Information and opinions on MyBreastCancerNetwork from Laura Zigman http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621 en-us 15 120 19 http://www.healthcentral.com/images/hc_logo_sm.gif http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/ http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/25829/party Wed Apr 23 13:16:16 -0400 2008 Laura Zigman A few weeks ago, I was invited to a party.  It wasn't a birthday party, or an anniversary party, or a graduation party.  It wasn't an engagement party,  a baby shower party, a congratulations-on-getting-your-book-published party, or a retirement party.  It wasn't the normal kind of occasion that inspires people to gather, with food and wine and cake, and celebrate.   No, this party was different.  This party was a... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/25829/party http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22975/pretty Wed Apr 02 11:18:00 -0400 2008 Laura Zigman     A few weeks ago my friend who is the publisher of a new division of Random House sent me an amazing book she's publishing: PRETTY IS WHAT CHANGES: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied my Destiny by Jessica Queller.   I opened the book and took a quick look at it, thinking I'd put it aside until I caught up on all the work I'd fallen behind on because of my nipple reconstruction surgery, but the... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22975/pretty http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22142/friend-wendy Tue Apr 01 11:33:00 -0400 2008 Laura Zigman Everyone should have a Wendy. My Wendy -- Wendy Hurwitz -- is one of those amazing friends who is pathologically helpful. But in a good way. Always there for the emergency school pick-up and playdate (luckily we have boys the same age at the same school, which is how we met). Always there with the information about the field trip you forgot about or the early dismissal day you claim no one ever told you about. Always there to get you... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22142/friend-wendy http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22105/nipple Wed Mar 19 11:36:00 -0400 2008 Laura Zigman Three weeks ago I had some follow up plastic surgery to the double TRAM flap reconstructive surgery I had almost a year and a half ago: nipple reconstruction procedure, which I could have had four months after my original surgery. When my surgeon suggested I schedule it last March I did, but then I cancelled it. I rescheduled it again for September, but cancelled it again. Despite the fact that it was just a day procedure, I couldn't... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/22105/nipple http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20455/cancer Wed Feb 27 09:22:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman I know I'm obsessed with "failure" -- and when I say failure I put quotation marks around it because what I'm obsessed with is not failure but the perception of failure which usually isn't really failure at all -- especially "failure" in connection with having cancer, but what's interesting is that cancer itself is actually a failure. Every disease and chronic condition is a failure of one sort or... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20455/cancer http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20719/lap-track Mon Feb 25 10:02:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman In my last post, I listed 5 ways I felt I'd "failed" during my cancer experience -- which means, since I'm pretty much the same as most women, that most women probably feel like they've failed in similar ways. I'm going to continue, and I invite you all to add your "failures" to the list: 6. Not Leaving The Hospital Fast Enough After SurgeryI wrote an entire SharePost about this so I won't repeat... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20719/lap-track http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20448/track-part-1 Tue Feb 19 23:20:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman As I started saying last week, cancer has failure written all over it. More than other diseases, there's something about cancer that makes the patient feel like a complete and utter failure all the time. One of the hardest parts of getting through my experience with breast cancer was trying to assure myself that I wasn't failuring at every single point along the way. Let's review the laps I made around the Failure... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20448/track-part-1 http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20146/failure-term Fri Feb 08 09:11:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman My post the other day about how it seems women can't win when it comes to deciding on a treatment plan - that we're essentially "failing" at this very early stage of our unplanned journey through Cancerland because we either pick surgery that is overkill (mastectomies over lumpectomies) or underkill (lumpectomies over mastectomies) - reminded me of the book I was working on up until recently. The book was about failure - the... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20146/failure-term http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20092/usual Wed Feb 06 13:28:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman I read with great interest yesterday's front page Washington Post article about the increase in women opting for double mastectomies when lumpectomies might suffice. And I'm writing this post because I am one of those women who made a similar choice -- to have a double mastectomy when a single mastectomy may have sufficed and because there is something in the tone of that piece (and in another article this past summer in the New York... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/20092/usual http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/19761/1-tongs Mon Jan 28 19:15:00 -0500 2008 Laura Zigman Everyone has their own special thing that gets them through their surgical recovery. For some people it's God. And family. And friends. For other's it's the Food Channel. And a stack of "People" magazines. Despite the fact that I'm not big on organized religion, it was all of those things for me.  Plus one more thing:  Tongs. I'm referring to kitchen tongs, your basic average run-of-the-mill... http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/8621/19761/1-tongs