The YSC produces a variety of educational materials which provide information on breast cancer in young women and the issues relevant to this population. Brochures: Changing the Face of Breast Cancer: Provides an overview of the YSC and its programs and outlines how, through Action, Advocacy and Awareness, the YSC works to change the face of breast cancer and increase the quality and quantity of life for all young women affected by breast cancer. Spanish version also available. YSC Educational Brochure -- "What Every Young Woman Needs to Know about Breast Cancer": Offers important information on young women and breast cancer including statistics and what a young woman should do if she feels a lump. This brochure is a resource for all young women and the members of the medical community who serve them. Spanish version also available. YSC ResourceLink Brochure -- Provides an overview of YSC's ResourceLink program, which provides peer support, information and resources to young women affected by breast cancer, their family and friends and health care professionals. Fact Sheets: YSC Fact Sheets provide basic and important information on young women and breast cancer and highlights some of the most critical issues affecting this population. The Fact Sheets give introductions to specific issues, answer the most common questions, and provide resources for further information. Fact Sheet Topics: Hereditary Breast Cancer Inflammatory Breast Cancer Young Women and Breast Cancer

DVDs/Videos:

YSC DVDs/videos are appropriate for young women at any stage of diagnosis, including those who are at increased risk but who have not been diagnosed with the disease, as well as their family members and caregivers. Medical professionals will find them informative and supportive and may want to use them as a resource for your patients and colleagues as well as place them in your medical center's resource libraries.

The Beautiful 8: Learning To Live with Advanced Breast Cancer

The YSC's newest educational DVD presents an intimate discussion among eight young women diagnosed with breast cancer. Join them on this journey filled with hope, fear, laughter, anxiety and determination to live life to the fullest. To order a copy, please send your full name and address to YWABC@youngsurvival.org or call 877-YSC-1011.

Fighting for Our Future

"Fighting for Our Future" is the only comprehensive survival guide for young women diagnosed with breast cancer, doctors, and caregivers. The Lifetime Television original documentary of the same name chronicles the lives of three young women with breast cancer and how they deal with issues such as dating and sexuality; fertility and pregnancy concerns; and mortality at a young age. It also chronicles the formation of the YSC and the movement behind young women and breast cancer.

This video also has a companion book entitled Fighting For Our Future.

You Are Not Alone

The YSC's educational video is an intimate conversation with six young women diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age. The companion resource guide, published in collaboration with the New York/Bronx division of the American Cancer Society, provides support, education, and hope for young women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Please note: a limited number of VHS tapes are available; contact info@youngsurvival.org for information.

Breast Cancer Legacy

"Breast Cancer Legacy" focuses on the role that genetics and family history play in young women affected by breast cancer. The documentary tells the story of four young women and their families while illustrating the psychological, medical, ethical and interpersonal issues these women face as they confront their family histories of cancer and make life-altering decisions about their futures.

In addition to the film, the YSC has created a fact sheet on hereditary breast cancer in conjunction with FORCE: Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered,a non profit organization focused on education of risk and family history of breast cancer.

Publications

Fighting for Our Future

The companion book to the film "Fighting For Our Future" is available from the YSC and in bookstores. "Fighting for Our Future" is the only comprehensive survival guide for young women diagnosed with breast cancer, doctors, and caregivers. The Lifetime Television original documentary of the same name chronicles the lives of young women with breast cancer and how they deal with issues such as dating and sexuality; fertility and pregnancy concerns; and mortality at a young age.

Young Perspective Newsletter

Our informative newsletter contains updates on how the YSC is carrying out its mission of improving the quality and quantity of life for young women affected by breast cancer through action, advocacy and awareness.

Survivorship is the new cancer buzz word -- and what an important word it is. Once left to each individual to define, manage, and transcend, survivorship is now recognized as a distinct phase of cancer recovery -- just as important, and maybe even more so, than diagnosis and treatment.

Linda Griggs, a 13-year breast cancer survivor, clearly remembers the day her chemotherapy ended. With her therapy complete, her hair growing back, and her medical team sending her off to have a nice life, she thought she'd be fine. But she wasn't.

Three months after her last dose of chemotherapy, Griggs was depressed, consumed with worry about how her cancer might come back. And she realized that the end of treatment is not really the end. It's just the beginning.

Griggs told her doctor about her anxiety, about how she was just trying to make it to her next three-month-check up. When her doctor told her, "that's not living," something clicked for Griggs who instantly decided to start living -- really living.

Surviving is about self-nurturing, says Griggs, who has created a kit to help others survive cancer. On her website, she writes that there are a couple of other breast cancer survivor kits out there -- containing tissues, herbal teas, meditation tapes, medical appointment books, and breast cancer resource materials.

"This is not that," she says of her kit that focuses on the emotional upheaval cancer creates.

Griggs' kit is full of hands-on creative materials -- like an inner child notebook, complete with magic markers for journaling and expressing emotions. If you're angry, you can write down angry thoughts. If you're sad, write what makes you sad. Save the pages, tear them up, burn them, do what you wish -- but allow your emotions to flow, Griggs says.

The kit also includes a wooden box with instructions on how to create a healing shrine, a copy of Griggs' non-fiction account of the first five years of her cancer journey, and so much more.

Griggs, who also teaches healing workshops, guides others to understand cancer as a hero's quest. She says when something happens to us -- death, divorce, disease -- we are receiving a call to adventure. All bet's are off. We must start fresh, gather our spirit guides, collect ourselves, dive into the underworld, overcome, and then emerge full of wisdom of growth.

Griggs has emerged -- full of her own wisdom and growth. She is a hero -- on a quest to help others survive a disease that threw her way off track for way too long.