Almost five years later, the memory is still as vivid as if it were happening now as I tell you that while showering, I discovered a lump in my breast. My hand stopped, my breath caught, and my stomach clenched in terror. Instinctively, I knew I was in trouble. After mammogram, ultrasound, biopsy and the first of three surgeries, the diagnosis of breast cancer was not the most optimistic one. My lobular breast cancer had spread beyond the breast into lymph nodes -- and perhaps elsewhere not yet clearly detected.

I would spend the next four years peering over my shoulder, wondering if the shadow of death would visit me with another cancer diagnosis, and if so, where would it settle in this time. If I ate pizza topped with jalapenos for that extra kick of flavor and got a stomach ache, I wondered -- had cancer spread to my liver? If I spent a day met with seemingly endless frustrations and annoyances and got a headache -- had the cancer spread to my brain?

While there is nothing rational about these leaps to a cancer conclusion based on evidence suggesting I suffered from logically explainable modern life maladies that antacid or aspirin might easily cure, for the newly-diagnosed surviving breast cancer, it is not uncommon for the mind to immediately race to an impending cancer-based doom for every day aches and pains. I am here to tell you that for the first few years it will be quite normal to have totally unreasonable fears.

Not willing to subject myself to this screeching fingernails on the blackboard fear without finding something to muffle the sound, I began creating personal rituals that suggested hope and affirmed life. With each one I was stating the value of my life and staking my claim to my future. For each woman, the personal rituals will be different. Here are a few I created that might give you some ideas for your own:

Faced with a cancer diagnosis, or any challenging life event, you want to talk to someone who has already experienced what you are about to experience. You want to find stories about other people who have overcome adversity, preferably told by the people who went through it first-hand. You want to know what to expect.

Last year, when Katherine Brown's mother-in-law Ruth was diagnosed with Lymphoma, she went on an internet search to find people Ruth could talk to, who knew what it was like to be diagnosed with cancer, be inspired by the personal stories of triumph over the trials and tribulations of a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment and cancer survivorship.

After an extensive internet search for the kind of community Ruth could connect with, Brown came up empty-handed. As need is the mother of all invention, Brown decided to create what she was looking for and could not find.

The Cancer Buddy Network is a result of Brown's vision. At the Cancer Buddy Network, you create an account; tell your story; be a buddy. Newly-diagnosed cancer patients, family members and friends, and cancer survivors are welcome. It is the blend of cancer patients, cancer survivors and the loved ones touched by cancer that brings real life hope and inspiration in cancer community support. The Cancer Buddy Network is a recent web destination and it looks very well done. Stop by and give it a look, add your voice to hope.

Arizona Daily Star assistant features editor and critic Kathleen Allen was diagnosed with uterine cancer in March. The newspaper where she works is publishing her diary When Cancer Calls as a feature on the newspaper's website.

Allen begins at the beginning, when the first symptoms that something was wrong began to be appear, and at first she ignored the signs of uterine cancer -- her mother had died from uterine cancer but still, Allen told herself it was nothing. From denial, to acceptance to fear, to understanding what cancer meant to her, she takes you with her as she personally recounts the experiences of a cancer diagnosis to cancer survivorship. Here are a just a few excerpts from Allen's diary:

"I do not want to be alone with my thoughts. I don't want to think about what I know I have to think about: healing, changing my lifestyle, changing my life, being a person who has cancer."

"It hits me: I am now a person with cancer. That's my identity. I'm not a sister, writer, wife, aunt, independent woman. I am a cancer victim (I hate that word). And, hopefully, a cancer survivor (oh how I hate that term, too). The realization is paralyzing."

"Last night I was bombarded with vivid dreams. Most were of doctors saying I had to wait to have the cancer cut out. Or that I'm not that sick. You'd think I'd be happy with the last one. Instead, oddly, I fear that people would stop loving me if I was well."

"Funny, I had expected great profundities to come out of having cancer. But my thoughts are consumed with moving without pain, eating right, paying bills, staying healthy. It's very mundane, really. "

"Then, last week, I was gripped with a fear that I was going to die. Soon. I became obsessed with planning trips and activities I've always wanted to do."

And in the final diary entry, Allen reveals what cancer taught her. When Cancer Calls.

When your loved one is diagnosed with cancer, you will find many friends and family members will come forward and ask what they can do to help.

Lotsa Helping Hands has provided a way for the caregiver to coordinate volunteer services of friends, family, and neighbors that want to help with a private online group calendar -- as a one-stop webpage. All you have to do is sign up for a free account and using pre-designed template screens, enter information about the need for help with meals, rides, respite -- whatever your needs might be where others could pitch in and help.

Once you have your webpage set up and information entered, members of your Lotsa Helping Hand group calendar automatically receive an email about the site and the needs that have been listed. They can see the group calendar, and volunteer for whatever fits their own situation. Volunteers receive automatic confirmations and reminders of their commitments.

Lotsa Helping Hands and National Family Caregivers Association donate part of their profits to supporting women's health education and researching novel approaches to the early detection and treatment of women's cancers.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, has written a personal account of her breast cancer diagnosis, treatments and recovery in a new book called Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers.

During the presidential campaign, Elizabeth was in Wisconsin twelve days before Election Day 2004 when she found the lump in her breast. Few people knew of the possible breast cancer diagnosis to come, and the day John Kerry conceded the election to Bush, she was driven directly to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for a biopsy. She began cancer treatment almost immediately after the confirmation of breast cancer.