A wake-up call to appreciate life.

• Position: Breast Cancer

What goes through a woman's mind when she first hears the words, "You have breast cancer?" One in eight women will hear those words at some point in their lives and yet very little research has been conducted about a person's thoughts at this early stage before treatment or surgery. "The effect of a cancer diagnosis on a woman's self-concept is not something that health care providers often consider when they are focused on the physical aspects of the disease and treatment early after diagnosis," explains registered nurse Robin Lally.

Lally's study, published in Cancer Nursing, found that "threatened self-integrity"--the threat to how we know ourselves--the main concern for women as they acclimated to being "breast cancer patients" or "survivors." Women's self-integrity also is threatened by how they perceived others' impressions of them and by whether they attributed developing cancer to their own actions or inaction.

From the findings, Lally has developed a theory of acclimating to breast cancer that focuses on three stages to the initial adjustment process: surveying the situation, taking action, and the emerging self.

Her findings may help health providers...