Healing Across Continents: How Sharsheret Became My Anchor
My mother’s ovarian cancer diagnosis amplified my family’s strong breast cancer and ovarian cancer history. When my mother and I both tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation, it came as no surprise.
With my mother in Israel, I spent months at a time commuting back and forth between Israel and the US. I was by my mother’s side through it all – chemo, shaving her head, buying a wig, surgery.
Back home, I was overwhelmed trying to figure out how to protect my health. Sharsheret helped me consider and navigate options that ultimately saved my life.
Because of my family history, I first underwent a radical hysterectomy. Then, to reduce my breast cancer risk, I began increased surveillance. I planned to undergo a prophylactic mastectomy when my mother could make the trip to care for me.
But that plan never materialized.
War in Israel made it impossible for my mother to be by my side. I underwent a double mastectomy while rockets from Lebanon fell over my mother’s home in Haifa. Not wanting to add to my mother’s concerns, I refrained from sharing with her the details of my complicated recovery.
In my mother’s absence, Sharsheret provided me with the support I desperately needed.
My life now revolves around fully recovering so I can finally travel back to Israel to support my mother, only this time through a war, not through cancer. With all the uncertainty of this moment, no matter what tomorrow brings, it is deeply empowering to have Sharsheret by my side.
Please join me in making a year-end donation to Sharsheret to ensure that I and thousands of women and men just like me have Sharsheret to lean on – today and always.