Join the OncoLink Team for a live, interactive webchat on breast cancer. Our experts will address your questions during the live event, or you can submit questions ahead of time.

You can use your (public) Twitter account to participate during the live event (use the hashtag #oncochat).

Experts

Kevin Fox, MD – Medical Oncologist at Penn Medicine
Gary Freedman, MD – Radiation Oncologist at Penn Medicine
Brian Czerniecki, MD – Breast Surgeon at Penn Medicine
Jodi Sandos, MSW, LSW – Oncology Social Worker at Penn Medicine
Katherine Nathanson, MD – Genetics Expert at Penn Medicine

Rodney Warner, JD

Betty Ford, former First Lady, has passed away. She died at the age of 93. Mrs. Ford lead a remarkable life, most notably for her courage, speaking her mind and telling the truth.

In 1974, shortly after her husband became President, Mrs. Ford was treated for breast cancer. It was made public, as was her treatment (mastectomy) and recovery. For many of us going through cancer today, we’re loud and we’re proud. I don’t think that was the case 37 years ago. I think it came as quite a shock to the country the First Lady had a cancerous breast and that it was being removed. It’s been reported that because of the publicity Mrs. Ford brought to breast cancer, thousands of women got, or gave themselves, breast exams.

How many cancer tumors were found, and how many women were saved because tumors were discovered at an early stage, we’ll never know. But Mrs. Ford came out of the closet, onto a very public stage, and broke ground that all subsequent cancer survivors could tread. If the First Lady could openly talk about cancer, surely anyone could. With that openness comes awareness, knowledge and the stigma of having cancer loosens up. More money can be raised, more people can be treated and more lives can be saved.

After her husband lost the 1976 presidential campaign, it became public that Mrs. Ford was being treated for addiction to alcohol and prescription medication. Again, Mrs. Ford was ahead of her time. Although she didn’t recognize she had a problem, after a family “intervention,” she was successfully treated for addiction. Thanks to her fundraising efforts, the Betty Ford Center has been treating people with addiction problems, and their families, since 1982.

Mrs. Ford made the best of a bad situation, came out of the addiction closet, and brought attention to this problem. How many people, especially women, after reading and hearing about Mrs. Ford’s battle with addiction, got treatment for their own problems? How many lives of drug and alcohol addicted people were saved, and how many of their families were able to stay together, we’ll never know.

If you read about Mrs. Ford, you’ll find that all this openness and truth on these issues reflect how she lived her life. Despite being the wife of a Republican President, the leader of the Republican Party, she voiced support for abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment. In private, she told her husband, the then President, pardoning President Nixon for the crimes he committed leading to the Watergate scandal, was a bad idea.

Betty Ford opened doors for cancer survivors and those addicted to drugs and alcohol. Not only did she save lives, but improved the lives for all of us dealing with these diseases. She helped us become more honest and truthful about these diseases, to ourselves and to others. Betty Ford showed us that she had cancer and addiction problems, they didn’t have her. She showed us that honesty, truth and courage were the best weapons against the demons we face.

Alysa Cummings

Sometimes a day goes by, my breast cancer survivor buddy Lydia says wistfully, a whole day and I don’t think about it once. Not once! I can almost forget I had cancer, you know what I mean? And she says those words with this incredulous expression on her face, shaking her head from side to side as if to say, can you believe it? can you imagine? is such a thing actually possible?

I don’t know if in fact I do know what she means. But I listen and try on that feeling for size, to see how it fits.

Hours later I am sitting on my yoga mat, legs folded beneath me, listening to the teacher direct the class from the front of the room. She models our next posture – a seated twist – while she speaks the directions aloud to us in her gentle voice:…lift both your arms to the side…take a deep breath…extend from the waist…as you exhale, reach with your right arm for your left knee, twist at the waist and look over your left shoulder.

I listen to the George Winston piano CD playing in the background. I breathe deeply. I direct my cancer-treated, middle-aged body to move. At that moment, the yoga teacher adds a postscript to her directions. What I refer to as the Yoga Blessing: if it’s available to you, she says. Words that in my humble opinion ought to be part of life outside the yoga studio, part of life “off the mat” if you will: The Yoga Blessing is a caveat that encourages practice, while at the same time discourages competition and comparison with others. If it’s available to you…I love it! Ultimately it cautions against performance at a level that you just may not be ready for.

That’s the moment when I feel a sharp stabbing pain in the area below my right shoulder blade – the place where a muscle was removed by a plastic surgeon ten years ago to reconstruct my right breast. My gasp must be audible because the yoga teacher immediately looks in my direction and asks calmly, are you okay? Pain during yoga class is not okay. Listen to your body.

Good advice. I hear my body’s protest loud and clear and move tentatively into the child’s pose, head down, face to the mat. I surrender to the pain that has turned into a spasm across my back and breathe into it while soothing music continues to play in the background. As I wait for the pain to subside, I play back in my head my friend’s comments from earlier in the day (I can almost forget I had cancer), and hear a voice in my head say, that’s just not available to you yet.

But what a lovely thought…

Alysa Cummings

I’m at the neighborhood Acme, standing in the produce aisle, reaching for some shiny red MacIntosh apples, when I hear a female voice behind me:

Remind all the women in your life to get a mammogram…

Startled, I drop the fruit into my shopping cart, look around the store, and try to figure out where the voice is coming from. Suddenly I spot a monitor hanging from the ceiling, right over the potatoes, onions and shelled peanuts. On the screen, an attractive blonde in her mid-thirties is sharing the importance of breast health in a serious voice with a matching expression on her face:

Women over forty should get mammograms every year…

Who would argue with her? No one. Not me, certainly. Early detection is key. It’s literally lifesaving information that needs to be broadcast to the widest possible audience.

But that day at the Acme, standing in the produce aisle staring up at the monitor, I shake my head and angrily mutter two words under my breath: enough already! Thanks to Supermarket TV, I can’t even do my food shopping in peace without having to think about breast cancer.

Yes, it’s October again. Fall has arrived in rich shades of orange, brown and yellow. Everywhere you look there are signs of the seasons changing: big colorful piles of leaves raked to the curb, mums and pumpkins artfully arranged on the neighbors’ front steps.

But in CancerLand this time of year, there’s a totally different color scheme. October is the pink month. Truly, madly, deeply pink, everywhere you look: pink ribbons, pink tee shirts, pink hats. Shop online. You can buy pink ribbon stuffed animals, pink ribbon bracelets, pink ribbon shoelaces. On October 1 st even Yahoo got involved, looping a virtual pink ribbon around the first letter of their name.

This month there’s also dancing, racing, walking and driving for the cure. Go ahead, pick another verb I haven’t thought of, and someone else probably already has, and created an event for the cause, all in the name of pinkness. Now, please understand: I have nothing against fundraising, especially if it means we might actually get closer to a cure for cancer in my lifetime. What grates on my nerves is that so much of this well-intentioned effort is jam packed into the 31 days of October.

Open any newspaper or magazine this month. Odds are there’s a human interest story featuring a breast cancer survivor (or two). In these articles, the words fight, brave and battle will no doubt appear. Sometimes in the very same sentence. It makes me more than a little crazy.

On TV, expect the evening news to spotlight a new drug in the War Against Cancer. Or discuss an extremely unappetizing food that you have never heard of before that is now being touted for its anti-cancer properties. Change the channel: Oprah’s got Christina Applegate and Nancy Brinker on her show, both crying on camera, at the same time. Seriously, when it comes to Breast Cancer Awareness Month and its insidious pinkness, there’s truly nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Houston, we’ve got a problem. I’m on October pink overload. And there’s a few good reasons why.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month puts a spotlight on breast cancer. (I’m guessing the spotlight is pink, but I could be wrong). That fact by itself is incredibly ironic, because for so many of us on this bumpy road to recovery, breast cancer rarely moves very far from center stage. Survivors these days are strongly encouraged to think of breast cancer as a chronic disease. Which means it’s like a hawk flying wide, sleepy circles in the sky high above the earth. To take the metaphor one step further, during the entire month of October, that majestic predator lands, makes a huge nest on my head and squawks loudly non-stop for thirty-one days straight. I’m not kidding. Am I the only breast cancer survivor who feels this way? One thing I know for sure; I don’t need an entire month every year to remind me of things I can never ever forget.

Damn October – the non-stop pinkness, the endless breast self-exam reminders (in the shower, laying down, standing up) – the whole thing makes me self-conscious, knocks me totally off balance and shatters whatever “new normal” equilibrium I’ve managed to build up over the years. Which is such a shame because for me, October 2008 should be a time for serious celebration. Let the record show that it’s been ten years since my cancer diagnosis. (…and I’m feeling more than a little superstitious as I type these words and see them appear on the computer screen. Do I dare plan a Decade in CancerLand Party and risk angering the gods that keep me N.E.D.?)

But when all is said and done, here’s the real October demon. Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a way of putting my CancerLand experiences on instant replay. And, unfortunately, all of the intense feelings that go along with this traumatic chapter in my life play back too.

In late October, 1998, I remember being stretched out on my couch in the den watching the evening news. They were running one of those predictable stories about a Breast Cancer survivor that ended with the reporter promoting monthly self-examination. My hand moved with a mind of its own to my right breast. And that’s when I felt it: a lump.

By Halloween, I was flat on my back on the gynecologist’s examination table, staring up at the ceiling while the doctor stuck a syringe in my chest to aspirate fluid from the lump.

I tried to describe that night in my journal:

The holes in the ceiling tiles shift crazily in and out of focus. Dots. Holes. Shadows. Connect the dots. I squeeze the nurse’s hand much too tightly and wonder if all the sweat I feel is mine. I smell myself; my own sticky fear. I don’t like it , the doctor says, finally removing the needle. It’s very bloody. Not acting like a cyst at all. I sit up and look down at myself. The bandage on my chest is a small square with a bright red circle in the center. The flag of Japan , I think to myself. The doctor tries to reassure with lots of nervous pats on my leg. Then the door slams, she’s gone and I am alone, cold and shaking all over. I pull on my jeans and trash the paper gown. Something has changed. I know it. Feel it intuitively. For the first time I have seen cancer reflected in a doctor’s eyes. I have a feeling it won’t be the last…

By Thanksgiving I was recovering from my first surgery and being scheduled for a second one because the margins weren’t clear. By the eighth day of Hanukkah, I was through my first round of chemo. As thousands of people screamed for the ball to drop in Times Square to welcome the New Year, I watched them on TV and felt the hair on my head release in sections and slide down my back in clumps. Within days I was bald, without an eyelash or eyebrow in sight. All of this happened ten years ago. But when Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes around again, all dressed in pink, I have to stop for a moment and carefully check the year printed on my calendar; it still sometimes feels like it all just happened yesterday.

Maybe my support group buddy Cecelia will be my angel and help me get through Breast Cancer Awareness Month this year. She recently shared a poem she wrote that spoke to me so strongly. “Everywhere I go I carry cancer with me,” she wrote. “Now it’s not heavy.” I guess I know what I need to work on before next fall.

Originally Published on: October 5, 2009

Alysa Cummings

I’m at the neighborhood Acme, standing in the produce aisle, reaching for some shiny red MacIntosh apples, when I hear a female voice behind me:

Remind all the women in your life to get a mammogram…

Startled, I drop the fruit into my shopping cart, look around the store, and try to figure out where the voice is coming from. Suddenly I spot a monitor hanging from the ceiling, right over the potatoes, onions and shelled peanuts. On the screen, an attractive blonde in her mid-thirties is sharing the importance of breast health in a serious voice with a matching expression on her face:

Women over forty should get mammograms every year…

Who would argue with her? No one. Not me, certainly. Early detection is key. It’s literally lifesaving information that needs to be broadcast to the widest possible audience.

But that day at the Acme, standing in the produce aisle staring up at the monitor, I shake my head and angrily mutter two words under my breath: enough already! Thanks to Supermarket TV, I can’t even do my food shopping in peace without having to think about breast cancer.

Yes, it’s October again. Fall has arrived in rich shades of orange, brown and yellow. Everywhere you look there are signs of the seasons changing: big colorful piles of leaves raked to the curb, mums and pumpkins artfully arranged on the neighbors’ front steps.

But in CancerLand this time of year, there’s a totally different color scheme. October is the pink month. Truly, madly, deeply pink, everywhere you look: pink ribbons, pink tee shirts, pink hats. Shop online. You can buy pink ribbon stuffed animals, pink ribbon bracelets, pink ribbon shoelaces. On October 1 st even Yahoo got involved, looping a virtual pink ribbon around the first letter of their name.

This month there’s also dancing, racing, walking and driving for the cure. Go ahead, pick another verb I haven’t thought of, and someone else probably already has, and created an event for the cause, all in the name of pinkness. Now, please understand: I have nothing against fundraising, especially if it means we might actually get closer to a cure for cancer in my lifetime. What grates on my nerves is that so much of this well-intentioned effort is jam packed into the 31 days of October.

Open any newspaper or magazine this month. Odds are there’s a human interest story featuring a breast cancer survivor (or two). In these articles, the words fight, brave and battle will no doubt appear. Sometimes in the very same sentence. It makes me more than a little crazy.

On TV, expect the evening news to spotlight a new drug in the War Against Cancer. Or discuss an extremely unappetizing food that you have never heard of before that is now being touted for its anti-cancer properties. Change the channel: Oprah’s got Christina Applegate and Nancy Brinker on her show, both crying on camera, at the same time. Seriously, when it comes to Breast Cancer Awareness Month and its insidious pinkness, there’s truly nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Houston, we’ve got a problem. I’m on October pink overload. And there’s a few good reasons why.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month puts a spotlight on breast cancer. (I’m guessing the spotlight is pink, but I could be wrong). That fact by itself is incredibly ironic, because for so many of us on this bumpy road to recovery, breast cancer rarely moves very far from center stage. Survivors these days are strongly encouraged to think of breast cancer as a chronic disease. Which means it’s like a hawk flying wide, sleepy circles in the sky high above the earth. To take the metaphor one step further, during the entire month of October, that majestic predator lands, makes a huge nest on my head and squawks loudly non-stop for thirty-one days straight. I’m not kidding. Am I the only breast cancer survivor who feels this way? One thing I know for sure; I don’t need an entire month every year to remind me of things I can never ever forget.

Damn October – the non-stop pinkness, the endless breast self-exam reminders (in the shower, laying down, standing up) – the whole thing makes me self-conscious, knocks me totally off balance and shatters whatever “new normal” equilibrium I’ve managed to build up over the years. Which is such a shame because for me, October 2008 should be a time for serious celebration. Let the record show that it’s been ten years since my cancer diagnosis. (…and I’m feeling more than a little superstitious as I type these words and see them appear on the computer screen. Do I dare plan a Decade in CancerLand Party and risk angering the gods that keep me N.E.D.?)

But when all is said and done, here’s the real October demon. Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a way of putting my CancerLand experiences on instant replay. And, unfortunately, all of the intense feelings that go along with this traumatic chapter in my life play back too.

In late October, 1998, I remember being stretched out on my couch in the den watching the evening news. They were running one of those predictable stories about a Breast Cancer survivor that ended with the reporter promoting monthly self-examination. My hand moved with a mind of its own to my right breast. And that’s when I felt it: a lump.

By Halloween, I was flat on my back on the gynecologist’s examination table, staring up at the ceiling while the doctor stuck a syringe in my chest to aspirate fluid from the lump.

I tried to describe that night in my journal:

The holes in the ceiling tiles shift crazily in and out of focus. Dots. Holes. Shadows. Connect the dots. I squeeze the nurse’s hand much too tightly and wonder if all the sweat I feel is mine. I smell myself; my own sticky fear. I don’t like it , the doctor says, finally removing the needle. It’s very bloody. Not acting like a cyst at all. I sit up and look down at myself. The bandage on my chest is a small square with a bright red circle in the center. The flag of Japan , I think to myself. The doctor tries to reassure with lots of nervous pats on my leg. Then the door slams, she’s gone and I am alone, cold and shaking all over. I pull on my jeans and trash the paper gown. Something has changed. I know it. Feel it intuitively. For the first time I have seen cancer reflected in a doctor’s eyes. I have a feeling it won’t be the last…

By Thanksgiving I was recovering from my first surgery and being scheduled for a second one because the margins weren’t clear. By the eighth day of Hanukkah, I was through my first round of chemo. As thousands of people screamed for the ball to drop in Times Square to welcome the New Year, I watched them on TV and felt the hair on my head release in sections and slide down my back in clumps. Within days I was bald, without an eyelash or eyebrow in sight. All of this happened ten years ago. But when Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes around again, all dressed in pink, I have to stop for a moment and carefully check the year printed on my calendar; it still sometimes feels like it all just happened yesterday.

Maybe my support group buddy Cecelia will be my angel and help me get through Breast Cancer Awareness Month this year. She recently shared a poem she wrote that spoke to me so strongly. “Everywhere I go I carry cancer with me,” she wrote. “Now it’s not heavy.” I guess I know what I need to work on before next fall.

Join us for a lunch time LIVE Web Chat with OncoLink’s Breast Cancer Supportive Care Experts on October 22, 2009 at 12:30-1:30pm EST.

You can submit questions during the chat or ahead of time. A transcript of the chat will be available after the event. Submit a Question Now!

Have questions about side effects and health concerns during and after your breast cancer treatment?

Then be sure to tune into this week’s Brown Bag Chat. Log on to www.oncolink.org/blogs/ at 12:30pm Thursday October 22nd, as we talk with our Supportive Care Experts.

Some of the topics we will be talking about:

Nutrition Before, During and After Breast Cancer Treatment
Karen Wagner MS, RD, LDN is a clinical dietitian specialist for the Abramson Cancer Center who is currently working with gynecologic oncology patients. Prior to specializing in oncology Karen worked with a wide variety of patients in both hospitals and clinics, and taught nutrition and cooking classes. She has been with the cancer center since June of 2006.

Yoga as Therapy for Cancer Patients and Survivors: Achieving Balance through Breathwork, Meditation and Movement
Fern Nibauer-Cohen is the Associate Director of Strategic Marketing Services here at Penn Medicine. She oversees the strategic marketing for the Abramson Cancer Center and the Division of Surgery. While the depth of her experience is in marketing cancer programs and services, she has a very strong interest in patient-related outreach. Fern is certified in teaching yoga to cancer patients through the Integral Yoga Institute in Virginia. Combining her passion of the practice of yoga with her experience in working at a cancer center, Fern is working with Dr. Jun Mao here at Penn to develop our first yoga program for cancer patients. She has been practicing yoga for over 15 years. Over the past seven years, she has been involved in the intensive study of ayurveda (a sister science of yoga focused on self healing) and yoga therapy as it relates to cancer patients. She is very happy to be at Penn
and the Abramson Cancer Center to bring the joy of yoga to our program.

Coping with Financial and Emotional Concerns of Breast Cancer Treatment
Tracy Lautenbach, MSW, LCSW, Social Worker in the Radiation Oncology Department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. She has been a social worker for 20 years and has worked at Penn since 2005. She works with a variety of oncology patients that receive radiation therapy. Tracy addresses problems and concerns identified through assessments, ranging from financial to adjustment and coping with illness.

Solutions for Chemotherapy Side Effects of Breast Cancer Treatment
Carolyn Vachani, MSN, RN, AOCN is a certified advanced practice oncology nurse. She has worked in the areas of medical hematology and oncology, bone marrow transplant, clinical research, radiation therapy and staff development. In her current role, she serves as the nurse educator for OncoLink, the Abramson Cancer Center’s award-winning cancer information website, which receives an average 3.9 million page views a month. She serves as the project leader in the development and maintenance of the LIVESTRONG Care Plan, a partnership which was launched in the spring of 2009 to bring the OncoLife survivorship care plan to more cancer patients around the world.

Solutions for Radiation Side effects of Breast Cancer Treatment
Tammi Fisher RN, OCN, is a board certified oncology nurse in the Radiation Oncology Department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. She has been an oncology nurse for 15 years. She has dedicated her career to women’s health. She currently assists breast and GYN cancer patients that receive radiation therapy. Tammi addresses the side effects and concerns of her radiation oncology patients with an open mind and a wealth of knowledge.

Using Poetry to Help with Healing from a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Alysa Cummings is the OncoLink Poet-in-Residence and 11 year cancer survivor. She writes Greetings from CancerLand, a column describing the cancer experience through the eyes of a long term survivor. Her digital photography, book and media reviews have also appeared on the OncoLink website over the years. Prior to her diagnosis, Alysa worked as an educational administrator in various school districts across southern NJ. Now retired, she devotes herself full time to fellow survivors – as a health educator, patient navigator, conference presenter, American Cancer Society volunteer, treatment coach and poetry therapist. Alysa regularly hosts poetry therapy groups where cancer patients explore the healing power of writing. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation honored Alysa’s efforts with a Local Hero Award in 2004 and a Living the Vision Award in 2009. NAPT gave Alysa their 2008 Public Service Award. In 2007 SJ Magazine cited Alysa as one of the five South Jersey Pioneers in Breast Cancer.

Tracy Lautenbach, MSW, LCSW, Social Worker in the Radiation Oncology Department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. She has been a social worker for 20 years and has worked at Penn since 2005. She works with a variety of oncology patients that receive radiation therapy. Tracy addresses problems and concerns identified through assessments, ranging from financial to adjustment and coping with illness.

Neal Niznan is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over thirteen years experience in the field of oncology helping patients and family members manage the emotional impact of living with cancer. He currently is a social worker in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Neal also maintains a private psychotherapy practice for individuals, couples and families.