BUST FREE WITH...
BUSTING LOOSE: CANCER SURVIVORS
TELL YOU WHAT DOCTORS WON'T
Available from Amazon and your local bookstores
Special offer for the holidays at http://www.cherylswanson.net/
EXCERPT
Why It’s So Good to be Bad
No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.
-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
She smiled, or I never would have met her.
She wasn’t smiling at me; she was smiling at her own wit in the pages of an article she was editing. The woman had great cheekbones and nice features ruled by huge blue eyes. In spite of what chemotherapy had done to her appearance, she looked younger than forty-two.
I said hello and knelt to pet the golden Labrador retriever dozing at her feet. I’d just finished a follow-up appointment and my rumbling stomach had sent me to a San Francisco dockside café. The tables were crowded with investment bankers and tech-heads discussing how to make a million bucks that afternoon. There were also a few patients undergoing cancer treatment at the nearby hospital—including Julia, who I soon found out was also a writer.
I didn’t plan to sit with Julia, partly because I am shy and partly because she was sitting in direct sunlight. Like me, her head wasn’t covered and I could almost smell the UV rays sizzling off her bald skull.
“Chemo is a bitch, isn’t it,” she said casually, as I stroked the Lab’s velvety head.
I’m not sitting with you, I thought. I’ll find a table in the shade.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” She smiled a private smile.
“What feels good?” As if magnetized, my fingers kept rumpling the Lab’s soft fur.
Her smile got broader. “Hair.”
The Lab’s name was Riddles. Riddles’ owner snapped shut her writing notebook and asked me to join her. And I did, although you are never supposed to sit in the sun, no matter how good it feels, not in the middle of chemotherapy. Not only does chemotherapy treatment make the skin photo-sensitive, but if you’ve recently lost your hair, you’re exposing skin that hasn’t seen the light of day since you were a baby. And I had just lost my long hair—most of it literally blowing off my skull one day when I went outside, and the rest of it shaved off two days later.
But this was Julia and Julia did that to people. When you were with Julia, the rules didn’t apply. So I sat down with her and ordered pastrami on rye. We chatted about my novel and her series of articles on her father, who had been a southern poet of some note.
I ran into Julia several times after that. It wasn’t long before I found out that she was in a marriage that was more toxic than any chemotherapy. Her husband had reacted to her cancer by telling her that her she looked like a freak and her appearance disgusted him. When she burst into tears, he told her she might as well get it over with and die.
“No matter what, I’m going to live long enough to divorce that bastard,” she told me. “He’s been cheating on me because he thinks I’m helpless, going through chemotherapy. He’ll change his mind when my lawyer gets done with him.”
Starting divorce proceedings in the midst of chemotherapy is hardly an action a therapist would recommend. But I couldn’t help but notice that Julia found it liberating. She was the type of person who was not afraid to go into the darkness alone.
One thing I learned from during my treatment is that cancer makes good marriages better and bad marriages worse. I also learned there are lots of ways women empower themselves to get through the ordeal of cancer treatment. Humor works and so does faith and optimism.
So does consulting the dark side of ourselves.
I don’t mean turning into an avant-garde version of a character in Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. I don’t mean becoming a madwoman, getting into a fistfight with a saleslady, or staring down at the bottom of a whisky glass with cigarette smoke swirling. I don’t mean overeating for months, or dumping our work on someone else.
I mean not being afraid to walk away from someone who is brutal to us—even if that someone is our spouse. I mean valuing our own dignity and insisting that others not treat us cruelly.
Let’s be honest. Implicit in society’s definition of us as a “breast cancer victim” is the concept that we can be easily controlled. Breast cancer patients are sick, weak, vulnerable, and powerless—so the world thinks. At the hospital we’re expected to be passive and dependent “good patients,” who don’t rock the boat.
Dealing with the “cancer patient” stereotype can subvert a survivor’s attempt to conquer their illness. It can also give a woman who is struggling to get through a devastating illness a feeling of relentless, inevitable doom. Learning to release anger on the other hand can have great rehabilitation benefits. Righteous anger in the midst of cancer brings a great, wild joy at being alive.
What Julia taught me was that retaining our life in the midst of a crisis requires the ability to be dark, rebellious and full of “bad thoughts.” We have to give free rein to our self-protective instincts—no matter where they lead us. And even if those instincts, frankly, terrify us.
Julia’s husband refused to end his affair and he continued to abuse her. It took her almost two years, but Julia finally divorced him. Her chemotherapy infusions were useful to her, not just in curing her disease, but on an emotional level. Toxic material siphoned into her veins became toxic anger she funneled into liberating herself.
Julia’s marriage and cancer treatment ended about the same time and she’s made a good recovery from both. These days, she’s out there taking risks, enjoying being a “bad girl,” not sitting around the house ironing her husband’s shirts so he can look good when he sneaks around with other women.
“You can’t have everything,” she told me recently, with a wicked laugh. “But you can try. Oh, you can try.” And so Julia tries. And so should we all.
Julia is the wild woman of breast cancer and her numbers are legion. Like Julia, these women have something important and simple to teach us. Allow access to all parts of yourself—all the animals within, from lioness to lamb. Be all you need to be to survive. Be good, because that makes you happy. Be strong, because you life is just beginning, not ending. And don’t be afraid of your dark side. Because sometimes, it’s oh so good to be bad.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
The True Value of Mammograms
Who ever thought up the word, “Mammogram?” Every time I hear it, I think I’m supposed to put my breast in an envelope and mail it somewhere. -Jasmine, breast cancer survivor
American women face a peculiar danger with mammograms. We risk succumbing to the notion getting regular mammograms somehow prevents breast cancer. “There’s almost, I think, a magical belief that getting regular mammography may prevent breast cancer. This is something I’ve experienced myself as a patient,” said Dr. Susan Bennett, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. “Sort of this ‘clean-bill-of-health’ concept that it (a mammogram) will give you a sort of ‘inoculation’ against the disease.”
When a respected doctor ‘fesses up’ like this, it’s time to start rethinking the purpose of mammographic screening. Not only do mammograms not prevent cancer, mammograms completely miss 15 to 25 percent of breast cancer. And 80 percent of what looks suspicious on a mammogram turns out not to be cancer, according to the 2005 American Cancer Society Report.
Mammograms are particularly ineffective when women have dense breasts. A mammogram depicts dense tissue as white, so a dense breast will produce a predominantly white mammogram. Breast masses are also white. Picking out a small white spot (which may be cancerous) against a predominantly white background is like finding a snowball in a blizzard. The inability to identify cancerous masses in dense tissue is what makes mammograms so notoriously inaccurate on younger women.
Breast cancer is not a textbook cancer, where indications are clearly given and treatments are well agreed upon. A woman can think she doesn’t have breast cancer because she’s not fully informed about all the possible warning signs of breast cancer. She may have a symptom that usually signals a benign situation, but in her case it signals a problem.
There is strong evidence that routine mammography for women in their 50s and older reduces the breast cancer death rate, but the benefit of screening women in their 40s remains a subject of intense medical dispute. Recently the National Cancer Institute stopped advising routine mammograms for women under 50, however the American Cancer Society advises women to receive screenings in their 40’s. Outside the United States (in Canada and most European countries), yearly mammograms are generally recommended only for women above the age of fifty.
There are things we can all do to get the best out of mammograms—however imperfect they are as a screening method. Try to go to the same facility every year. If you can’t, make sure the new facility has copies of your old mammograms. Doing so will help avoid false positives and make it easier for changes in your breast tissue to be quickly detected.
In addition, insist on getting the results of the mammogram in writing. Most facilities will mail a report, but don’t assume everything was okay if you don’t receive one. Contact the facility and request the report be mailed.
Finally, don’t fall into the trap of relying strictly on mammograms. Be sure to get a yearly clinical breast exam and keep alert to any changes in appearance or feeling in your breasts. Mammograms save lives, but if a breast lump is felt, a negative mammogram is meaningless. The woman can still have breast cancer.
Excerpted from Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't by Cheryl Swanson
American women face a peculiar danger with mammograms. We risk succumbing to the notion getting regular mammograms somehow prevents breast cancer. “There’s almost, I think, a magical belief that getting regular mammography may prevent breast cancer. This is something I’ve experienced myself as a patient,” said Dr. Susan Bennett, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. “Sort of this ‘clean-bill-of-health’ concept that it (a mammogram) will give you a sort of ‘inoculation’ against the disease.”
When a respected doctor ‘fesses up’ like this, it’s time to start rethinking the purpose of mammographic screening. Not only do mammograms not prevent cancer, mammograms completely miss 15 to 25 percent of breast cancer. And 80 percent of what looks suspicious on a mammogram turns out not to be cancer, according to the 2005 American Cancer Society Report.
Mammograms are particularly ineffective when women have dense breasts. A mammogram depicts dense tissue as white, so a dense breast will produce a predominantly white mammogram. Breast masses are also white. Picking out a small white spot (which may be cancerous) against a predominantly white background is like finding a snowball in a blizzard. The inability to identify cancerous masses in dense tissue is what makes mammograms so notoriously inaccurate on younger women.
Breast cancer is not a textbook cancer, where indications are clearly given and treatments are well agreed upon. A woman can think she doesn’t have breast cancer because she’s not fully informed about all the possible warning signs of breast cancer. She may have a symptom that usually signals a benign situation, but in her case it signals a problem.
There is strong evidence that routine mammography for women in their 50s and older reduces the breast cancer death rate, but the benefit of screening women in their 40s remains a subject of intense medical dispute. Recently the National Cancer Institute stopped advising routine mammograms for women under 50, however the American Cancer Society advises women to receive screenings in their 40’s. Outside the United States (in Canada and most European countries), yearly mammograms are generally recommended only for women above the age of fifty.
There are things we can all do to get the best out of mammograms—however imperfect they are as a screening method. Try to go to the same facility every year. If you can’t, make sure the new facility has copies of your old mammograms. Doing so will help avoid false positives and make it easier for changes in your breast tissue to be quickly detected.
In addition, insist on getting the results of the mammogram in writing. Most facilities will mail a report, but don’t assume everything was okay if you don’t receive one. Contact the facility and request the report be mailed.
Finally, don’t fall into the trap of relying strictly on mammograms. Be sure to get a yearly clinical breast exam and keep alert to any changes in appearance or feeling in your breasts. Mammograms save lives, but if a breast lump is felt, a negative mammogram is meaningless. The woman can still have breast cancer.
Excerpted from Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Your Doctor Won't by Cheryl Swanson
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
Busting Loose: Cancer Survivors Tell You What Doctors Won't
Ignorance and Poverty Are Carcinogens (Excerpt from Busting Loose)
Socioeconomic factors, such as access to healthcare, education and income—and not race—are predictive of how likely a woman is to die from breast cancer. -Chaundre K. Cross, MD, of Harvard Medical School
Impoverished women are often blamed for turning a blind eye to cancer symptoms until it’s too late. Sometimes these women don’t know anything about breast cancer. Others simply don’t have a doctor. Unbelievable as it seems, both still happen.
In addition, impoverished women often won’t visit a medical office until they are too sick to be helped because they believe a doctor won’t listen to them. When the self-esteem is injured by poverty and lack of opportunities in life, it’s easy to assume that authority figures (such as doctors), will shame and ridicule. It makes complete sense, on one level. Criticism and ridicule have followed these women all the days of their lives—so why should they believe cancer will change anything?
In the comparatively wealthy area of San Francisco where I used to live, 80 percent of breast cancer diagnoses are made in the early stages. Go north ten miles, to a neighborhood like ghetto-ridden Hunter’s Point, and only 40 percent are early stage cancers. The mortality rate is much higher in these neighborhoods, mostly because the disease has advanced further before treatment.
This holds true all over the United States and the problem gets worse as the disease progresses. Those who are under-treated for cancer pain fall into one of two groups: racial minorities and the elderly. There are medications available to help these patients. But they don’t get them or even hear about them. Many also receive sub-optimal treatment, to the point where their chance of survival is minimal.
Most women who live in poverty are high achievers and have more inner strength—need I even say this?—than a hundred wealthy women. They don’t employ others to manage their homes or children; instead they are typically the sole caretakers of a large, extended family. In particular, impoverished minority women are the ultimate earth mothers, taking in their terminally ill father, grieving the untimely death of their mothers, while surviving job loss and depression. (For one of my friends, all that happened before she reached age twenty-seven.)
We live in a world where the voices of the poor are seldom heard. Where minority women have to plead and scramble for every crumb of attention. It’s no wonder these women fear being ignored or considered a whiner or complainer if they ask a doctor to check on something as “apparently commonplace” as a lump in their breast?
The upshot of this unequal situation is that social and economic status is one of the biggest factors in determining breast cancer survival. For example, African-American women have the highest death rates from breast cancer of any ethnic group in the United States. But research shows that there is nothing in their genetic background that causes the discrepancy. In fact, black women are actually less likely to be diagnosed with cancer than Caucasian women. And when African-American women receive appropriate medical treatment their survival rate is at least as good as that of Caucasian women. No, it is the disparity in the time of diagnosis and treatment afterwards that causes the difference in mortality rates.
The terrible impact of poverty and lack of education on breast cancer mortality impacts women from all cultures. In the Hispanic community, promotoras often try in vain to help women become less secretive about breast lumps. These health educators focus on Hispanic women of lower socioeconomic status, because among these groups a breast self-exam is often considered improper. In addition, Hispanic women who have entered the country illegally often fear they will be reported to immigration if they seek medical help in the United States. The result is that the death rate from breast cancer is rising faster for Hispanic women than for any other female ethnic group.
Organizations such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation are putting millions behind the effort to reduce the inequalities in screening and treatment access. A national program offered by the YWCA (Encore Plus) reaches out to women who face obstacles to breast and health services. Encore provides free mammograms, advocacy and referrals, as well as information and support services for breast cancer survivors in English and Spanish.
In addition, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). The program provides breast and cervical cancer screenings and treatment to low-income women. All 50 states offer these services NBCCEDP, since 2000 when the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act passed. If a woman gets a mammogram through this program, and it turns out she has breast cancer, the NBCCEDP can pay for her treatment, too. And as of May 2004, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to provide free treatment through the program as well.
To get breast cancer care through the program, you must: get your mammogram through the CDC NBCCEDP and need treatment for breast cancer (You qualify if your mammogram shows a pre-invasive condition, too), not have health insurance that covers breast cancer care, not qualify for the Medicaid program in any other way, be under age 65 (so that you can't get Medicare), and be a U. S. citizen or a "qualified alien."
There are additional programs and organizations listed in the “Helpful Organizations Glossary,” at the end of this book. Many programs offer free medicine, free long distance travel, free or low-cost care at certain centers and free breast cancer screening. Programs such as these are trying to reduce the disparity, but much more could be done. Equal access to quality breast cancer care remains a huge problem.
Socioeconomic factors, such as access to healthcare, education and income—and not race—are predictive of how likely a woman is to die from breast cancer. -Chaundre K. Cross, MD, of Harvard Medical School
Impoverished women are often blamed for turning a blind eye to cancer symptoms until it’s too late. Sometimes these women don’t know anything about breast cancer. Others simply don’t have a doctor. Unbelievable as it seems, both still happen.
In addition, impoverished women often won’t visit a medical office until they are too sick to be helped because they believe a doctor won’t listen to them. When the self-esteem is injured by poverty and lack of opportunities in life, it’s easy to assume that authority figures (such as doctors), will shame and ridicule. It makes complete sense, on one level. Criticism and ridicule have followed these women all the days of their lives—so why should they believe cancer will change anything?
In the comparatively wealthy area of San Francisco where I used to live, 80 percent of breast cancer diagnoses are made in the early stages. Go north ten miles, to a neighborhood like ghetto-ridden Hunter’s Point, and only 40 percent are early stage cancers. The mortality rate is much higher in these neighborhoods, mostly because the disease has advanced further before treatment.
This holds true all over the United States and the problem gets worse as the disease progresses. Those who are under-treated for cancer pain fall into one of two groups: racial minorities and the elderly. There are medications available to help these patients. But they don’t get them or even hear about them. Many also receive sub-optimal treatment, to the point where their chance of survival is minimal.
Most women who live in poverty are high achievers and have more inner strength—need I even say this?—than a hundred wealthy women. They don’t employ others to manage their homes or children; instead they are typically the sole caretakers of a large, extended family. In particular, impoverished minority women are the ultimate earth mothers, taking in their terminally ill father, grieving the untimely death of their mothers, while surviving job loss and depression. (For one of my friends, all that happened before she reached age twenty-seven.)
We live in a world where the voices of the poor are seldom heard. Where minority women have to plead and scramble for every crumb of attention. It’s no wonder these women fear being ignored or considered a whiner or complainer if they ask a doctor to check on something as “apparently commonplace” as a lump in their breast?
The upshot of this unequal situation is that social and economic status is one of the biggest factors in determining breast cancer survival. For example, African-American women have the highest death rates from breast cancer of any ethnic group in the United States. But research shows that there is nothing in their genetic background that causes the discrepancy. In fact, black women are actually less likely to be diagnosed with cancer than Caucasian women. And when African-American women receive appropriate medical treatment their survival rate is at least as good as that of Caucasian women. No, it is the disparity in the time of diagnosis and treatment afterwards that causes the difference in mortality rates.
The terrible impact of poverty and lack of education on breast cancer mortality impacts women from all cultures. In the Hispanic community, promotoras often try in vain to help women become less secretive about breast lumps. These health educators focus on Hispanic women of lower socioeconomic status, because among these groups a breast self-exam is often considered improper. In addition, Hispanic women who have entered the country illegally often fear they will be reported to immigration if they seek medical help in the United States. The result is that the death rate from breast cancer is rising faster for Hispanic women than for any other female ethnic group.
Organizations such as the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation are putting millions behind the effort to reduce the inequalities in screening and treatment access. A national program offered by the YWCA (Encore Plus) reaches out to women who face obstacles to breast and health services. Encore provides free mammograms, advocacy and referrals, as well as information and support services for breast cancer survivors in English and Spanish.
In addition, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) runs the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). The program provides breast and cervical cancer screenings and treatment to low-income women. All 50 states offer these services NBCCEDP, since 2000 when the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act passed. If a woman gets a mammogram through this program, and it turns out she has breast cancer, the NBCCEDP can pay for her treatment, too. And as of May 2004, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to provide free treatment through the program as well.
To get breast cancer care through the program, you must: get your mammogram through the CDC NBCCEDP and need treatment for breast cancer (You qualify if your mammogram shows a pre-invasive condition, too), not have health insurance that covers breast cancer care, not qualify for the Medicaid program in any other way, be under age 65 (so that you can't get Medicare), and be a U. S. citizen or a "qualified alien."
There are additional programs and organizations listed in the “Helpful Organizations Glossary,” at the end of this book. Many programs offer free medicine, free long distance travel, free or low-cost care at certain centers and free breast cancer screening. Programs such as these are trying to reduce the disparity, but much more could be done. Equal access to quality breast cancer care remains a huge problem.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
FREE BOOK FOR BREAST CANCER SUPPORT GROUPS
Thanks to a supportive publisher, I'm able to offer a free copy of BUSTING LOOSE: CANCER SURVIVORS TELL YOU WHAT YOUR DOCTOR WON'T to any group of breast cancer sisters out there, so long as you have a real live group. (All we ask is that you talk the book up!)
The book was designed to be perfect for book clubs and study groups, because it's broken down into 80 meaty (and short) chapters. Many are funny, some are touching and all are highly informative.
Drop an email for more information to: bobz_publishing@livecom.net
Chapter titles:
PART I: DIAGNOSIS: BRACE YOURSELF
1. Kill Fear before it Kills You
2. Plan for the Best, not the Worst
3. Myths and Old Wives’ Tales
4. Ignorance and Poverty Are Carcinogens
5. The True Value of Mammograms
6. Best Doctor in the World, Please Apply
7. Part Scientist, Part Alchemist and Part Shaman
8. Wild Women and Bad Girls: It’s So Good to be Bad
9. Nothing Wrong with Nuts
10. Macho Never Means Mucho
11. Cancer Idiots: How to Handle Them
12. Life Partners
13. Cancer Confidants
14. Stop Asking: “Why me?”
15. Turn Off the @#$%^TV!
16. Write Yourself Well
17. Tame Career and Personal Stress
18. Do You Have the Life Instinct?
19. Dangerous Cultural Taboos
20. Kissing Momma’s Boo-Boo
21. Breaking the Chain
22. My Sister, My Mother, Myself
23. Passing a Milestone
PART II: TREATMENT: ENTERING THE LABYRINTH
24. Tests and More Tests
25. Slow and Steady Wins the Race
26. Medical Dis-Appointments
27. Become an Expert on Your Disease
28. Hospital Hell
29. Lumpectomy or Mastectomy?
30. Get a Second Opinion
31. You and Your Breast Surgeon
32. Prophylactic Mastectomy
33. Immediate Breast Reconstruction
34. Plastic Surgery Choices
35. Sentinel Node Biopsy
36. Medical Errors: Don’t Be a Victim
37. Ignore the Survival Statistics
38. Thrive on Risk
39. Clinical Trials
40. No Such Thing as Incurable
41. Stay Abreast of New Therapies
42. Get the Most out of your HMO
43. Flip-a-Coin Medical Treatment
44. Cancer Support Groups
45. Only Dread Life One Day at a Time
46. Make it Stop Hurting
47. Pain Without Suffering
48. How Not to Pay the Bill
49. Uninsured? Get Help With Medical Expenses
50. Know Your Employment Rights
51. The Best Treatment Facilities
52. The Long-Term Benefits of Chemotherapy
53. Big Advances in Hormonal Therapies
54. How To Outlive Your Oncologist
55. I Just Need to Lie Down
56. Listen to Your Body
57. Alternative Therapies
58. Hawaiian Approaches to Disease
59. Just Say “No!”
60. Go Cold Turkey On Stress
61. Cry All Your Tears
PART III: RECOVERY: Lessons Learned
62. Get Used to Feeling Out of Control
63. Where in Hell Can I Find a Bathing Suit?
64. Break a Sweat, Not your Bones
65. Sex Thieves
66. Hormone Replacement Therapy
67. Eat Like a Bad Girl and Still Get Healthy
68. Rethink Pink
69. Ending Cancer in the Community
70. Attila the Hun, I’m Home
71. Fall in Love Again
72. Organic Healing
73. Prevail Against Recurrence
74. Push the Limits
75. Motherhood After Cancer
76. Cleanse Your Memory
77. Keep the Faith
78. Laugh and Grow Strong
79. The End Game
80. Recreation—as in Re-creation
81. Don’t Count Out Miracles
82. Create Your Own Descanso
83. Recovery and Renewal
Glossary of Helpful Organizations
The book was designed to be perfect for book clubs and study groups, because it's broken down into 80 meaty (and short) chapters. Many are funny, some are touching and all are highly informative.
Drop an email for more information to: bobz_publishing@livecom.net
Chapter titles:
PART I: DIAGNOSIS: BRACE YOURSELF
1. Kill Fear before it Kills You
2. Plan for the Best, not the Worst
3. Myths and Old Wives’ Tales
4. Ignorance and Poverty Are Carcinogens
5. The True Value of Mammograms
6. Best Doctor in the World, Please Apply
7. Part Scientist, Part Alchemist and Part Shaman
8. Wild Women and Bad Girls: It’s So Good to be Bad
9. Nothing Wrong with Nuts
10. Macho Never Means Mucho
11. Cancer Idiots: How to Handle Them
12. Life Partners
13. Cancer Confidants
14. Stop Asking: “Why me?”
15. Turn Off the @#$%^TV!
16. Write Yourself Well
17. Tame Career and Personal Stress
18. Do You Have the Life Instinct?
19. Dangerous Cultural Taboos
20. Kissing Momma’s Boo-Boo
21. Breaking the Chain
22. My Sister, My Mother, Myself
23. Passing a Milestone
PART II: TREATMENT: ENTERING THE LABYRINTH
24. Tests and More Tests
25. Slow and Steady Wins the Race
26. Medical Dis-Appointments
27. Become an Expert on Your Disease
28. Hospital Hell
29. Lumpectomy or Mastectomy?
30. Get a Second Opinion
31. You and Your Breast Surgeon
32. Prophylactic Mastectomy
33. Immediate Breast Reconstruction
34. Plastic Surgery Choices
35. Sentinel Node Biopsy
36. Medical Errors: Don’t Be a Victim
37. Ignore the Survival Statistics
38. Thrive on Risk
39. Clinical Trials
40. No Such Thing as Incurable
41. Stay Abreast of New Therapies
42. Get the Most out of your HMO
43. Flip-a-Coin Medical Treatment
44. Cancer Support Groups
45. Only Dread Life One Day at a Time
46. Make it Stop Hurting
47. Pain Without Suffering
48. How Not to Pay the Bill
49. Uninsured? Get Help With Medical Expenses
50. Know Your Employment Rights
51. The Best Treatment Facilities
52. The Long-Term Benefits of Chemotherapy
53. Big Advances in Hormonal Therapies
54. How To Outlive Your Oncologist
55. I Just Need to Lie Down
56. Listen to Your Body
57. Alternative Therapies
58. Hawaiian Approaches to Disease
59. Just Say “No!”
60. Go Cold Turkey On Stress
61. Cry All Your Tears
PART III: RECOVERY: Lessons Learned
62. Get Used to Feeling Out of Control
63. Where in Hell Can I Find a Bathing Suit?
64. Break a Sweat, Not your Bones
65. Sex Thieves
66. Hormone Replacement Therapy
67. Eat Like a Bad Girl and Still Get Healthy
68. Rethink Pink
69. Ending Cancer in the Community
70. Attila the Hun, I’m Home
71. Fall in Love Again
72. Organic Healing
73. Prevail Against Recurrence
74. Push the Limits
75. Motherhood After Cancer
76. Cleanse Your Memory
77. Keep the Faith
78. Laugh and Grow Strong
79. The End Game
80. Recreation—as in Re-creation
81. Don’t Count Out Miracles
82. Create Your Own Descanso
83. Recovery and Renewal
Glossary of Helpful Organizations
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Cancer Survivors Guide Due Out in Two Days
Well, here it is...the cover of my cancer survivor's guide. Not quite out there yet...but so close. Much more on this later.
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