Battle of the Amazons

There's a stinky little fillip many women get along with their breast-cancer diagnosis—an invitation NOT to join the club. If they have DCIS (very early stage) or lymph-node-negative or hormone-positive cancer, they are deemed by some women to be not sick enough to play with the big girls, and they are cast out and ostracized. I read about this cliquishness all the time on the breast-cancer discussion boards and hear about it from my DCIS friends, who have found themselves unwelcomed at support groups.

A breast-cancer diagnosis is a trauma, period.