Marie Ennis-O'Connor

As regular readers know, infertility was (and continues to be) the most devastating aspect of being diagnosed with breast cancer for me. The researchers highlighted the need for more data on the impact of treatment on fertility, as well as the development of new approaches to preserving fertility in women treated for breast cancer. Unfortunately, research shows that doctors often don’t provide enough information about what can happen to fertility with different breast cancer treatments, and most doctors don’t direct patients to fertility specialists for counseling before treatment begins. It’s important that young women with a diagnosis of breast cancer know they have a right to get their fertility-related questions answered.

AnneMarie Ciccarella calls grief “a messy kind of love”, and writing of losing her beloved friend Lori, said “I’m near certain that I will live with this grief for the rest of my days. You know, you think, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it, man.’ Because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news. While there is no right or wrong way to grieve, there are healthy ways to cope with the pain and sadness that, in time, can help you come to terms with your loss, find new meaning, and move on with your life. In this article, Grief, Loss, and the Cancer Experience, I share some ways to cope with cancer grief.

It is New Year’s Eve 2004 and I am in the shower washing my hair, getting ready for the night ahead and although I am expecting it to happen, I am not quite ready for the shock of chunks of hair coming away in my hands as I shampoo. It is January and I am not prepared for how cold it is without hair – now I know why bald men wear baseball caps – the shop assistant keeps asking me what my hair had been like before and assuring me I could get a wig to match it and no one would know the difference. People pay fortunes to get their hair looking like this, I’m told – usually by girls with enviably straight hair.

Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. What to say to someone is cancer is a topic that comes up often in the blogosphere – and it’s one that bears repeating often judging from the “clunkers” that even well-meaning people drop on cancer patients. Janet‘s latest post underscores: The other reality that I’m starting to face is that not everyone who was with me at the outset of this cancer journey will still be with me during this much longer and perhaps harder phase of coming back into my life. I’ve featured The Cancer Husband’s Blog in the past in the round-up and I’m returning to it again.