Breast Cancer Questions With Dr. Susan Love

I know October is over, you're busy with the holidays, but take some time to explore some of these common questions and listen to Dr. Love's calm and clear answers about breast cancer risk provided by Health.com. These short videos are separated by subject and each are maybe a couple minutes long. Staying informed is the best way to protect yourself. Wishing you health and happy holidays. DB

Breast Cancer Questions With Dr. Susan Love

Screening has little impact on breast cancer deaths: Study

Screening has little impact on breast cancer deaths: Study


Careful, Ladies. Take your cue for how to take care of your breasts from Susan Love's Army of Women (see Links) or other breast cancer awareness organizations. Breast cancer diagnosis is a comprehensive process, one that starts with you. Yeah, you.

Leigh Hurst, a young breast cancer survivor, from the homeland, Pennsylvania, founded an awareness campaign whose message is: Feel Your Boobies (I've added this important campaign to my Links). It's a simple and smart idea--awareness starts when you get to know your boobs! It's your body--take charge! The shower is the best place to get to know your girls. Are they lumpy? Do they feel like a bag of peas? Is the tissue smooth? And ask your doctor--"do I have dense breast tissue?"

If you have dense breast tissue, imaging, via mammogram can be more challenging--the image may be less clear. Since more women diagnosed with breast cancer have no history of the cancer in their family, we all have to be vigilant.  Follow your physician's guidelines and have a look at the links provided on this page.

We want to kick breast cancer's ass. We want a cure--but that cure starts with you. As someone who has been there and done that, I still advocate for imaging.

Suzanne Somers Puts the "Dumb" Back in "Blond" Part 2

Suzanne Somers' grim forecast for what happens to women who are aging naturally (rather than artificially replacing their hormones and trips to the plastic surgeon's fountain of youth):

1). You can't sleep.
2). You gain weight.
3). [Your partner] (she said "men"--I'm saying partner) goes out and finds the younger version of you.

Does this make you feel more empowered? No? Me neither.

Somers predicts that if you allow yourself to age naturally, you're going to be a fat insomniac. Oh, and your partner is going to leave your fat ass.

Actually, that was the point where I wanted to kick my TV for saying bad things out loud.

Somers' message:  Those of us, over 50, are headed for Sleepless In (Name Your Town), unless we sign up for a bunch of hormones.  Ms. Somers prescribes a regimen, a bunch of pills, a cornucopia of pills, to make us become "hormonally balanced." When has that ever occurred?! I don't know about you, but my hormones have never stood in a straight line.

Researchers continue to find threads that link HRT to certain cancers.

Here's the thing:  Ms. Somers is stuck at pretty. Never mind confidence, the sexiest trait any woman can possess.  Forget smart. Forget fierce. Forget wisdom, courage, and influence.  It's easy to see that Ms. Somers does not see any value in aging women.  And, let's face it--we are all aging!

Oh, um, by the way, excuse me, Ms. Sommers, You've aged!  But it's ok.  Aging is a privilege.

"I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament."  ~Alanis Morissette, quoted in Reader's Digest, March 2000

Thank you, Ms. Morissette!

The SCAR Project by artist David Jay

This documentary and the images of these young breast cancer survivors shows vividly and honestly the scars survivors carry and their determination to move forward. Brave project--valourous women.

The SCAR Project, and inspired still image and documentary project, honors the valour of these young breast cancer survivors. These images show strength, resolve and a way forward.

Suzanne Somers Puts the "Dumb" Back in "Blond" Part I

Suzanne Somers appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan's talk show tonight crowing about her anti-aging, hormonal injected, sixty-supplements-a-day, organic food, tequila drinking secret to curing cancer and reversing aging. The sixty-four-year-old actress who played Chrissy Snow, the blond tool from the 70's show "Three's Company,"believes herself to be the voice in the wilderness calling all of us cancer patients and survivors from our heavy slumber. Her stage IV ego is matched by her ignorant assumption that she speaks for the cancer community.

Somers said that those of us who choose traditional cancer treatment are passive victims of a two billion dollar business. While she admitted that chemotherapy cures some cancers--she cited Lance Armstrong's cure--she personally believes that for the rest of us it is a chemo for dollars scam by the medical establishment. She insists that chemo is not a cure for breast cancer (and she would know 'cause she's a celebrity, right?).

But here's the part where I wanted to punch her fat, lumpy, stem-cell transplanted face:  she insists that those of us who have had chemotherapy have permanently altered or damaged DNA--that every cell in our body carries what she referred to as a little kerosene that will eventually start a smouldering grassfire of cancer. She condescendingly looked into the camera's lens and suggested that those of us who chose traditional medicine, who dragged ourselves to chemo, wigs and ball caps warming our bald heads, are now ticking time bombs.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer (2004) she refused the chemo, radiation and the after-breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen that "the rest of us," poor bitches we, have invested in. According to  Somers, we cancer survivors have chosen to age.  But she's the one that's clueless.

Isn't aging the side-effect of living longer?

My medical team and I worked together on my treatment. Back on that dark day of diagnosis, my rock star oncologist told me, "We're going for cure." Like many of you, I didn't blindly or passively accept their prescription. I sought second opinions. I chose my surgeon and treatment center. My med team saved my life. I was wide awake while I made the choices that became an investment in the rest of my life. How dare this goofy actress suggest that we--all of us cancer survivors--are sleeping?!

Check back for Part II: "Suzanne Somers Thinks She's Not Aging"

Forget the Fog: Take Back Your Brain

Reclaim your brain!Yeah, chemo is hard on your brain. During treatment I used to joke, "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" But after completing breast cancer treatment in 2009, I started exercising, added piano lessons and then enrolled in a competitive grad school program, taking on new brain challenges, exercising these mind muscles in the same manner that Lance Armstrong reclaimed his physical body after cancer and treatment, driving himself harder, winning races, proving that it is possible to do a 180 after cancer treatment. Be good to yourself, but take on new challenges.

HEALTH   | May 04, 2011 Well: Chemo Brain May Last 5 Years or More  By TARA PARKER-POPE "Chemo brain," the foggy thinking and forgetfulness that cancer patients often complain about after treatment, may last for five years or more for a sizable percentage of patients, new research shows.

Copyright 2011  The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

Small Wonder

Here is Sara, draped in rosy velvet, wielding the powers of a child's imagination and goodness.

Here is Athena, Greek warrior and goddess, celebrating her victory after battling the great dragon, having hurled its twisted, broken body back to the heavens.

Isn't she lovely?

See the proud dust on her silver and pink sneakers, those steadfast feet that journeyed through darkness, but now walk in the light. I want to bow down on one knee as she passes, this vision of satin and sparkle, strength and valor. Oh, the wisdom of children!

This picture and inspiration is available online at LIVESTRONG's Facebook page. LIVESTRONG, Lance Armstrong's organization, supports and nourishes individuals and families challenged by cancer. Link to LIVESTRONG can be found here under "links."

Cancer: Not a Cure for Anxiety

I spend a lot of time fretting over life's challenges in a non-Zen-like manner, much like I used to do before I heard my cancer diagnosis. I had hoped that I had risen above this madness, that my cancer battle's victory gave me wings to fly over the lowly stresses in life.

In short, I'm having a bad day. But, as a cancer survivor, I know the value of each day and I don't want to waste one. I feel guilty.

Illness reminds us that we are mortal (not winged) beings, here on this green earth for a short time. Cancer threatens to make that short time even shorter.

So why not just kick back and smell the spring flowers?

Well, the damned spring flowers have not yet sprung here in cold country.

There is an expectation that, once having fought the breast cancer battle, women come out stronger than ever, invincible to stress. Priorities are clear, things are not blown out of proportion. Cancer, like a calm lens, keeps our focus.

Nope.

It's the journey, not the disease that brings forth these subtle transformations. The gains and losses made along the way teach us that we are stronger than we know.

I'll go for a walk and read a book, good things that make me happy and make this day count.

Vanity Insanity

Fresh from the Huffington Post's Style section, the newest form of humiliation for American women: La Decollette Cleavage Wrinkle-Prevention Bra.

According to the Huff Post, this product is described:

"At night, La Decollette will do her job very effectively.Because of this special bra, your breasts are more or less forced to stay in place so no vertical wrinkles will occur and your cleavage will stay smooth. After just 1 night you will see the difference and after 5 to 7 nights you will be amazed by the stunning result."

I'm stunned and amazed that 34% of readers voted it "a must buy." It looks like someone put their underwear over their head.

So 34% of Huff's readers would pay $70 for this odd form of night torture softened by two petite bows in the name of vanity?

Can this 34% just get a grip for a moment?

Aren't you tired of conforming to the padded and pushed up, molded and underwired expectations of our rack-obsessed culture? Shall we stand in front of the mirror contemplating the vertical wrinkles in our cleavage or should we contribute our intelligence, our fire and energy to the world? We are worth so much more.

New Tricks

Recently, I began a process, searching to find passionate pursuits, choosing life affirming things, in short, embracing my inner geek. And since

Geek-dom is now, apparently, cool

I can admit that I'm a book worm, I keep a journal and I like "Glee."

I started taking piano lessons, picking up from where I'd left off some never-mind-how-many years ago. Adding this to my life was a daunting task. First, I did not own a piano and convincing myself to spend the money to purchase one was a back-and-forth process fraught with self-doubt. What if this is a passing phase? What if the piano becomes a large dust catcher, it's keys cobwebbed to one another, a five-hundred-pound money pit? But what if I could learn to play again, play better than ever before?

Something about the word "play" lingered in my mind like a promise.

It's learning to listen and trust these inner stirrings that makes for a well-lived life.

I found a brilliant teacher. I found a piano that sings. I found my passion for music.

A whole new world opened for me. I've traded listening to repetitive "classic rock" for classical music, symphonies, introductions to composer's lives, different music genres, each a gem, an interesting continent worth exploring.

We're never too old to learn new things. Learning connects us to that childlike wonder that is tucked inside us, always at the ready.

My grandma used to tell me that learning new things keeps us young. And she's right.