5 ways to support your friends with cancer, according to CNN’s Sara Sidner

(CNN) — What would you do if your best friend (or sister, aunt, daughter) told you she had breast cancer? Would you know how to support her — or even what to say?CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam faced that situation when her best friend from college, Ananda Lewis, a content creator and former MTV VJ, was diagnosed with the disease almost six years ago.Last year, it happened again when Elam’s close friend and work colleague, CNN anchor and Senior National Correspondent Sara Sidner, said she too had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Sidner announced it to the world in an emotional segment on live TV.Sidner and Lewis have a lot of company.  One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Early detection and better treatments have increased survival rates — there are more than 4 million breast cancer survivors in this country — but the disease is expected to kill more than 42,000 women in 2024. And there is a persistent mortality gap between Black and White women: While Black women have a 4% lower incidence rate than White women, they have a 40% higher...