Based on her own experience as well as interviews with 80 other patients, the book covers what to say in response to bad news, how to help and even what to bring to the hospital when you visit. I had the pleasure of meeting Pogrebin and collecting a few dos and don’ts.

Do ask her what she wants. “Everybody wants different things. Some people want to be treated as though they’re not even sick. Some people want you to sit and listen,” Pogrebin explains. You may feel like you shouldn’t ask, you should just act. But it can be liberating, not to mention extremely helpful, to give the sick person the opportunity to tell you exactly what she needs.

Do keep your good fortune to yourself. You should be honest if she asks how things are going in your life, but she doesn’t need to hear every detail about your promotion or the great vacation you’re planning. Keep it vague, and start conversations about current events or other interests you share, like movies, sports or politics, Pogrebin suggests.

Don’t ask, “How are you?” at all. If you’re someone dealing with chronic pain or chemotherapy, that’s a very awkward question to answer, says Pogrebin. “It’s the most basic opening line in human conversation, and it’s the most problematic for a sick person.” Instead, ask her, what’s new? This way, the conversation doesn’t begin with her having to acknowledge she’s not doing so well, and it’s open-ended. She can say “Not much,” or she can tell you about her treatment if she wants, or she can tell you her mother called.

Don’t tell her about that miracle treatment you heard about. It’s natural for you to feel like you should offer advice, but fight the urge. “Part of why disease makes us so uncomfortable is that we feel powerless,” says Pogrebin. “But so much advice is dizzying. She has a doctor for that. She needs you to be her friend.”

We met a woman who signed up in honor of her grandmother and then got diagnosed herself before she finished fundraising. We met a woman with a pink ribbon tattoo on her ankle in memory of her mom, who lost her battle six years ago. We met a group of young men doing the walk for their girlfriends, sisters and mothers. (You’ll get to meet them all, too, in an upcoming issue.)

Sheri McCoy, Avon’s new CEO, joined the charge. She spoke at the opening ceremony and spent the day walking and talking with participants. I got to sit down and chat with McCoy, whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, after she crossed the finish line on day one (that’s her, above). “We had a woman tell her story on stage with me today who was diagnosed when she was only 27 years old. And the woman who spoke after me, her mother died just a few months ago. It was incredible that she was able to tell that story. I couldn’t have done it,” says McCoy, tearing up a little.

She clearly cares about this cause, as well as the more than 6 million Avon representatives she oversees, many of them women, across the United States and in countries all over the world. “As a manager, I want the people who work for Avon to be successful the same way I want my kids to be successful,” she says. “In motherhood and in business, you want to create an environment where people can achieve.” Her husband, who was the oldest of 13 kids growing up, did a lot of the childcare for their three boys, now 24, 22 and 20. “I’ve been fortunate to have the support—and to have worked for companies that are family friendly,” she says. “But I also had to learn to recognize what’s important, to prioritize and say no to things. It took maturity to say I can’t be perfect.”

During the week McCoy is up by 6 a.m. and often is in meetings or traveling until 9 p.m.. But the weekends are all hers. In addition to spending time with her boys, she’s a Zumba fanatic and bookworm. “Most of the time I have to read business journals and work-related things, so I love to pick up a James Patterson mystery. I can finish it in a few hours,” she says, smiling.

McCoy started her career at Johnson & Johnson as a scientist. She stayed with the company for 20 years, eventually leading the pharmaceutical division before coming to Avon in April. This was her first breast-cancer walk. “Avon has always been about empowering women,” she says. “Breast cancer is such a tough disease that touches so many people, so I wanted to be here. I’m inspired by the women participating, and I’m impressed that the foundation isn’t just working on awareness but getting the money to research and care.”

The New York City walkers raised an impressive $8.3 million this year. The majority goes to the Avon Foundation Breast Health Outreach Program, which focuses on screening and education. The rest goes to a variety of programs, including a grant to fund research on inflammatory breast cancer, a less common but very aggressive type of the disease, and support for women undergoing treatment.

Another pink October may be coming to a close, but McCoy is already looking ahead. “I walked with some women from California, and now I can’t wait to do the Santa Barbara walk next year,” she says.

Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women in their lifetime. This year, more than 220,000 American women will be diagnosed with it and 40,000 will die. When we met Ciccarella for our October issue story on breast cancer survivors, she said she’s so tired of hearing these numbers. We’ve got to find a way to stop breast cancer.

That’s where the Health of Women (HOW) study comes in, says Ciccarella, who serves as the New York volunteer team coordinator with the Love/Avon Army of Women. Launched by the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, the Army of Women has been enrolling women in different research projects since 2008. Now the foundation is launching its own study to follow a huge group of women over time to learn why the disease develops. The key to all this? Your participation.

Why It’s Important
Many breast cancer patients have no known risk factors. So, does where you work or how much you sleep affect whether you will get breast cancer? Can anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen reduce breast cancer risk? These are the types of thing we want to understand better, and the larger the group of women we study, the more we can learn, says Leslie Bernstein, Ph.D., professor and director of cancer etiology at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope in Los Angeles, a partner in the study.

How It Works
After you answer a questionnaire about your health history, the HOW study will send you e-mails every three to four months when a new module becomes available. The questionnaires are co-created by epidemiologists, statisticians and breast cancer advocates, and participants will have the opportunity to submit questions they want answered, says Naz Sykes, executive director of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation.

The researchers want to follow women for 20 years or more. It’s a commitment, but the modules only take a few minutes to answer. All of your data will be stored in your account and in a database available to researchers—without your name attached.

Where To Sign Up
Go to HealthofWomenStudy.org and create an account. Then get your friends involved. The researchers want healthy women from every ethnicity, plus breast cancer survivors, women with other health issues and even men who’ve had breast cancer. I’ve already enrolled and I hope you will, too. Head to the study’s helpful FAQs page for more info.

Photo by Avery Powell

Just in time for Mother’s Day, Stone served as host at the annual benefit luncheon for Gilda’s Club in New York, and she brought her mom Krista, a breast-cancer survivor, with her. Named after comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, Gilda’s Club opened in New York City in 1995 as a support and resource center for people living with cancer.

Who could forget Radner’s unforgettable characters from her days as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live, such as Roseanne Roseannadanna? Stone definitely hasn’t: her mom introduced her to Radner’s work years ago, including her memoir It’s Always Something, and Stone’s been a fan ever since. In fact, when Stone hosted SNL last November, she paid homage to Radner in a much-talked-about bumper that ran near the end of the show. “Gilda is my biggest hero. Doing that photo shoot was so amazing for me,” she says.

It all came full-circle for Stone when her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and joined a Gilda’s Club support group in Phoenix. “You can’t underestimate the power of finding people who are empathetic instead of just sympathetic,” Stone says. “It was so helpful to her. I wanted to be involved.”

Three and a half years later, her mom is doing well. But Stone continues to lend her celebrity for causes in her honor. She’s also been involved with the organization Stand Up 2 Cancer, and last Saturday she participated in NYC’s EIF Revlon Run/Walk, a fundraiser for women’s cancers, with pal Olivia Wilde. “I’ll be beating this drum forever,” Stone says.

There are now 20 Gilda’s Club centers across the country, with many more in development. To find a support group or make a donation, contact your local Gilda’s Club via this directory.

Happy Mother’s Day from the LHJ Health Ladies!

Photo by Paul Frogatt / PR Photos

Ziskin, who produced such modern movie classics as Pretty Woman and Spider Man, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2004 and helped co-found the cancer fighting organization, Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C). She raised millions of dollars—and worldwide awareness—in the fight against the deadly disease.

When we interviewed Ziskin last spring, she reiterated to LHJ readers that “Cancer is everybody’s cause.” She also told us that SU2C will “only really meet its goal when someone discovers a treatment that’s going to make a difference in a cancer patient’s life. Who knows, maybe that life will be mine.”

You can read more about SU2C and Ziskin’s brave fight at the Stand Up 2 Cancer site.

“The C Word” is only a half-hour long, but Murphy packs in more than a handful of hilarious characters drawn from her experience: the stoic doctor who lays out her treatment plan like a high-school football coach with a dry erase board. The friend who won’t shut up about the miracle “cure” she found on the Internet. The subway rider who refuses to give up her seat for the bald lady. And of course, the friend who tries to relate but just can’t—“My aunt had breast cancer. Well, she wasn’t really my aunt, but she was so close to my mom we called her my aunt, you know? We never saw her during her chemo. It was awful. But anyway, what I’m saying is, I totally get it.”

She also makes fun of herself, playing a counselor who develops a tailored coping plan just for her: “You’ll be able to lie around, eat a bunch of crap, watch TV, wallow in self pity and everyone you know is going to think that you are a brave little soldier, so that’s a win, win, win, win, win!” Also, check out this scene where she portrays a first date after breast cancer for another hilarious example.

“I don’t portray myself in the best light, either, because I didn’t write the show to say, ‘Look at me, I’m such a brave person,’” she says. “I just wanted to say, look, this experience sucks. Let’s talk about it.”

Murphy was aiming for honesty, and she totally nailed it, while still managing to get lots of laughs. She skipped the soul-searching and just focused on the reality—breast cancer isn’t fun. But she made it through, and now she’s making it funny.

Right now she’s doing two shows in Los Angeles at the UCB Theatre in Hollywood, and she’ll be back in New York City for two shows in April. But stay tuned because the show might be coming to a college near you very soon. Pam says she’s in the process of booking a tour of campuses across the country.

Read on for more of my talk with Murphy about her bout with breast cancer, why she decided to write about it and what she wants other survivors to know.

So you say in the show it took you three years to write it. When were you diagnosed? And how’d you decide to start writing about breast cancer, one of the least funny things on the planet?

I was diagnosed almost four years ago. It didn’t actually take me three years to write it, but it was an ongoing process. I was a comedian first. I had been performing here at Upright Citizens’ Brigade when I got diagnosed. And during that time, all my friends who are comedians were saying, “Write! You’ve got to write it all down.” So I would write things just because it was a part of my life—a huge part of my life for a year. I would jot down things that I thought were funny as I was going through it, and I decided to do it so I could just purge it from my mind. I really wanted it to be funny but also informative.

In the opening scene of the show, you talk about your “journey” and make fun of that analogy.

Yes. It’s a jab at that “what a journey” expression because people would say to me, “This is like a journey for you; you know, this is your journey.” And I felt like I was just born and this happened. [Pam found out after she was diagnosed that she carried the BRCA gene.] I’m just lucky that I live in this time, and I could do something about it. I don’t think it was a gift at all. I think I could’ve done without it. That’s for sure. Maybe this idea that everything is a gift works for some people. But for me, I think it’s okay to have negative thoughts. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to feel that this really disrupted my life. (Above, Pam during the opening scene of a recent show.)

What’s your advice for women who are getting through their treatment now?

This is your time to be really selfish. You don’t have to keep up a front or act like everything is okay. That’s what I think people feel the pressure to do. It works for some. Women have told me they worked every day and I’m like, you’re kidding me!

I was terrible. I literally just laid around all the time. I was sick, and I didn’t feel well. And other people would say, “You have to eat right” and “Are you exercising?” and “My sister has breast cancer, and she jogs five miles a day. What’s wrong with you?” And I would just think, “This sucks! I don’t feel good and I’m not putting up a front that everything is okay.”

But I made it through, and I’m lucky to have lived to tell the tale. I’m working really hard to get other survivors to come see the show because I think they’d really appreciate it.

Photos by Ari Scott

So what health woes were on our minds this year? As part of their Year in Review coverage, the folks at Yahoo! parsed data from billions of searches for the top 10 health-related terms for 2010, and the results might surprise you.

The list:

1. Pregnancy, 2. Diabetes, 3. Herpes, 4. Shingles, 5. Lupus, 6. Depression, 7. Breast cancer, 8. Gall bladder, 9. HIV, 10. Fibromyalgia

Pregnancy is consistently at the top, says Vera Chan, a Yahoo! web trend analyst, but it’s not just moms-to-be doing the digging. “Early symptoms of pregnancy” and “pregnancy tests” were among the top search phrases, which are likely from women concerned that they might be pregnant.

“Pregnancy also figures in reality shows these days—16 and Pregnant, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant—and celebrity pregnancies spur their own round of queries,” Chan says.

While diabetes and pregnancy aren’t all that surprising, how did herpes get into the top three? According to the latest numbers from the CDC, prevalence of the herpes simplex virus remains high at about 16 percent. Plus, many people are uncomfortable discussing their sexual health with family, friends and even their doctors, so they turn to the web, Dr. Glatter says. The same goes for HIV coming in at number nine.

“I think there’s also an increased sense of the need for testing, so that may be why people are searching for it,” he adds.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, between 75% and 80% of all Internet users have looked online for health information.  But Chan says that women conduct health searches more often than men, which may be why diseases more common in women, like lupus and fibromyalgia, found their way into the top 10.

Dr. Glatter was stunned that autism didn’t make it onto the list this year. What do you think—anything else missing?

Photos by rcv3 and Mahalie

Dr. Streicher, who will be on the Ladies’ Home Journal Medical Advisory Board (to be officially announced soon), says that the media often gets ahold of studies before doctors do. So doctors like her have to scramble to read the research, and make sense of it, before their phones start ringing with patients anxious for answers. But the bottom line, she says, is “if you look carefully at the numbers, it is not as significant as the screeching headlines make it sound.”

She wrote a great blog about it for the Dr. Oz site. So if you want a voice of reason on this subject, read it here.

So I was happy when I heard in 2008 that this old friend was joining Today. But who was Hoda Kotb (right)? I didn’t know then. But I feel I know her now, thanks to her new book, Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer and Kathie Lee.

The book is a fun read, with gripping tales of her travels around the world to cover stories for Dateline, from war-torn Baghdad to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And there’s plenty of entertaining inside scoop about getting to know Kathie Lee and finding their groove together for the show.

But the part that really got me was the raw, emotional recounting of what she calls “the bad year.” It was 2007, “the year my body and my heart broke at the same time,” as she describes it. She was 42, happily married, fit and healthy—or so she thought. “I had finally balanced my personal life and career, a real challenge for me up to that point.” She had always wanted kids. But in January of that year, she learned that her husband had been deceiving her—and that she had breast cancer.

HODA’S DIAGNOSIS
It was a routine ob/gyn checkup, when her doctor felt a lump. She sent Kotb to have what was her first mammogram, then an ultrasound, which showed another lump, then a biopsy, which indicated cancer in both lumps. An MRI after that found a third lump. It was clear Kotb would need a mastectomy; they could not save her breast. All this on top of her marriage falling apart. How did she cope? “Thankfully, a weird internal game plan kicked in,” she wrote. “I guess in the name of survival, human beings must only be able to generate a finite amount of grief. Since I had two tragedies flooding my life at once, I instinctively split the raging sea of crap. This kept me from getting too depressed about one or the other.”

SURGERY AND RECOVERY
She says her sister Hala “swooped in like a mother hen to protect me the minute I was diagnosed,” and was with her throughout her surgery and recovery. While she got differing opinions from several oncologists about whether she needed chemotherapy or not, she ultimately decided just to take the drug Tamoxifen, which meant she’d never be able to have a baby. During all this sorrow, Kotb says it helped to keep extensive journals, both in writing and on video, and highly recommends journaling to anyone going though a hard time.

MOVING FORWARD
After her recovery, Kotb didn’t want to share the details of her illness with the public. She just wanted to move on. But a stranger on a plane changed her mind when he said, “Don’t hog your journey. It’s not just for you.” He suggested she think of how many people she could help. That moment changed her life. She said to herself, “I will not waste one more minute.”

And she has made a difference, traveling all over the country and delivering countless speeches to breast-cancer survivors. As a health editor, I attend a lot of functions, and I’ve seen Kotb not just at breast cancer awareness and fund-raising galas, but at events for women’s heart health and other causes. I’ve been lucky enough to be a guest on the show several times, too (a dream come true!), and it’s clear that she truly cares.

And today, post-divorce and cancer-free, she’s feeling strong and healthy. “Clearly, there are legions of women like me who’ve gone through what I have and are living stronger and better. But they don’t have a platform. Maybe I can be their humble representative. If someone is totally in the weeds, like I was, they can see there is a path out.”

To read a lively excerpt from the book about Hoda meeting Kathie Lee, click here.

Want to meet Hoda? For information on her book-signing locations and schedule, go here.