If you have someone in your life who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, you know that it’s such an emotional time. During this time, you probably want to do everything that you can to support your loved one and help her in any way that you possibly can.
Unfortunately, there are not many of us who do not know or know of someone who has been affected by breast cancer these days. If you would like to find ways to help someone you know and love, we have some ideas for you.
We’ve seen posts about throwing a Ta-ta to the Tata’s Party, and there are some super fun ideas to really lighten up the mood and bring some laughter into the mix. We encourage you to check this out if you’re looking for some fun or funny ideas for a party.
We also want to provide you with some ways to support your loved one through her fight- from laundry to meal prep to childcare and everything in between. Think baby shower but instead of preparing for a newborn, you’re preparing for surgery, chemo, radiation, and all that goes along with cancer treatment.
Step 1: Create your Guest List and Create a Facebook Event
One of the worst things about breast cancer is that it is not planned- women are caught completely off guard and are often starting treatment before they’ve even had a chance to process the fact that they’ve just heard a word that nobody wants to hear from their doctor: cancer.
But, one of the best things about throwing a Breast Cancer Shower is that you can host it completely online or you can throw a party in person. If there is time between diagnosis and treatment beginning, you may have time to throw an in-person party together. If treatment must be started right away, you may prefer to host the event online.
The options we will give for gifts will work either way.
Get your guest list together and begin inviting them to the shower- let them know that someone you all love is beginning a fight for her life and you are rallying to the troops to give cancer the boot. The shower will be held (either online or in person) to get everyone who’d like to be involved so that your precious friend will have less to worry about as she goes through treatment.
Step 2: Create a Gift Registry
This is not your typical gift registry. This is not a housewarming party or stock the bar party. This is a “preparing a warrior for battle” party!
We like the site MyRegistry.com for this because you can add items from any website.
This saves you or your loved one from having to go to multiple sites to add items. Be sure to include the shipping address for the guest of honor so that any items purchased will be delivered right to her door- or if you’re hosting an in-person party, guests can bring the gifts to her!
Once you’ve created a registry, you can add the unique link to the registry to your Facebook event or print it on cards so that guests of the shower can purchase items.
Step 3: Select Gift Items
Here are items that we have found to be incredibly helpful for patients recovering from surgery or going through breast cancer treatment.
Amazon Gift Cards or Donations to the Guest of Honor using a site like GoFundMe.com
Post-Op Drain Holder and Shower Bag: With almost every breast cancer surgery, drains are used for several weeks to help pull fluid from the surgical sites. Some women have 1 drain, some have 4 or more. Most surgery centers do not provide anything to hold the drains in so that they don’t pull or catch on things causing more pain than necessary. This set is a great addition to a breast cancer shower list and something that a newly diagnosed woman may not even know she will need.
Open-Front Bra: The surgery center usually does include a surgical bra to go home with, but patients typically only receive one. Many times, it’s very uncomfortable and difficult to open and close. At each post-op appointment, surgeons need to open the bra and remove dressings and evaluate surgical sites. Having additional bras to wear while washing the others that are easy to open and close are game-changers.
Chemo/Cancer Gift Bag: This bag is filled with items that make cancer treatment and chemo visits a little more bearable. The bag reads “fighter.”
Gift Membership to The Chrysalis Method Post-Op Program: Our 12-Week online post-op program helps women recovery from surgery with nutritional guidance focused on healing, body movements from a Doctor of Physical Therapy to get her independence back, and emotional support from women who have been where she is. It's FREE!
You can find more great ideas on Laura Birdwell’s Amazon List. She is a breast cancer survivor and created this list to help other women get everything they need to ease the process as much as possible.
Tip: Include Gifts that Make the Household Keep Running
Another service we love is MealTrain.
With their MealTrain Plus service, you are able to arrange gifting of items such as:
Housework
Childcare
Visitors
Meals
Rides
Lawncare
For a one-time fee of $10, you can create a sign up list for friends and family to volunteer the above items. These are things that many women facing breast cancer treatment haven’t even had a chance to think about.
And ya’ll, breast cancer doctor appointments are a full.time.job. So many women need rides to doctor visits and chemo treatments because their spouse or significant other can’t take time off work for each appointment. There is not just one doctor they have to meet with, either. There are many doctors. Who all have separate appointments.
Arranging childcare during those appointment times or during surgery recovery can be crucial.
Having a schedule of loved ones, church members, colleagues and other members of the community drop off freezer meals or mow the lawn can make all the difference in the world for someone going through treatment. MealTrain.com makes the signup process for each person easy and removes the confusion of missing a day in case two people overlapped or there was mixup in scheduling. Let MealTrain take care of it for you!
You can also purchase memberships to services like HelloFresh or BlueApron for meal kit delivery.
And in many areas, you can even get her a membership to have her groceries delivered. Not just groceries- Target and Costco runs- DELIVERED.
Shipt Gift Membership
InstaCart
Make it Hers and Show Your Support
You can also create personalized T-Shirts using a site like TeeSpring or RedBubble.
We love the phrase “Her fight is my fight” for anyone supporting a breast cancer warrior!
You can purchase pre-made shirts or personalize your own with a hashtag unique to your guest of honor on the back.
You can also get Tata to Cancer shirts (pictured above) to support Breast Cancer Awareness as well. The options are endless!
We hope this post has helped you to find lots of ways to support anyone in your life who is fighting breast cancer. There are so many things that are affected in a woman’s life when she receives that diagnosis, and we know that so many loved ones just want to help in any way that they can. Supporting her in her battle and helping her keep live moving as she continues her fight are huge ways that you can make a difference for her.
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