The women – who have all battled against cancer – are raising money for two charitable causes.
Fundraising Derbyshire women share cancer stories
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Category Archives: Oncology
Health24.com | Would you allow your doctor to give dagga to your sick child?
When it comes to kids with cancer, most health care providers say they’d help their patients get medical marijuana.
That finding stems from an analysis of survey responses from 288 US doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists, social workers and registered nurses.
The survey respondents in Boston, Chicago and Seattle all provide either inpatient or outpatient care for children with cancer.
Results of the survey
About 92% said they’d be willing to help procure medical marijuana for their young patients. Just 2% felt that medical marijuana should never be given to a child with cancer, according to the report.
The researchers also found that 63% of the health care providers were not concerned about substance abuse in children with cancer. Their biggest concern was the lack of formulation, dosing and potency standards for prescribing medical marijuana to children with cancer.
Medical providers who are legally eligible to certify patients for medical marijuana were less likely to endorse its use in children with cancer, the study found.
“It is not surprising that providers who are eligible to certify for medical marijuana were more cautious about recommending it, given that their licensure could be jeopardised due to federal prohibition,” study co-author Dr Kelly Michelson, a critical care physician at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, said in a hospital news release.
Policies could influence attitudes
“Institutional policies also may have influenced their attitudes,” she said. “Lurie Children’s [hospital], for example, prohibits paediatric providers from facilitating medical marijuana access in accordance with the federal law, even though it is legal in Illinois.
“In addition to unclear dosage guidelines, the lack of high-quality scientific data that medical marijuana benefits outweigh possible harm is a huge concern for providers accustomed to evidence-based practice,” Michelson said.
“We need rigorously designed clinical trials on the use of medical marijuana in children with cancer,” she added.
Michelson also directs Northwestern University School of Medicine’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities.
Keep marijuana for later stages of treatment
The childhood cancer care providers involved in the study indicated that they often received requests for medical marijuana to relieve nausea and vomiting, lack of appetite, pain, depression and anxiety. Most, however, believe that use of medical marijuana should be limited to children with advanced cancer or near the end of life, rather than in earlier stages of cancer treatment.
That’s in line with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ position that use of medical marijuana should be restricted to “children with life-limiting or seriously debilitating conditions”. Michelson’s team published their findings online in the journal Pediatrics
An ongoing debate
An article previously published on Health24 also addressed the use of marijuana as a treatment for children. Research has however found that marijuana holds only limited benefits for children and that more studies are needed to ensure the success of this treatment.
While dagga may benefit chemo-linked nausea and epilepsy, there is not yet enough evidence that it has a positive effect on other conditions.
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | Husband abandons wife after she is diagnosed with cancer
A young nurse who lost her hair because of chemotherapy revealed how her husband abandoned her just three months after their wedding.
Zhang Xi, from Langfang in China, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia – a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many white blood cells – back in July. As a result of her diagnosis she sadly had to terminate her pregnancy.
Having just tied the knot with her husband in April, the 27-year-old expected full support from the love of her life.
But her husband, from Fujian Province in China, refused to visit her in hospital apart from one occasion and her in-laws have since demanded they get a divorce.
Instead of supporting her fully, Zhang’s husband, whose name is unknown, opted to pay her a so-called ‘care package’ which amounted to 45, 000 RMB (R91 000).
“I’ve experienced both human coldness and warmth during my illness,” says Zhang.
Her spouse has since returned back home and his mother has repeatedly called Zhang insisting on a divorce so that her son can move on and marry someone else.
Zhang, whose mom is caring for her, says she is relying on her dad’s monthly salary to survive and pay for her expensive treatment but hopes to pay him back once she’s recovered.
“If I manage to live through this, I promise to spend the rest of my life repaying my father and mother,” she added.
Her only hope now is to receive a bone marrow transplant, but doctors have yet to find a match.
Source: Magazine Features, cancer.org
Pictures: CATERS/WWW.MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA
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The Lung Cancer Symptoms You Need to Know, Even If You’ve Never Smoked
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Ashley Rivas was 26 when she noticed she was getting tired earlier than usual on her runs. Over the next few years, the X-ray technician from Albuquerque, New Mexico, developed a persistent cough and wheezing, which her doctors attributed to exercise-induced asthma. She had other symptoms, too: weight loss, fever, and several bouts of pneumonia. Still, when Rivas finally decided to perform a chest X-ray on herself, cancer was the last thing on her mind.
The image revealed a mass on her right lung that turned out to be a malignant tumor. Rivas was 32 and had never smoked a cigarette in her life. "I want people to know lung cancer can happen to anyone," she says.
Rivas has joined the American Lung Association's Lung Force campaign, to spread the word that her disease isn't just a smoker's affliction. "It's true that the majority of people with lung cancer have some history of tobacco use," says Lung Association spokesperson Andrea McKee, MD, the chair of radiation oncology at Lahey Hospital Medical Center in Burlington, Massachusetts. "Having said that, 15% of patients diagnosed with lung cancer have no history of tobacco use—and they may be quite young."
Other known risk factors aside from smoking include a family history of the disease, as well as exposure to certain air pollutants, such as asbestos, arsenic, radon, even diesel fumes, says Dr. McKee. Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide; and each year, it kills more women than breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer combined.
RELATED: 25 Breast Cancer Myths Busted
If it's diagnosed early, the disease is actually highly curable, Dr. McKee says. Luckily this was the case for Rivas. She had her tumor removed in 2013, and is now thriving. (She ran a half-marathon last year!)
But only about 16% of cases are caught at stage 1. "Usually it’s like a 7- to 8-millimeter nodule sitting in the middle of a lung that doesn’t have any symptoms associated with it," says Dr. McKee. Most patients are diagnosed later, once the tumor has grown large enough that it's "pushing on an airway, resulting in some breathing problems," she explains.
That's what Marlo Palacio experienced just before the holidays in 2013, when she developed a cough unlike any cough she'd ever had before. "I would feel like I was out of breath or gagging," she says. At first, the social worker from Pasadena, California, assumed she'd picked up a bug from her toddler son. But six weeks later, the cough hadn't gone away. Doctors diagnosed Palacio—an otherwise healthy, 39-year-old non-smoker—with stage 4 lung cancer.
At stage 4, lung symptoms like Palacio had (and others such as pneumonia and coughing up blood) may be accompanied by problems elsewhere in the body, such as back pain, bone pain, headaches, weight loss, and confusion, says Dr. McKee. That's because "once the disease has spread, [it's] usually having an effect on a system outside of the lungs," she explains.
After several different treatments, Palacio developed a new, isolated tumor in September. But she says she is doing well, physically and emotionally. "I'm feeling pretty positive that this will be something that we can just eliminate and maintain," she says. "I just accept that this is a lifelong fight for maintenance, and keeping my cancer down."
RELATED: 6 Cancer-Fighting Superfoods
Dr. McKee is hopeful that rising awareness of lung cancer, and advances in screening will mean fewer late-stage diagnoses in the future—because catching the disease early can make all the difference.
Frida Orozco knows that fact first-hand. She was diagnosed with stage 2 in her late twenties, a few months after she developed a dry cough. "I started to feel a pain every time I coughed on the lower side of my ribs, and also on the left side of my chest, near the clavicle," she says. When Orozco came down with a fever, headaches, and dizziness, she went to an urgent care facility; a chest X-ray revealed the mass in her lung.
But today, the 30-year-old student at Borough of Manhattan Community College happily reports she has been in remission for a year and a half. "You can't even tell I've been through all of this," she says, "except for the scars."
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So when should you get a lingering cough checked out? "To be safe, I would say that any cough that you're concerned about that's persisting beyond a few weeks, you should talk with your doctor," says Dr. McKee. "A cough shouldn't linger beyond two or three weeks."
If you suspect something is not right with your health, follow up, urges Rivas. "You know your body better than anybody," she says. "Push, because you're probably right. My pulmonologist told me that if I hadn’t caught [my cancer] when I did, I would’ve died. And it was because of my persistence. I knew something was wrong, I kept pushing."
To learn more lung cancer, check out the American Lung Association's Lung Force campaign.
Blood test can effectively rule out breast cancer, regardless of breast density
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Health24.com | Exactly what to do if you notice a lump in your breast
Three years ago, Sheeva Talebian felt an itch on her right chest. When she went to scratch it, she noticed something under her skin.
“It was like a round, circular pea,” she says of the lump in her breast. “I thought maybe it was a pimple because it was right at the top of my skin. So I ignored it and went to bed.”
Talebian, a doctor who is director of third party reproduction at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine in New York City and is a co-founder of Truly-MD, had received a mammogram just six months prior. But she called her gynae anyway.
Her doctor said the small lump in her breast was probably nothing, and an ultrasound and second mammogram didn’t show anything concerning. But when she sought a second opinion, Talebian’s phone rang within 24 hours: “I dropped the phone and gasped,” she says.
“They told me I had invasive breast cancer.” The 6mm lump was tiny – small enough that Talebian herself had forgotten about it for a few months after she first noticed it – but her entire right breast had pre-cancer cells, and it had spread to surrounding tissue.
Read more: 5 cancer screening tests every woman should have
Fortunately, Talebian and her doctors caught her case early. She underwent a double mastectomy to remove the breast lump and surrounding tissue and was able to avoid chemotherapy treatment.
“I’m a doctor, but I have to be honest, I wasn’t doing a self-breast exam every month,” she admits. “I barely had any breast tissue, so in my head, I was like, ‘What am I even feeling?’ There was nothing really there.”
Now, of course, Talebian is adamant that women take control of their breast health. And turns out, that doesn’t necessarily mean monthly self-exams.
“We’ve always told women to do self-exams in the shower or lying down with one arm up, and to slowly and deliberately feel their way around the breast and nipple and into the armpit,” Talebian says. “But now there’s this new concept of breast awareness.”
That phrase about knowing something like the back of your hand? Today, gynaes are advocating that you know your breasts that well.
“Once you reach late adolescence or your early twenties, you should know what your breasts look and feel like,” Talebian says. “Know their size, shape, how they look in the mirror, how they feel, run your fingers across them occasionally – that way you know if anything suddenly feels different.”
Like Talebian, many women aren’t diligent about performing regular and frequent self-exams. So embracing breast awareness – particularly after ovulation but before your period – could be the key to noticing changes in your breast tissue.
Read more: 3 random things that can Totally mess with your mammogram results
So let’s say you feel something. Now what?
“Do something relatively quickly,” says Talebian. “You don’t need to page your doctor at midnight, but if you’re 100% certain what you’re feeling is new, call your gynaecologist, primary care physician or internist. Explain that you feel something that wasn’t there before and stay calm.”
The reason to act quickly isn’t necessarily that the case can worsen within 24 hours – it probably won’t – but so you don’t forget about it.
“If you put it out of your mind, eight months down the road it may be bigger and you’ll remember you never made that call,” Talebian says. “It’s never too early or too silly to bring your concern to a healthcare provider’s attention.”
Read more: This really simple image could actually help you detect breast cancer
And remember, the earlier you can catch potential signs of breast cancer, the better.
“Breast cancer is one of the very few cancers we do have screening tools for, and if it’s caught early, that can have a huge impact on your overall prognosis,” Talebian says. “Breast cancer can start as a small bump, and it may take several years before it metastasises and you start to experience pain or symptoms from it. So there are no excuses. Most often it’s nothing or it’s benign, but in the off chance it is cancerous, the earlier you deal with it, the sooner you can put it behind you forever. If you feel something, don’t ignore it.”
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthsa.co.za
Image credit: iStock
‘First female nipple’ broadcast in daytime TV advert for breast cancer
The advertisement for breast cancer awareness was seen on TV on Friday and will be fully broadcast on Monday.
Cancer Patients May Not Get The Rehab They Need: A Missed Opportunity To Consider
This blog post first appeared at: Curious Dr. George
Rehabilitation medicine is one of the best-kept secrets in healthcare. Although the specialty is as old as America’s Civil War, few people are familiar with its history and purpose. Born out of compassion for wounded soldiers in desperate need of societal re-entry and meaningful employment, “physical reconstruction” programs were developed to provide everything from adaptive equipment to family training, labor alternatives and psychological support for veterans.
Physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) then expanded to meet the needs of those injured in World Wars I & II, followed closely by children disabled by the polio epidemic. In time, people recognized that a broad swath of diseases and traumatic injuries required focused medical and physical therapy to achieve optimal long term function. Today, cancer patients frequently benefit from comprehensive rehabilitation as they recover from the effects of chemo (neuropathy, weakness, and cognitive impairments), radiation (scarring and range of motion limitations), surgery (flaps, plastics procedures, tumor resection, amputations), and brain injuries (edema, debulking, gamma knife and neurosurgery).
Rehabilitation is a phase of recovery occurring after any major life-changing medical or surgical event. Our bodies are designed to regenerate and repair, though optimizing this process takes skilled guidance. PM&R physicians (also known as physiatrists) are trained to use physical modalities (stretching, strengthening, heat, cold, etc.) to mechanically enhance healing. They prescribe medications to manage pain, spasticity, nerve injury, and cognitive impairments, while also leveraging the power of physical therapy to increase cardiopulmonary fitness, muscle strength and flexibility. PM&R physicians are also experts in neurologic injury, and can adapt exercises to coax spinal cord, brain and peripheral nerve injuries to construct new pathways for movement and repair.
Inpatient rehab’s prime directive is to get patients back home. To succeed at home, patients need to be able to function as independently as possible, using trained assistants for managing the activities that cannot be performed without help. Admission to a rehab hospital or unit offers the patient home practice opportunities – with simulated challenges that can include everything from terrain parks, test kitchens, medication management trials, driving simulators, balance tests, electric wheelchairs and even exoskeletons that allow paralyzed patients to walk again. It is like a robotic Disney World, with endless aquatic and equipment possibilities for restoring movement and independence.
When I discuss admission to inpatient rehab with my cancer patients, I ask them about their goals, motivation, and energy levels. Timing of rehab is important, because it must dovetail with treatment, so that the physical exertion strengthens, not saps, the patient. Often times when a person is newly diagnosed with cancer, they want “everything done” – intensive chemo/radiation/surgery as well as rehab/exercise. But staggering these interventions can be more effective.
In other cases when care is palliative, learning new skills and being fitted with battery or electric-powered equipment can mean the difference between living at home or in an assisted environment. Some successful cancer patients come to inpatient rehab to practice managing their activities of daily living with varied amounts of assistance, preparing for increased needs as time goes on so they can enjoy being at home for as long as possible.
For the physiatrist, cancer is a cause of impairments that can be overcome with creativity and practice, no matter the long-term prognosis. Adaptive equipment, physical exercise, and cognitive retraining may be applied intensively (3 hours a day in the inpatient setting), or at a slower outpatient pace, depending on individual need. Rehab physicians desire to support and sustain patient function at the highest level, and “add life to years.” As such, rehabilitation should be considered an integral part of successful cancer care and management.
