Why We Love It

In our interview, author of Breasts: A Relatively Brief Relationship, Jean Hannah Edelstein recommends the best gift for a loved one in cancer treatment is time spent with them. And after that, she says, it's cash, "which I think some people will think is tacky, but I don’t." She says, "A few of my friends who live far away did a little collection and basically sent me some cash. I was fortunate in that I had good health insurance and I'm financially stable. My cancer had a relatively limited effect on my financial situation. That said, as everyone knows, going through treatment just incurs costs that are not expected, that you haven't budgeted for. My friends got me this little slush fund. It meant that for those expenses that mount up—like when I was buying a coffee because I was waiting for an appointment, or I needed an Uber, or I was paying for more babysitting than usual—I had a fund where I could do that. I could be a little bit more indulgent and less focused on how much everything was costing."