I do a great deal of writing on breast cancer and so I wanted to share two things with you. First, the stats on breast cancer because sometimes it is numbers that will force us into doing the things we should do: breast self exams, clinical exams, mammograms, eating well, working out, etc. So check out these stats and then read these profiles that I recently wrote for www.lifetimetv.com— they’ll open your eyes.
LIVING WITH BREAST CANCER
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosis among women, trumped only by skin cancer. With over 2 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States today, we sometimes have the tendency to think of the life of a breast cancer patient and her family as divided in time by “before” cancer and “after” cancer. But over 178,000 people will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, and all of them, as well as hundreds of thousands of others who are still living with their diagnosis years later, know that the most critical and complicated time of their lives is the time they spend actually living with the disease. For some people that “during” period may last less than a year, but, as Elizabeth Edwards’ current situation has shown, there are others whose lives with breast cancer can extend over years or a lifetime. Here, three women at different stages of their lives and prognoses share their experiences of living with breast cancer.
