Recalibrating After Losing a Loved One to Cancer
- “Dukes of Hazzard” actor John Schneider, 64, and his new wife Dee Dee Sorvino, 57, fell in love after sharing the experience of losing a spouse.
- Sorvino lost her husband in 2022 from natural causes. Meanwhile, Schneider lost his wife Alicia to stage 4 (metastatic) breast cancer in 2023.
- Schneider and Sorvino both struggled with grief after losing their spouses. They admit they felt a sense of guilt loving again due to their deep love for their lost spouses.
- Losing a loved one to cancer is an incredibly emotional time that comes with grief. The grieving process comes in stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
“Dukes of Hazzard” actor John Schneider, 64, lost his wife, Alicia Schneider, to breast cancer last year. However, more than a year later, he’s found love again with someone who shared a similar heartache of losing a spouse. Now Schneider and his newly married wife admit they have something else in common: coping with guilt.
“I really actually felt guilty,” Schneider told Fox News Digital.
Read MoreView this post on Instagram
“I think because we did lose our spouses, and we were very happy in those relationships, you can’t help but feel guilt,” Dee Dee said.
John and Dee Dee tied the knot in July. John said he didn’t think he’d ever find love again after losing Alicia. He dealt with a great deal of grief after she died from metastatic breast cancer.
“The last thing I said to her was, ‘I love you desperately, and I’ve got multiple sets of very long-term plans for you,” Schneider told People Magazine.
“The notion that grief will ever go away is silly. Grief will never go away. It’s just something we learn to carry. And I’m learning,” he explained.
Schneider added, “People want to put some sort of a timeline on your grief. Grief is its very own animal.”
Both John and Dee Dee say their similar experiences with grief after losing spouses helped draw them together.
Coping After Loss
Understanding Alicia’s Diagnosis
Alicia was diagnosed with stage 4 (metastatic) HER2-negative breast cancer.
WATCH: Understanding treatment options for ‘HER2-low’ breast cancer.
HER2 is the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 protein found on the surface of most breast cancer cells. However, the levels of this protein can vary significantly from one patient to another.
Understanding a patient’s HER2 level can help doctors determine the best course of treatment.
The immunohistochemistry (IHC) test helps doctors determine the HER2 level.
A score of 0 indicates no protein expression (HER2-negative), while the highest score of +3 represents maximal expression.
Breast cancer cells with higher-than-normal levels of HER2 are called HER2-positive. About 15-20% of all breast tumors are HER2-positive. While they tend to grow faster, they are much more likely to respond to treatment with drugs that target the HER2 protein.
Tumors classified as HER2-negative may still have minimal HER2 expression, leading to a new classification called HER2-low.
Coping After Losing a Spouse to Cancer
Grief looks different from person to person. However, it often comes in stages, which include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These labels help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. These stages can also occur in any order.
The time it takes to navigate these stages can also vary, so it is essential to give yourself grace and patience while navigating your feelings.
WATCH: Coping with grief.
“It often gets better over time, but on certain days, it can look like depression, and on other days, people look perfectly normal and can function,” Dr. Scott Irwin, a board-certified psychiatrist and Director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet.
Dr. Irwin added that grieving people are coming to terms with “the change in their life; the future they had imagined is now different.”
In a column for SurvivorNet, New York-based clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin wrote that it may be helpful to remind yourself that these feelings are “meaningful yet temporary.”
“If you approach them with compassion, kindness, and eventually acceptance, you will come away from this period in your life more connected to your resilience and strength,” she wrote.
Tips to Improve Your Period of Grief
There are several ways to cope with the heartbreaking news of losing a loved one after an emotionally draining cancer battle. Below are some additional tips to help you.
- Talk to a therapist and share feelings you’re going through
- Have an open conversation with your spouse about the diagnosis
- Research the disease and learn about available treatment options
- Join a support group or connect with others who have gone through, or are going through, the same experience
- Spend time with your spouse and have consistent conversations about how you both are feeling
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
