“She is alive in my heart and in the hearts of all who knew her and loved her,” writes news anchor Anderson Cooper, who commemorated the one year anniversary since his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, passed away from stomach cancer. In the span of a year, CNN’s Cooper lost his mom and had a son via a surrogate. So much loss and joy.
Famous heiress, artist, fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, 95, passed way in 2019 after a battle with advanced stomach cancer. In honor of this one year milestone since her death, her son, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, shared a touching tribute in his mother’s honor.
Read MoreNavigating A Stomach Cancer Diagnosis
While Vanderbilt battled cancer, Cooper kept her diagnosis relatively quiet from the public eye by not sharing the specifics of his mother's cancer type and course of treatment beyond the fact that it was advanced stomach cancer that had spread.
If diagnosed at an early stage, stomach cancer is very treatable (with a five-year-survival rate of around 68 percent). The treatment usually involves a combination of surgery and chemotherapy. When diagnosed at later stages, however, especially stage IV, at which the stomach cancer has spread to distant sites in the body, stomach cancer becomes much more difficult to treat and is usually considered incurable.
At advanced stages, surgery and chemotherapy are unlikely to cure the cancer, but they may be given to alleviate symptoms and keep the cancer from spreading further. Depending on the individual characteristics of the cancer, several other therapies might be an option, too. For HER2-positive cancers, for instance, the hormone therapy Herceptin (trastuzumab) may be given, and for some stomach cancers, the immunotherapy drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) may be given as well.
Survivor Amy Armstrong explains why she had her stomach removed to prevent a cancer diagnosis
Coping With Losing A Parent To Cancer
When Camila Legaspi was in high school, she lost her mother to breast cancer. Naturally, the experience of watching her mom face the disease took a huge toll on her emotionally. Having a parent go through cancer, especially at such a young age, is incredibly challenging for the whole family.
Related: Sadness Is Not Always A Bad Thing Coping After Losing A Parent To Cancer
So after her mom, Gabriela, passed away Camila decided to start seeing a therapist and told SurvivorNet that having someone there to simply talk things through with made a huge difference and really helped her to appreciate all the great things she still had in her life.
Camila Legaspi coped with her mother passing away from breast cancer by starting therapy
"Therapy saved my life," she said. "I was dealing with some really intense anxiety and depression at that point. It just changed my life because I was so drained by all the negativity that was going on. Going to a therapist helped me realize that there was still so much out there for me … that I still had my family, that I still had my siblings."
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