| An alternative and comprehensive resource regarding Breast Cancer for ALL generations
Encouragement and advice with an edgy truth and loving honesty.
October (BC Awareness Month) is approaching, and there is a small supply of original books on hand. If you would like to order one as a gift,they are available now for $5 a copy signed and shipped per request. Email facingforward@gmail.com for your requests. Please check in advance for any speaking engagements. I am available gratis for the months of September and October this year.
(In honor and loving memory of Thomas Hentze who recently passed after his long struggle with a brain tumor. A soldier, a survivor, a special human being.)
Our goal for affiliate listings and product offerings is to begin listing by mid September. Helpful and valuable are always worth the wait.
  
(Photo credit courtesy Joseph Rodriguez Greensboro News & Record, Charles Umberg-Book Art by Brandi Gordon)
Cancer is life altering and isolating.
No matter how many people surround you with love, prayers and support, YOU have to walk this road on your own, making your own choices about treatment and havng your own feelings about how to face this challenge. Many times it feels that no one can understand and no one grasps all the brevity but you. One of the common challenges for younger survivors is that Breast Cancer and indeed even chronic or fatal illnesses of most kinds have erroneously been tagged "old ladies diseases". But we are mothers, sisters and daughters...all ages...in need of a fresh perspective.
If you have cancer or other disability with a disfiguring challenge
there are often ways that you can address "looking sick".
YOU CAN LOOK AND FEEL EMPOWERED! I have learned from experience through 8 years of fighting metastatic cancer. Now 41, I found myself initially searching for things that were specific to ME and my experiences, at my age, in my social realm. I eventually found others like myself, or similar enough that we could not only share understanding but also resources to find the things we needed to get through as "normally" as possible. You may feel life will never be normal again. You can however find a NEW normal. And someday you will be so grateful you will never wish for the idea of normal. Normal is basically an illusion, or a way we compare ourselves to others around us. Only your life is real, normal is really not something we can measure. For me, empowerment has been learning to disregard forcing "normal" on myself, and accepting and embracing my individuality.
Through trial and error I found a lot of ways to cope and adjust to my new circumstances and my own "new normal". Facing Forward is a cumulative project, a compilation of resources, things that I have learned and found, placed in one central location...the Internet. I've tried to do this honestly and affordably. My efforts are to make as much information free as possible. And how to direct you to affordable alternative resources. I know what this does to your life and perspective and pocketbook. In other words I don't promote or endorse items and sell them to promote "awareness". The awareness I DO hope to promote is that of those women suffering quitely, because we aren't "ok now" and don't make a good media bite. So the world passes those lost in the middle by! Not on their deathbed, but far from "well". Living with chronic pain, nausea, fatigue. Unable to do much of what our peers do daily. My project is also not MY STORY ON CANCER, not that these aren't extremely helpful, but, there are plenty available. Rather HERE'S WHAT I LEARNED, WHERE THE BEST DEALS ARE FOR THINGS YOU NEED, WHAT I MIGHT HAVE THAT YOU CAN USE, WHAT I CAN TELL YOU THAT CAN HELP. My story isn't who I am. Who I am is about change. I'm particularly working to change the way we view survivors and the disabled. I am designing a line of makeup and affordable wigs along with a how to Book/DVD so that I can share what I have learned and save others time, and image, especially young women working in the public eye. Our needs are different...our lives are busy and despite our challenges they do go on!
I love it when they say I don't look sick. I work to help others do this. Here are a few of the challenges I often hear many of us face.
A younger viewpoint? Others working in the public eye?
Books that didn't take a PHD or year to read?
Those in new marriages? or dating? Discussions of intimacy and sexuality? Issues surrounding childbearing and motherhood? Early menopause?
Where to find wigs that are not short and gray? or (hip/funky/stylish) clothes to flatter while concealing drains, or radiation markings/burns, or chemo ports? How do I go to work with these things?
How do I answer - "What do you do for a living?"
How to accept someone else asking all these questions? (And being told "You should just be thankful you are alive"?)
and there are many more...Breast Cancer isn't sexy-
but we are!
Book/DVD (currently in progress) -tips and motivation in book & video form about how to cope with specific challenges. This concept is the initial impetus for creating this endeavor. Please go to the DVD page to learn more...
Makeup &Skincare and skincare  in development.
Remember too not just those with "cancer", but those with other disabilities for whatever reasons have similar issues. Diabetes and Hepatitis are good examples.
Feel free to contact me with questions or stories of your own. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner, and want you to know that your needs and ideas are very important to me/us here.
ONE PERTINENT REQUEST, PLEASE SIGN THE GUESTBOOK, YOU MAY THINK IT MATTERS NOT THAT YOU VISITED HERE. BUT IF OUR NUMBERS ARE TO GROW WE NEED TO SHOW WE ARE OUT HERE AND NOT ALONE, AND THAT THIS SITE IS ACTIVE NOW. IT WAS NOT CREATED AND LEFT OUT IN CYBERSPACE TO FLOAT WITHOUT PURPOSE. ITS A SIMPLE THING. PUT YOUR VOICE IN IT!
In kindred spirit,
Lauren
Creator Facing Forward LLC - facingforward@gmail.com
|
