I recently edited a story for Health magazine about what it’s really like to have breast cancer. The survivor stories were both inspiring and heartbreaking. But the women who haunted me the most were those who were not only worrying about staying alive, but about whether they could still get pregnant.
“Learning that I may not be able to have a baby was the hardest thing I had to deal with,” says Stephanie Gensler, a 39-year-old ad exec who was diagnosed with stage II aggressive breast cancer at age 34. She underwent a lumpectomy, six months of chemo, and 36 radiation treatments. “My doctor says it’s possible,” says Gensler, “but I’m not sure it is.”
That kind of uncertainty drove many women to a recent Web seminar hosted by BreastCancer.org on breast cancer and fertility. To learn the wide-ranging questions women asked, the answers they got, and the latest advancements in preserving fertility after breast cancer treatment, read my latest post in Health.com’s Breast Cancer Journey.
Comments (1)
Patients and doctors are so consumed with stopping the cancer and treating that disease that everyone easily forgets the big picture, like ‘were you considering having children?’ It is so important to have a breast cancer advocate or at least some one who has experienced the disease to ask the questions and look at all protocols.