Pittsburgh-area writer and television producer Lisa Lurie was a career woman who found herself diagnosed with breast cancer, rushed into surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and finally, by her own description, left bald and bloated from steroids.
“I thought, what can I do to reclaim my sense of self and get back the person I was before I was diagnosed with cancer?” Lurie says.
So she created CancerBeGlammed.com with Ellen Weiss Kander, who also found herself desperately seeking fashionable and functional garments and gear for her own recovery. “You can find products but they’re depressing,” Kander says. “We just take over the guesswork and the legwork for the women.”
The site is a gateway to more than 200 products from 15 different companies–everything from wicking pajamas (for post-treatment hot flashes) to post-surgery camisoles and bras, headscarves and sun-protective clothing, as well as gift-bag suggestions (with some of the proceeds going to charity) and ideas for activities with your kids during recovery.
The site also contains a blog where women can suggest the best products, a style guide (called “What the Doctor Didn’t Order”) and a checklist for women at every stage of the process.
Upon diagnosis, says Luri, “you’re so focused on the medical decisions that you don’t even get to address what your day to day life is going to be like, and what you need. We chose clothing and products we’d want to own even if we weren’t sick.”
Sources: Lisa Lurie and Ellen Weiss Kander, CancerBeGlammed.com
Writer: Marty Levine