You're not alone!

As I have continued to blog about different cancer subjects over the past year occasionally I will hear from others who have fought the cancer fight or have helped someone get through the battle.

Some people have a tremendous amount of support from family and friends. But some fight the fight by themselves for the most part with no family or close friends to assist them.

One of my mothers friends (JoAnn Carroll) reached out to me to explain some of her feelings from her battle with breast cancer.

I did not have the support that you gave your wife.

Divorced and on my own was very hard.

My cancer was found the day before I received

my church mission call.  The surgeon told me to go back to Virginia

to have the surgery because there was a lot of

post care. But living away from most of my support was hard.

My sons acted like this was nothing as they did not phone

or send a card or flowers. People are embarrassed and don't want to talk about it.

This August I will be taken off the Femera and have one office visit and one mammogram

per year.

My Doctor told me sometimes breast cancer comes back, when it does it usually comes in the

third year after the surgery.  So I sailed through that.  Good thing she did not tell me that

until I was in the fifth year.

I still worry and wonder.  I tell very few people. I have a few friends that have been a support to

me and let me vent once in a while and I try not to dwell on it.  I think of it every day and hope

I can stay strong.

 

I have survived but there were a lot of times I

wondered how or why I would get through it.

But I did! 

I have nothing but the utmost respect for those that have battled through cancer and I appreciate JoAnn for sharing her story.

We can all do a better job reaching out to others to offer love and support as they go through their battle.

That is my hope!

Proactive!

Chicago Tribune wire report

10:00 a.m. CDT, May 14, 2013

LONDON -- Hollywood actress and activist Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer, saying she hopes her story will inspire other women fighting the life-threatening disease.

With the surprising news this week I thought I would share some of the excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and attach her announcement as well.

Knowing that a positive BRCA 1 test increases a women's odds of breast and ovarian cancer it is becoming more common for women to take the necessary steps to decrease these odds. In Angelina's letter she mentioned they would go from an 87% probability for breast cancer down to 5%. Amazing!

Here is a link to her letter:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?_r=1&

My wife's BRCA 1 gene test came back negative but her mother (my mother-in-law) was diagnosed with the same breast cancer a year after my wife. So that leads me to believe there are other genetic factors out there that are left to study but the BRCA is the most common test. Our daughter will still have to be watched more closely due to these events even though my wife's BRCA was negative.

Richard Francis, head of research at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity in Britain, said it demonstrated the importance of educating women with the gene fault.

"For women like Angelina it's important that they are made fully aware of all the options that are available, including risk-reducing surgery and extra breast screening," Francis told Reuters.

Breast cancer alone kills about 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization. It is estimated that one in 300 to one in 500 women carry a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation, as Jolie does.

If your wife's test comes back positive make sure you seek out a genetic counselor to go over all of your options.

Don't Panic!

From time to time I will notice an article dealing with cancer treatments that I will pass along to my wife and alarm us but I have to remind myself that you have to give way to treatments that improve the percentages of recovery and no re-occurrence.

For instance I came across this article in March about a recent study on radiation therapy for breast cancer patients and a negative side effect:

By Marilynn Marchione

Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, March 13 2013 9:18 p.m. MDT

Women treated with radiation for breast cancer are more likely to develop heart problems later, even with the lower doses used today, troubling new research suggests. The risk comes from any amount of radiation, starts five years after treatment and lasts for decades, doctors found.

Patients shouldn't panic — radiation has improved cancer survival, and that is the top priority, doctors say.

For example, 4 to 5 of every 100 women who are 50 years old and free of heart risks will develop a major cardiac problem by age 80, and radiation treatment would add one more case, the research suggests.

In all of the studies we read it was a discussed side effect so we knew about the risks. However I'm confident that the medical re-search field will continue to develop laser treatments that will do less damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

The study "will raise the antenna" about the need to do more to prevent this, said Dr. David Slosky, a cardiologist at Vanderbilt University, one of the growing number of medical centers with special "cardio-oncology" programs for cancer survivors.

With today's lower radiation doses, "it is less of a problem, but it is not going away," he said.

The risks to radiation therapy may not go way entirely but it has come along way and will only get better!