Send us your stories!

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2000, after my initial, medical information-gathering stage, I found that reading about how other women coped with their illness and treatments was very helpful. My doctor gave me a locally-published book that was entitled The Many Faces of Breast Cancer (no longer in print.) It was a short book in which breast cancer survivors (my doctor's patients) talked about their ordeal in simple, girlfriend-to-girlfriend type language. It was awesome. I ate it up. I found the narratives and practical advice & tips coming straight from women who were going through the same things as I to be tremendously helpful and supportive.

So in the early days of pinkribbonshop.com, we carried the book in our product line and offered it at our cost. I thought it was that good. And necessary. Wanting to reach even more people with the same kind of information that I had found so helpful, we asked for breast cancer survivors and their friends, family, & caregivers to share their stories with us, and we would post the stories on our website's "Survivor Stories" page. It was slow going at first, but eventually the stories started flowing in. The response was overwhelming! We devoted an endless page on our website (see a pared-down version of the archived survivor stories here) to these amazing stories.

Because breast cancer is an equal opportunity illness and does not discriminate, women of all ages, races, backgrounds, and socio-economic status wrote in. Because breast cancer affects not only the patient, but also family and friends, we received stories from survivors' husbands, sisters, daughters, moms, and friends. Because breast cancer is still a killer, despite the millions of dollars being thrown at research around the globe, we heard from many people who had lost someone dear to them. Because breast cancer's face and course of treatment can take many different forms, our storytellers each had unique diagnosis, treatment, medical, surgical, and emotional components to their stories.

We were receiving several stories a day. People were even writing in wanting contact information on some of the writers, so that they could contact them directly and chat. It was great, but also a little overwhelming. The process by which we received them and then posted them on the website was time-consuming and, by today's standards, archaic. We simply couldn't keep up! Sadly, we realized we could no longer continue collecting and posting stories, while providing the level of personal service that our customers deserved.

Fast forward a couple of years, and here we are. I am hoping that this new blog can pick up where our old "Survivor Stories" page left off, but in a more interactive fashion. Yes, it's my blog, and it's called "Ya Only Live Once ... A Survivor's Journey." But I would love for it to become a place where survivors and others can go when they want to read and chat with people who have gone in their shoes. The journey of many survivors!

So please, email YOUR story to us at survivors@pinkribbonshop.com! We want to post them here, to help, support, and inspire others who are going through their cancer walk just as you have.