what can i give/buy a 40 yr old lady with breast cancer who has lost hope?

Question

i dont really know this lady but i sit next to her at work and i can see how sad she is. she has just lost her hair and is very insecure about how she looks in her wig etc.

what can i do as a gesture for her, even though i hardly know her? does anyone know any poems or gifts that would be appropriate for her? please help as it is so sad.

Louise x

Answer 1

I had breast cancer 5 years ago and the first week after my hair fell out was difficult, I just wanted to stay home and stare at the wall. I tried to wear a wig for a day or two but when I looked in the mirror I didn't look like me and it was so uncomfortable, so I said to hell with it and wore some nice comfy bandanas and scarves and I felt more comfortable and I just looked like me, but with no hair. Then I realized I couldn't hide behind a locked door for 6 months til my hair grew back, so I just braved it. I guess my point here is that everyone copes at their own pace, she may just find it difficult to find her footing. If you don't know her well, start out slow and bring in some cookies and offer her some and start up a conversation about something, anything but illness. Maybe if people treat her as normal and don't just look at her and see her condition she'll brighten up on her own, then you can give a gift as a thoughtful gesture, like some others have suggested. Maintaining normalcy goes a long way during hard times. The thing about comforting gifts towards a person in her situation is it can be construed as pity and no one wants to feel like a pity case when they're trying to hold their head high.

Answer 2

A little more hope. Try Vitamin C therapy. A few years ago a cancer specialist came out with a paper that said the best cancer/infection fighter found to date was Interferon. At the time it was $15,000 a gram. The paper also said that Interferon was a by-product of the natural breakdown of Vitamin C in your body. Shortly after that the FDA tried to make Vitamin C by prescription only. Guess why? The FDA has the RDA for Vitamin C set at 64 mg a day, just enough to ward off scurvy. Linus Pauling, who got a Nobel Prize for his work with Vitamin C and a second Nobel Prize for Organic Chemistry, said that 1000 mg a day should be the minimum and 2000 mg a day if you are sick or smoke. He played tennis almost daily until the day he died at 96. Personally, I got sick twice a year for 2 weeks at a time, for more than 20 years, with something to this day the doctors have no idea what it was, but for a week in the middle of those 2 weeks I was flat on my back. I started Vitamin C therapy once I gave up on the doctors. I took enough to be asymptomatic for those 2 weeks. Too much and I got diarrhea and too little and I got sick. Within a narrow range, and it followed a bell curve over those 2 weeks, I was not sick. At the height I was taking 40,000 mg a day and 300,000 over the 2 weeks. After 2 years of that I have not been sick since – more than 15 years. Vitamin C acts as a natural diuretic so you need to drink a lot of water and watch your body in total, but my kidneys did not dissolve as the doctors predicted, or get massive kidney stones as other predicted. I did not dissolve my bones as some predicted or completely calcify my joints as others predicted. I had no side effects at all. It might be something to consider.

Answer 3

I appreciate you for showing concern for the lady.

I would advise you to talk to her (not about her health probs), but to know what is she yearning for now.. buy her a gift accordingly.

She may just want flowers, or

She may want a book (interest levels are v imp here, she might enjoy an inspiring war story like 'Gone with the wind' or 'Anne Frank's diary' or may be a holy book, or may be inspirational books by new age gurus!),

She may want to hear music (in that case you could compile her interest songs on a cd & gift her)..

Really your choice of gift depends on what her current interest levels are, what would elevate her mood given a sensitive case, I would suggest you have a close chat with her.

All the best & kudos to you again!

Answer 4

Personally I would say the best gift you could give her is your friendship and support. Let her understand that life isn't over, there is still much to go on for. I have a friend who has cancer and she hates it when people coddle her. Treat her like she is a human being, she will appreciate that most of all.

Answer 5

My mother is a breast cancer survivor. My mom is my best friend and still I did not quite understand what she was going through. I bought her the Chicken Soup book for women with breast cancer. She has really enjoyed the book and passed it along to her girlfriends in her cancer support group.

Answer 6

Read Prakruti Your Ayurvedic Constitution by Dr.Robert E Svoboda Page 152 to 155, it will put new light to your question.

Weakness of Blood, the dhatu that provides invigoration to ahamkara, is critical to cancer development. In fact hemolysis (destruction of the blood) is common in cancer. Here again Blood loses its proper "color." So long as Blood is red-full of healthy red cells--it nourishes and invigorates all the dhatus and provides them Prana. When instead Blood becomes "white"-filled with the white cells of the immune system, which shows that the system has shifted its
emphasis from nutrition of the dhatus to elimination of ama and aliens--it can no longer provide proper invigoration. Lack of Prana, transported by oxygen, encourages the growth of cancerous tissue, which hates oxygen. "White Blood" encourages hopelessness at the cellular level.

A cancer often results when an individual undergoes a physical or mental experience that is utterly indigestible by the personality, something that the being cannot face under any circumstances. Ahamkara is so unwilling to face the reality she isolates it, and by that very act, she creates an identity and individuality to the indigestible fact. That forever-alien experience lies in wait in the organism until it finds an abnormal, rebellious cell in which to live, and an invader is born.

When this "individual" finds a suitable host cell it "possesses" it, as a disembodied spirit might possess a human being. Because the fact is unbearable to ahamkara it is categorized as disruptive or "evil" from the onset, so when it is let loose in the body it destroys, true to the role assigned it. Cancer is too often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even the belief that "everyone else can get cancer, but not me," which is a sign of mental indigestion, often masks a strong subconscious fear or anticipation of that very event.


Devotion may be the supreme method for prana control, just as faith is the supreme remedy for disease. Strong faith can turn any placebo into an effective medicine as surely as doubt can render ineffectual the most powerful of remedies. While implicit devotion to Reality can compensate for misalignments in yoga practice, no quantum of technical proficiency in asana will suffice to restrain the mind's fluctuations when that mind is plagued by doubt. Devote yourself to knowing and cultivating your prana, and your every capillary will soon swell with the exhilaration of genuine vitality. Learn to pace your prana, and your body and mind will automatically fall into step. Dedicate your yoga practice to facilitating and enhancing prana's glide through your being, and gradually your own prana will start to direct your yoga practice. Treat prana with due respect, and you will find yourself squarely in the center of life's flow.

Answer 7

Give her The Chicken Soup For the Soul Books. They are very inspirational. Also a beautiful scarf for her head may help. A day at a spa to help her realize her beauty. Sometimes the best thing you can give a person is yourself....time with them, allow them to share their feelings, thoughts, and prayers.
God Bless you for continuing to try.

Answer 8

Louise it nice that u want to help a person out the best u can do is just tell her the u want to help her and relate a good friendship that's it and she will feel much because friendship is the best u can give as a gift

Answer 9

it's great that you are concerned about her although you hardly know her

be extra nice to her, offer to listen to her problems!

you could invite her over for dinner, just the two of you. then she'll feel less insecure of her looks since it's only the 2 of you.

all women love flowers, so you could send her a small bouquet, or get everyone at work to pitch in and send her a huge one.

Answer 10

Connect her to the American Cancer Society. There are support groups out there. I preferred turbans and scarves to wigs. They weren't as hot and looked fashionable and "elegant" I was told by co-workers. Is she on anti-depressants??? She needs to tell her doctors how she feels. It ain't over till its over.