If someone close to you is diagnosed with breast cancer, here's how you can be the pillar that supports her through this difficult and scary time.
By Jeanne Mettner
After receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer in 1997, Jo Fachman underwent nine months of intense chemotherapy and radiation. The treatments left her weak and in pain, but she had one weapon in her arsenal that proved too powerful for the cancer: a strong support system.
Fachman’s husband, Frank, and her best friend, Candace, provided around-the-clock help and companionship. When she experienced pain from the medication, Candace and Frank heated up wet towels and placed them on her joints. When she was extremely dehydrated, they would drip water through a straw into her mouth. When she was nauseated but needed to eat, Candace would make or buy food she could tolerate. “They really kept me going with these small, very caring things,” Fachman says. “These are the two people who saved my life.”
Women like Fachman have found the invaluable—and in many instances, life-saving—role the support of friends and loved ones can have as they live through a breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.
So how can you, as an important part of your friend’s life, show your support as she navigates the disease? Survivors share how their loved ones were a bright light in dark times and offer advice on how to be a friend in a time of need.
 Denise Blumberg-Tendle and Bill Tendle |
+ Say You’ll Be There
“What was really helpful to me was that people asked, ‘How are you?’ and acknowledged that I was just diagnosed with this horrible thing,” says Denise Blumberg-Tendle, who learned she had breast cancer nineteen years ago. “It also helped for them to check in on me, offer emotional support, and to listen if I wanted to talk.”
On the flip side, phrases like “You’ll be fine” or “Get well soon” may seem a bit flippant or trite to the breast cancer patient. Also, try to avoid comparisons.
Ultimately, it’s unlikely you’ll say the wrong thing “as long as you show that you care about them and what’s happening to them,” says Nancy Manning, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990.
+ Attend Appointments Together
Going to follow-up appointments and starting treatment can be a scary time for a woman with breast cancer, so a friend who goes with her provides a level of emotional support. Furthermore, attending appointments together serves a practical purpose. “When you have someone with you, they help jog the memory of what was said, what was done, and what your options might be,” Manning says.
+ Make Her Life Easier
Buy a bag of groceries. Mow the lawn. Hire a housecleaner. Make meals for the family. “When I came home from the hospital, as independent as I tried to be, it was wonderful when friends or relatives would offer to bring a meal over, come sit with me, do some light housework, or pick something up for me at the store,” Blumberg-Tendle says.
+ Have a Sense of Humor
If you’re unsure of navigating these waters, it’s best to take cues from the one with breast cancer. When Blumberg-Tendle underwent the first surgery for her bilateral mastectomy, one of her friends asked what she looked like. “I said, ‘Barbie on one side and Skipper on the other,’” Blumberg-Tendle recalls. “It gives people permission that they don’t have to be freaked out about this very serious disease.”
+ Provide a Sense of Normalcy
Your friend may have breast cancer, but that doesn’t mean she’s not the same person. Keep her in the loop. Invite her to a movie or get a pedicure together, if she’s feeling up to it.
+ Different Stages May Require Different Levels of Support
Just as your friend needs your support at the initial diagnosis, she will continue to need it as she traverses treatment and recovery.
Diet, Exercise, and the Environment Figuring out what role (if any) diet, exercise, and the environment play in the development of breast cancer can be confusing. Douglas Yee, MD, director of the Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota, weighs in on the matter. + Exercise and diet help.
“A couple of studies have shown that if you decrease fat content, increase vegetable portions, and increase physical activity, it can decrease the risk of recurrence,” explains Yee. “We haven’t been able to show conclusively that diet and exercise prevent cancer. But we have been able to show that [they] help cancer survival.” (Yee’s colleague, Kathryn Schmitz, recently published some data showing that strength-training exercises are safe for breast cancer survivors and do not cause lymphedema, as cancer specialists had previously speculated.) Learn more about cancer-fighting foods in our slideshow. + Environmental factors may matter.
In May 2007, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Silent Spring Institute published a comprehensive review of scientific research on environmental factors that may increase breast cancer risk. The research identified 216 chemicals known to cause breast tumors in animals. Yee says that much work needs to be done in identifying environmental causes for breast cancer. “I have not yet seen that you can point your finger at a specific environmental factor, such as pesticides, and say that it causes breast cancer in humans,” says Yee. “The only bona fide environmental exposure is medical radiation (for Hodgkin’s disease, for example) received during puberty.”
However, obesity, smoking, alcohol, hormone replacement drugs, and lack of exercise likely contribute to the higher breast cancer rates in developed countries. |
 Nancy Manning, right, and her friend Mary Henjum |
On the path to recovery, friends should continue to offer their help and keep them connected with the world around them. “In terms of friendship, that’s a huge link in the recovery process—just to know that your friend will always include you,” Manning says, “and that whatever the bumpy road takes, they are always there.”
| Breast Cancer Milestones 1882:
William S. Halsted of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine performs the first radical mastectomy, requiring removal of the breast, chest wall muscle, and lymph nodes. 1955:
Cleveland Clinic surgeon George Crile Jr. calls for a modification of the radical mastectomy. 1971:
President Richard Nixon declares War on Cancer in his State of the Union address and signs the National Cancer Act into law. 1970s:
Radical mastectomy shown to not be any more effective than simple mastectomy, according to published studies. 1976:
Italian researcher Gianni Bonadonna demonstrates that chemotherapy after surgery significantly improves survival rates of premenopausal breast cancer patients—particularly those with more advanced cancer. 1982:
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is formed. 1985:
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets its start. It encourages women to get mammograms and to continue self breast exams throughout the year. 1991:
The National Breast Cancer Coalition is founded. It works to increase research, screening and treatment, and women’s voices in health policy. 1998:
Clinical cancer researcher BernarD fisher says that tamoxifen reduces the incidence of breast cancer by 45 percent in high-risk women. 2002:
Two twenty-year studies confirm lumpectomy (plus radiation therapy) to be as effective in some candidates with small tumors as mastectomy. 2006:
Herceptin is approved by the FDA for the adjuvant treatment of women with node-positive HER-2/neu cancers. This article has been adapted from the original, which was published in the May 2008 issue of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine in the Special Advertising Section. |
This article has been adapted from the original, which was published in the May 2008 issue of
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine in the Special Advertising Section.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved