<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Joan, a mother of seven, went from planning a baby shower for daughter Lindsay Krauss Weinberg, 32, to juggling chemotherapy, radiation, and a lumpectomy as her family faced the shocking possibility of losing her. Now that she\u00A0is NED (survivor-speak for &amp;quot;no evidence of disease&amp;quot;), Joan and Lindsay open up about their new mission to educate women to minimize the risks and be their own health advocates. Joan: I interviewed [renowned breast cancer researcher] Dr. Susan Love, and she said, &amp;quot;Do you get mammograms?&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;Yes, but they say they can&amp;#039;t see anything, because I have dense breasts.&amp;quot; She told me to get ultrasounds as well. If it hadn&amp;#039;t been for that interview, I don&amp;#039;t know if I&amp;#039;d have had the ultrasound [that detected my tumors]. They kept going back to a spot, and I heard, &amp;quot;We see something. You&amp;#039;re going to have to get it biopsied.&amp;quot; When the doctor walked in with the [biopsy] results, she didn&amp;#039;t look at me. I&amp;#039;d seen enough Law &amp;amp;amp; Order to know I wasn&amp;#039;t getting off. She said, &amp;quot;You have Stage II triple-negative breast cancer.&amp;quot; Lindsay: The doctor said she&amp;#039;d need chemo, and Mom asked, &amp;quot;Am I going to lose my hair?&amp;quot; A natural question. And the doctor said, &amp;quot;Yeah, you&amp;#039;re going to.&amp;quot; I could feel her crumbling. She suddenly realized the severity of what was going on. Joan: I chose the most toxic, most aggressive therapy I could ...12 rounds of chemo. But I had the most aggressive form, a fast-growing cancer. After one treatment, before I had even lost any hair, I texted my girls that I&amp;#039;d shaved my head, and they were all like, &amp;quot;Has Mom gone crazy?&amp;quot; There was stubble all over. I went to my hairdresser and asked him to make it platinum. [She later went public with her completely bald head on the cover of People in October 2014.] Lindsay: None of us panicked. We&amp;#039;re not really alarmists in that sense. And because my job was working for her, I was able to be there. I&amp;#039;m vice president of Joan Lunden Productions and manage all her endorsements and her website and social media. I&amp;#039;m protective, but I&amp;#039;m also very affected by stress and pressure. Joan: I didn&amp;#039;t want anything to harm her or her baby. But she&amp;#039;s my daughter, my sounding board, my business partner. Our lives are incredibly intertwined. Lindsay: You feel guilty having selfish thoughts. Your mom has cancer! Then you feel the baby kick, and you&amp;#039;re like, Wait, this is still going on. How am I going to keep calm? My stepfather [told me] it was OK to be selfish. But I don&amp;#039;t think any of us felt burdened, because we&amp;#039;re so close. Joan: The day [Lindsay&amp;#039;s daughter] Parker was born was one of my sickest days. You feel like you have the worst flu, due to the drugs you take to make it through the chemo. You feel major pain in your back, your pelvis, all your major bones. That day, it was like two people inside my body: One was so excited; the other could have lain down on the floor and slept. I didn&amp;#039;t want [Lindsay] to know. Lindsay: I knew. You&amp;#039;re my mom \u2014 we&amp;#039;re so connected. One thing I learned is that it was possible for two truths to exist at the same time: the joy [of my pregnancy] and the scariness [of my mom&amp;#039;s cancer]. We&amp;#039;d be at appointments and [I&amp;#039;d think], Here I come with my big belly! There was no ignoring the happiness that that was bringing us. And that&amp;#039;s how it was when I gave birth: We were supportive of my mom, and we were also happy, and neither took away from the other. Joan: It&amp;#039;s usually women who get breast cancer, and we&amp;#039;re the caretakers. We&amp;#039;re not used to being the ones to accept help. The wonderful thing about the breast cancer community, and our world today, is it&amp;#039;s OK to talk about the fact that you have breast cancer. And because we do, more money is going toward this than toward any other kind of cancer. Lindsay: The treatment my mom had was new. If that money wasn&amp;#039;t going into research, then that drug wouldn&amp;#039;t exist. Joan: The other day a woman in front of me was bald, going through chemo and very teary. You feel unfeminine, unlovable \u2014 that everybody looks at you as sick, as less of a woman. I said, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t worry; I was a mushy mess also. But look at me now. This is going to be you.&amp;quot; [You go] through this, you get to the other side and you say, &amp;quot;OK, I survived; I need to help the next one through.&amp;quot; How to Fight Cancer as a Family Use the buddy system. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s so important, when you get a diagnosis, to have someone with you,&amp;quot; says Joan. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re in shock.&amp;quot; Take notes. &amp;quot;Grab a notebook and make it the notebook,&amp;quot; advises Lindsay. &amp;quot;Pass it off to whoever&amp;#039;s going to the next appointment. I also took pictures of my notes and e\u00ADmailed them to my sisters.&amp;quot; Ask questions. &amp;quot;It can be intimidating when you hear new language,&amp;quot; says Lindsay. &amp;quot;You need to have no shame about [asking what it means].&amp;quot; Adds Joan, &amp;quot;At first, &amp;#039;triple\u00AD-negative&amp;#039; sounded good!&amp;quot; (It describes a tumor that will not respond to certain therapies.) Designate an advocate. Lindsay informed loved ones of her mom&amp;#039;s cancer and sent out e\u00ADmail updates on her behalf. Having one point person makes managing the facts and emotions easier on everybody.  Joan&amp;#039;s survival memoir, Had I Known, was released in September. Her goal is to empower women. &amp;quot;When the NFL is wearing pink during October, we&amp;#039;ve got plenty of awareness,&amp;quot; she writes. &amp;quot;What we need more of is education.&amp;quot; This story originally appeared in the November 2015 issue of Good Housekeeping. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a35113/joan-lunden-breast-cancer/>