Care page, HAWMC day 4
Posted: April 4, 2013 Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: advice for new cancer diagnosis, Army of Women, breast cancer resources, Dr Susan Love, HAWMC, resources for those newly diagnosed with breast cancer, think before you pink, WEGO 7 CommentsToday’s mission in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge: Create a “care page” – a list of your best resources that someone who is newly diagnosed could go to when starting to advocate for themselves or a loved one.
Consult the mainstays such as Breast Cancer Action, and Think Before You Pink, and Dr Susan Love Research Foundation, and breastcancer.org, and The Rose. Consulting “Dr Google” once a diagnosis has sunk in is something most people do.
Follow a blog that appeals to you. Whatever flavor you prefer — spiritual, snarky, research-oriented, or off-the-cuff like this little blog — there’s a blog out there to meet your needs. Among these blogs, you’ll find posts such as this and posts such as this with practical advice from those who’ve been there. Much of this information is rather like on-the-job training; you don’t know what you need to know until you need to know it. Take the hard-won wisdom from those who have walked this walk before you.
My best piece of advice, in a sea of good advice, though is this: Do what you believe in your heart of hearts is best for you. Whether a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy, whether undergoing reconstruction or flaunting the flat & fabulous look, or whether pursuing a second or a third or a fourth opinion. Follow your instincts and listen to your gut.
The Pink Underbelly 
You know, between the cancer and my upcoming 50th, that not taking any shit part is getting so much easier.
Listen to your gut. Great advice. I also love the message in the photo.
Wow – I love that last bit of advice 🙂 It could apply for every area of life! ~Catherine
Now that I’m about to turn 50, that taking no shit thing is so much easier than it was even a decade ago. 🙂
Great advice, Nancy. Spot on, in my opinion. xo
FAB advice!! Love that quote. And thanks so much for sharing my link! (Looks like you’re missing a semicolon after the http on all your links above…none of them are clicking through for me.)
xoxoxo
I think the complexity and trick of serving patients well is in the next step, what comes next–AFTER online diagnosers peruse the search engine results–which site you click on next is telling and likely will have lasting effects on the quality of information you find. That’s where we physicians need to be useful—we need to help our patients know where to go for quality, research-based, data-backed advice.