Guest Contributor Lisa Bernhard of The Stupid Cancer Show on Being a Young Breast Cancer Survivor

Lisa Bernhard is a TV, print and Web journalist, whose recent roles include on-air Entertainment Correspondent for the Fox News Channel and Deputy Editor of TV Guide. She currently writes about entertainment, new media and health for The New York Times  and Self magazine, among others.

Online, she is co-host and co-producer of The Stupid Cancer Show, an irreverent weekly talk radio Web cast for young adult cancer survivors. She serves as Vice President of Marketing and Media Development for the show’s parent organization, I’m Too Young For This!

Bernhard also produced, wrote and hosted online video of the annual conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer for Self.com. In addition, she recently served as host and consulting producer of the fund-raising Web-a-thon for the award-winning online series, Anyone But Me. She has been a frequent guest on national shows including Today, Good Morning America, The View and Entertainment Tonight.

Along with J.K. Rowling, Meryl Streep, Maya Angelou and others, Bernhard contributed an essay to the book, Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female. We’re thrilled to have her here!

At age 29, my chances of getting breast cancer were one in 2,500. Nevertheless, I found myself in the office of a gray-haired male surgeon, his nurse struggling to suppress the awe in her voice as she told me I was the youngest breast cancer patient the practice had ever seen. How’s that for a dubious achievement?

(I’m still not sure how I should have responded. There’s, “I’ve always been mature for my age,” or “Where’s my door prize?” or “Cool—do you think I could win in Vegas with those odds, too?” In the end, I just stared at her blankly and nodded.)

Like every cancer patient, my first and continuously over-riding thought was how to stay alive. And while I was certainly willing to do whatever it took to achieve this, the thought of losing my breast before my 30th birthday—before I was settled with a partner, settled in my career or, really, even settled in my own skin—did take a bit of an emotional toll. While my breasts don’t “define” me, I am the sum of my parts. Lisa minus her breast didn’t quite seem the same as Lisa minus her nagging adult acne or Lisa minus her tendency to procrastinate.

Three doctors later (I didn’t like the karma at the first; didn’t have total faith in the second), and after also meeting with a plastic surgeon, I decided on what seemed like the right surgery for me: A skin-sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. The reconstructive procedure was called a free flap, in which tissue from my abdomen was cut out and reconnected to my breast under a microscope. In the end, the cosmetic result actually looked and felt a lot like my pre-surgery breast.

That was 15 years ago. At the time, I knew I was lucky, but I didn’t know exactly just how.

The major exhale: My pathology report showed a slow-growing cancer and my lymph nodes appeared disease-free. “You have an older woman’s type of cancer,” my oncologist told me, “and that’s a good thing.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

Years later I would learn the incredibly sad and infuriating truth: breast cancer in young women is generally a much more aggressive disease than it is in older women, resulting in lower survival rates. In other words, too many women under 40 lose their lives to this illness. There is no effective tool for screening, and although breast cancer in young women is often biologically different than it is in older women, the young adult population is under-represented in many research studies.

On a much less critical but still important side note — for those who do survive, quality of life issues can still be challenging. Take the desire to rebuild your breast. In 2007, the University of Michigan Cancer Center released a study showing that two-thirds of breast cancer patients — of all age — are NOT told of their reconstruction options by general surgeons.

Why the lack of information? Some general or oncologic surgeons still fail to refer patients to plastic surgeons. Then there are the insurance companies, who reimburse plastic surgeons at rates well below what these doctors consider financially viable. Coordinating their busy schedules with those of time-crunched oncologic surgeons is yet another obstacle.

Reconstruction is not right for every woman, for health reasons or as a matter of individual preference. But knowing the facts and having the ability to make your own choice is always right.

Today, I cohost a talk radio Web cast called The Stupid Cancer Show for young adults ages 15-39 with all types of cancers. It’s a production of the I’m Too Young for This! cancer foundation, with which I am also involved. Our constituency of 5 million survivors and co-survivors (partners, friends, relatives) are creative, hilarious, informed—and pissed! This age group often falls through the cracks between pediatric and older adult cancers, and faces unique unmet issues of infertility, insurance, isolation, education, employment, dating/sexuality and age-appropriate peer support.

We talk about everything from the environment to health care, cosmetics to colon cancer, with guests ranging from celebrities and CEOs to politicians and oncologists. And we laugh. A lot. In case you haven’t heard, it’s a pretty good way to cope.

In particular, I’m exceedingly proud of our young breast cancer survivors—many of whom are much younger than I was when diagnosed, and have no doubt been told by some doctor or nurse that they’re “the youngest breast cancer patient we’ve ever seen.”

Fortunately, this generation’s response is to “Get Busy Living.” It’s the mantra of our organization and something these young adults prove every day. Good for them, good for all cancer patients, good for everyone.