My Cancer Story: From Patient to Peer Supporter to Sharsheret Leader

By Lisa Hofheimer

In 2002, I was 32 years old with two small children, a wonderful marriage to my husband, Josh, and a full life that definitely did not include cancer. I had just finished nursing Tommy, my one-year-old, and was chasing after Jake, who was three. So naturally, when I first felt something in my left breast, I assumed it was mastitis. I was nursing, after all.

And then, several weeks later, I felt it again.

It was like a lightning bolt hit me. I knew it was cancer.

Everything happened quickly from there: a lumpectomy, bilateral mastectomy, 18 weeks of chemotherapy, reconstruction, and a year of Herceptin through the BCIRG Phase III clinical trial. I had no idea what my future would look like or how much of it cancer would take from me. Being a patient became a full-time job, and between the appointments, surgeries, medications, and constant uncertainty, I was exhausted.

At night, after Jake and Tommy were asleep, I would stand over them, apologizing because I had missed so much of their day. I was frightened by what I did not know, exhausted by what I had to endure, and heartbroken that cancer seemed to be taking me away from the people I loved most.

For me, the hardest part was not the treatment itself, but the fear of what might happen next. My diagnosis changed everything: my relationship with my body, my family, my children, my sense of time, and the future I had assumed was mine to write.

Then, in 2003, I met Rochelle Shoretz, A”H, at a home in Beverlywood.

It was not a subtle introduction.

Rochelle was standing at a dining room table with a prosthetic breast, showing more than 20 women how to perform self-breast exams. I was immediately intrigued. Here was this Modern Orthodox Jewish woman, a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, using a prosthetic breast as a teaching tool in someone’s dining room. It was both surreal and unforgettable.

Then she explained what she was building: a peer-to-peer support network for young Jewish women facing breast cancer, using matching technology to connect women based on treatment choices, prognostic indicators, life stage, and the particular realities of their diagnoses.

I remember thinking: this is unbelievably brilliant.

Rochelle and I began speaking regularly. I had recently completed treatment, and helping other women was the only way I knew how to heal. I had been held through my own journey by a band of angels, friends and family who brought meals, prayed, visited, cared for my children, called, emailed, and simply showed up. I never wanted another woman to go through this alone.

I began volunteering with Sharsheret, becoming an early peer supporter. I spoke with women who were newly diagnosed and helped them feel less alone. Sometimes, those conversations were about treatment. Sometimes, they were about how to tell a child, how to parent through cancer, or how to ask for help. Often, they were simply about being there for someone at a moment when everything felt uncertain.

Then, in 2004, my cancer returned in my chest wall.

We were shattered.

Josh lost his father to colon cancer just before his sixteenth birthday, so my recurrence conjured painful memories and tremendous fear. We had done everything we were supposed to do. And still, the cancer was back. We worried that cancer would monopolize our future, that I would spend the rest of my life in treatment. The anxiety was profound.

Rochelle was one of the first people I called. Sharsheret helped Josh and me navigate further surgeries and radiation therapy. Twenty-two years later, I am still here, and still cancer-free.

At the time of my initial diagnosis, I was fortunate to enroll in a late-stage clinical trial studying Herceptin for women with HER2-positive breast cancer. Four and a half years later, the trial proved successful, and Herceptin became the standard of care for HER2-positive tumors.

That clinical trial helped save my life, and my relationship with Sharsheret deepened.

In late 2006, Herceptin was approved for use in the adjuvant setting. Over the next few years, Sharsheret connected me with countless women diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer. Each conversation reminded me that while cancer was something I never would have chosen, helping another woman feel less alone is something I deeply value.

It was Rochelle’s long-held dream to open a California office, so when Sharsheret expanded to the West Coast in 2016, I was honored to serve as a founding Co-Chair of its California Community Advisory Committee. Drawing on our experiences as survivor and caregiver, Josh and I have had the privilege of serving as trusted advisors and helping shape Sharsheret’s work locally and nationally.

Today, giving back to Sharsheret is something Josh and I share. Through the corporate giving program at his law firm, Sidley Austin LLP, Josh supports Sharsheret’s mission and the resources it provides to people and families facing cancer.

Josh and I are honored to serve as Grand Marshals of the 5th Annual West Coast Dash on October 25. We know firsthand what it means to need Sharsheret and what it means to give back.

Sharsheret understands something essential: cancer is never just medical. It is about children, spouses, fear, faith, identity, and the practical realities of trying to hold your life together while everything is upside down. From the beginning, Sharsheret gave me something I desperately needed: a place where I could show up exactly as I was.

When I think back to the young mother I was in 2002, I remember how frightened and overwhelmed I felt. I remember wondering how I could possibly be both a patient and a mother. I remember the uncertainty of recurrence and the fear that cancer would define my future.

But I also remember the devoted people who stood beside me.

I remember Rochelle.

I remember Sharsheret.

And I remember that I am never alone.