition to sharing her experiences with breast cancer, she cares deeply about her homeschooling community, the artist and maker communities around her, as well as the many friends she has met that share the experience of a cancer diagnosis. She lives with her best friend and their two kids in a home centered directly between the Atlantic Ocean and their own forest in Conception Bay South, Newfoundland and Labrador.

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