Myth-Busters: Telling the True Story of Breast Cancer Survivorship

Extract

The conventional wisdom is that breast cancer devastates women’s lives, even when the disease is controlled by modern, multimodality treatments. We, the general public, take our stereotypes not so much from real life but from novels, movies of the week, and soap operas. Our poor heroine loses her breast (or at least gains an ugly scar that would turn off any but the most desperate man). Needless to say, her sex life falls apart. If she is single, her boyfriend leaves her. If she is married, she ends up divorced while her husband finds a younger partner who flaunts a perfect bosom in skimpy halter tops when our heroine picks up the kids for weekend visits. Of course we learn that our heroine the survivor only got breast cancer because of stress. In the last 3 years, she lost both her parents in a tragic plane crash, her teenaged son was arrested for marijuana possession, she supported her husband emotionally and financially when he was fired from his job for insider trading, and after fending off sexual advances from her boss, she was passed over for the job promotion she clearly deserved.