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Living With Breast Cancer

  • Conquer Fear

    Posted 6/14/2013 by hhill
      Just a few days ago, I wrote about the new study from Lancet that suggests many women and couples experience persistent anxiety about recurrence for a very long time after cancer. This came as no surprise to most of us, but it surely raises the question about what might help. Since none of us are going to get  a promise from our doctors that we are cured, we have to find a way to live with the uncertainty and, sometimes, sharp fear. How long does it take before a backache is a sore muscle and not a possible sign of cancer spread? How long does it take before we head for an annual mammogram without a seething stomach? Read more... Comments (0)

  • Financial Concerns

    Posted 5/29/2013 by hhill
      Even with gold-plated medical insurance, cancer is expensive. With less comprehensive insurance, it can be devastating. We like to think this is less of a problem in Massachusetts, where we thankfully have close to universal health care coverage, but it is surely still a problem. Many people have insurance, but also have large co-pays and deductibles. Oral cancer drugs are not always covered by insurance, and lots of creative thinking goes into how to deliver treatments and medications in the optimal and safe and "covered" (by insurance) way. An example would be Neulasta injections that cost upwards of 5K each; some insurances require that individuals receive those injections, given approximately 24 hours after a chemo infusion, at the Hospital--which adds the costs of a nurse and the hospital overhead as well as the patient's inconvenience, gas, and parking. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Fear

    Posted 4/28/2013 by hhill
      Fear and anxiety are constant companions in the early months or even years of living with breast cancer. As time passes and, if we are lucky and stay well, they diminish, but they rarely vanish forever. All it takes is hearing about a friend whose cancer has recurred or experiencing a symptom that likely will go away but causes panic in the short term or reading something about a woman who has died of breast cancer...and the fear grips us. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Meditation

    Posted 4/17/2013 by hhill
      Once again, full disclosure: I am a (relatively) recent convert to daily meditation, so I am a zealot. My husband and I attended a meditation course in January 2012 and have quite regularly meditated twice a day ever since. On long plane flights, e.g. our recent trip to Africa, we meditated a lot more, and found it truly helped with fatigue and jet lag. On some days, when my schedule is especially busy and unusual (because habit helps), I forget and suddenly realize at bedtime that I have missed meditation. Read more... Comments (0)

  • The Other Shoe

    Posted 4/15/2013 by hhill
      Oh, yes, that proverbial other shoe. We are all indeed poised to hear it drop. Or to feel the noose again around our necks or the sword hanging over our heads or the black cloud getting a little more dense. We know the feeling. I often suggest to women that, whether or not you were a hypochondriac or a worrier before cancer, it is pretty tough not to take on those traits after the diagnosis. After all, since our bodies have proven that they can make a cancer, it is hard to trust that it won't happen again. Since it has happened twice to me (three times if you want to count a relatively minor skin cancert), I surely expect an encore. Read more... Comments (0)
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About the Blogger

Hester Hill Schnipper, LICSW, OSW-C is the Manager of Oncology Social Work at BIDMC. For more than thirty years, her daily work at BIDMC has been primarily focused on supporting women with breast cancer. A nationally known writer and speaker, she was the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's first Hatcher Survivorship Professor. In 1993, and again in 2005, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through the standard treatments of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy. These experiences have given her great credibility with her patients and transformed her life's work to her life. Ms. Schnipper lives gratefully with her husband in an ancient farmhouse outside of Boston and spends as much time as possible in a water front cottage on Mt Desert Island. Between them, they have five adult children and seven grandchildren; she claims biological responsibility for two and three of them.

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