My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

More Excitement!

Just when you think your life can't possibly be any more exciting (what with that exotic jaunt to Redding followed by the prescription for an extra half a milligram of testosterone cream every day, followed by several chocolate truffles brought to the last class you taught and which you felt obliged to eat because it was, after all, a potluck), what do you get in the mail but your new surprise AARP membership card!

My dear Jackie signed US up. All I have to do is put my signature on the line and I will become Officially Old (as opposed to Blissfully Retired).

I suppose this is a good time to throw out my latest confession/admission: Yesterday I went to Tom's on Cortland (hair salon) and had my gray vanquished once again. I gave it my best shot. You know I did. I spent over a year dealing with the transition from dyed to full-fledged gray.  Bravo to me!  But when all was said and done,  I only liked it about 20 percent of the time. The other 80 percent I felt that I looked washed out, faded and dull (and as a result, I FELT more that way, too). I wish I could say that I resisted and stood out as a shining example of "Gray is Glorious! " or "YOU GO, GRAY GIRL!" but such was not the case.

I told Tom to take me back to something akin to my natural dark brown. He did, but he also added a few reddish highlights that turned out to be more prominent than I thought they would. Let's just say you can now tell that Olivia and I are related.

Do I regret this regression?

Nah. I'm totally relieved. It helps to offset some of the AARP shock.

Birthday Brouhaha!

June, who lives in North Bernal, just sent us this celebratory photo! (Lest you have forgotten, June is Olivia's beloved sister.)

Olivia Bouchet's Birthday!

Once upon a time, many balls and socks and bones ago, a tiny puppy was born. Her destiny carried her to a little cottage on Moultrie Street in San Francisco, CA, where she took up residence in the hearts of Jack and Jane, who slavishly doted on her the first moment they saw her, and who continue to do so now.

Was she ever really this tiny? Oh yes, in fact she was even tinier; those pics are floating around in these blog archives, way back somewhere in June or July, most likely, but Jane doesn't have time to hunt for them.

Anyways, today is Ms. Olivia Bouchet's FIRST birthday, according to the vet's best guess. No one really knows for sure, because her origins are shrouded in mystery. The piecemeal story, which Jane and Jack got from a Rocket Dog Rescue volunteer - is that a litter of pups was born in Sacramento and ended up at Animal Control there. The mother was euthanized for no good reason when the puppies were only five weeks old. Rocket Dog Rescue didn't get there in time to save the mother, but they did manage to save the pups. Olivia was the most timid of the litter, a very shy baby; she also got quite sick with a bronchial infection and had to be specially cared for, for a while. Twice she was adopted, and twice she was returned (not because she did anything wrong but because her potential adoptive parents had unexpected extenuating circumstances that prevented them from keeping her). This made her first few weeks of life even more difficult, because she was shuffled around so much.

But, finally, Jane (who had been searching and searching for over a year, and who, in addition to visiting the SPCA on several occasions, had looked at literally hundreds of available-for-adoption doggie photos on the Internet) saw Olivia's face pop up on her laptop screen late one night. BINGO!

And they all lived happily ever after.

Window Happiness

Last night I was appreciating the view from my desk here at Jack's (and now my) house — a cozy, dusky pastel Bernal Heights view. Am I fortunate, or what?

Protect Your Right to Make Your Own Healthcare Decisions

If you are interested in protecting your freedom (and right) to make your own healthcare decisions and choices, including the right to choose to buy medications from compounding pharmacies, I urge you to vist this site (Patients and Professionals for Customized Care (P2C2).

P2C2 is an affiliate of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists.

Example of why this is important: Compounding pharmacies make bioidential hormones. They also can CUSTOMIZE them. Regular pharmacies limit you to drugs that fall into the one-size-fits-all category.

 

Blink Power

I'm enjoying this new book: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. I spent an hour with it yesterday while blissfully ensconsed in my FIR.

It's about "the power of thinking without thinking."

I love thinking about that (without actually thinking about it).

Sundial Bridge and Hormones

My friend Toby, after I complained to her that she never put any comments on this blog (even though she claims to be reading it religiously), finally got over her fear of blog technolgy and  POSTED A COMMENT to my recent post about going to Redding, CA. Her post was about the Sundial Bridge, which I did go to, and which I WANTED to take a photo of but didn't because I left my camera in the truck and was too lazy and crabby to walk back and get it (though I regretted it later).

Well, the next thing I know, I get this email from Ms. K in NYC:

"I just read Toby's comment to your blog and I remembered that my friend Martin sent me photos of that bridge. . . he passes through Redding between SF and Portland - or maybe just when he stops at Bill's Lava Rock Dairy. Anyway...a fun coincidence that I just happened to have these shots."

Don't you love it when things like this happen?

BTW, I know I still haven't said why we went to Redding in the first place. It was because I had an appointment with a doctor (Dr. Robert Greene) who does hormone replacement therapy using bioidentical hormones, AND who doesn't refuse to treat you if you have breast cancer, because he knows that HRT doesn't cause breast cancer. In fact, he wrote a book that talks about just this, called Perfect Balance. I had to search high and low to find this guy. You'd think that, here in San Francisco, it would have been easier to find a cutting edge doctor who is UP  on the latest studies about HRT and breast cancer. But no. More on this later.

Radiation for Breast Cancer Causes Heart Disease

In September of 2005, when my surgeon told me (nonchalantly and dismissively) that my fears about the dangers of radiation were unfounded, I believed her and dutifully raced off to an appointment with the radiation oncologist that she referred me to. He said the same thing, of course: Not to worry. The benefits far outweighed any risks. Technology had changed. We weren't in the dark ages of radiation anymore. The techniques had been refined.

But after I made it past the first hurdle of blind terror and started doing my own research and read that although radiation DID lower the incidence of recurrence, it didn't change the rates of SURVIVAL (which turned out to be the same for women who didn't opt for radiation following surgery), I thought, THEN WHY WOULD I WANT TO PUT MYSELF THROUGH RADIATION?  There was obviously more to this subject than met the eye. And since my breast cancer was in the left breast, over my heart, plain old common sense told me that I should be wary. How could radiation directly over my heart not do any damage to my heart????? Very fishy.

A year and a half later, Ralph Moss writes this article in his Cancer Decisions newsletter:

BIG BLOW TO RADIATION THERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER -  PART I

                  

Radiation is widely used as a follow-up (adjuvant) treatment after surgery for breast cancer. It is primarily administered to prevent recurrences and is quite effective at doing so. But a study published in the March 7th Journal of the National Cancer Institute has shown that radiation also increases the risk of heart disease in women who receive it following surgery for breast cancer. Using modern radiation delivery techniques shifts the pattern of harm, but does not remove it.

Read rest of Part I, here...

BIG BLOW TO RADIATION THERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER -  PART II                  

(Last week I began a two-part discussion of a study that was published last month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showing that radiation given to women following breast cancer surgery increases their risk of heart disease. I conclude the discussion, with references, this week.)                                    

History of a Controversy                               

The fact that breast irradiation increases the risk of heart disease is not a new finding. Starting in the late 1960s, it became known that, after receiving adjuvant radiation to prevent breast cancer recurrence, more women than expected were dying of heart disease, sometimes decades after their initial surgery.      

It took brilliant medical detective work to prove that this apparently successful use of radiation therapy was also the cause of many cardiac deaths (Fajardo 2001). So many women were dying of the long-term adverse effects, in fact, that it more or less counterbalanced any survival benefit from the treatment itself.

For the rest of this article, click here.

 

I Go to Redding, He Goes to Macau

This is a post that is about breast cancer treatment at its finest: LOVING works really well! It's not magic — well, no, it IS at least partly magic, but it's also perfectly logical: Love soothes, relaxes, supports and empowers you, thus lowering your stress (and spiking insulin levels), which in turn strengthens your body's natural immune system.

RECEIVING love is a far more effective treatment than popping 75 cancer-fighting pills, taking a 3-mile walk, eating a well-balanced low carb/sugar diet, getting acupuncture, taking Chinese herbs, injecting Iscador, and sitting in a far infrared sauna for 45 minutes....all rolled into one.

GIVING love is even more effective. How can I prove this? I can't. No "evidence-based" clinical studies have been done to back up this statement. It's all anecdotal and, to a very large extent, mysterious. And you already know, if you know me at all, how much I love Mystery.

I also love my son, which is what got me started on this train of thought. Every day, consciously and unconsciously, I thank the universe for having blessed me with this child (now a young man). He, more than any other thing or person in my life, led me into the world of love. He taught me how to give love in a way that I had never imagined possible. The supreme gift.

So, here's a quick, short, Proud Mother Update (before I race off to acupuncture at Efrem's, then to Walgreen's to buy more syringes for injecting my mysteriously wonderful mistletoe, then off to Costco to buy brownies in bulk for the next round of Writing Salon classes):

Here's the latest calendar of Will's evolving travel/performance itinerary, through March of 2008 (Montreal is home base):

Munich, Frankfurt, Montreal, Seoul, Chuncheon, Montreal, Ann Arbor, Montreal, Corpo, Normandie, maybe Portugal, Montreal, Taiepi, Macau, Montreal, Kennedy Center, Dublin, Montreal, Toronto, Montreal, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Osaka, New York City, Fayetteville & other U.S. cities (I hope San Francisco will be one of them!).

Isn't that amazing? His life is so different than mine was at the age of 23. And now here I am , 54 years old and still and haven't even been to Europe!   

In fact, I think it's a big deal just to take a 1-day trip to Redding, which is where Jack and I and Olivia went this past Sunday. I know you're impatient to hear all about why we chose this particularly fascinating destination, but you'll have to wait until my next post to find out why.   

Bath, Bones, Breath

Lenore soaked in her bathtub, trying to rid herself of the sharp pain that radiated from the left side of her neck, down through the back of her shoulder, into her armpit and from there into an unexpected curve that looped all the way through her ribs and around her breast until it came to a stop directly over her heart. She reached into the bowl that sat on the edge of the tub and pushed a piece of cheese and a few crispy walnuts into her mouth before swallowing another sip of chardonnay.

Most likely the seed of this pain had been planted the day before when she'd made the mistake of trying to lift the corner of the armoire. When would she learn that at her age, every out-of-the-ordinary movement now posed a threat to the body's delicate status quo? Most likely she had strained a muscle that affected a rib or two. Most likely the best treatment would be, simply, to wait. To rest and wait for her body to right itself without being subjected to any well meaning, clumsy meddling. What did she know about the workings of muscles, ligaments and tendons?

Only in her worst case scenario would the pain be an indication of metastasis to the bone. She knew enough at this point to know that bone mets could take you by surprise. One day you were fine, you were a vigorous woman of fifty-four, a woman who walked the dog up to the top of the hill and back, a woman who could tote that barge with the best of them. The next day you lifted a plastic spatula when turning the salmon fillet and broke three ribs that, unbeknownst to you, had been in the process of quietly disintegrating for several months now.

As the water faded from steaming hot to the lull of a lukewarm dream, she turned another page of her novel, took another sip of Now, and tried not to breathe too deeply. Breathing perturbed the pain. The red mist of fear receded.

Sunday at Point Isabel

We walked up and around the Point, and along skinny trails through the marshland area where there were lots of spindley long-legged birds with long beaks (intensifed variations of sandpipers, I guess you could say).

When we got home I curled up on the couch with Olivia-of-the-Glowing-Devil-Green-Eyes at 4 p.m., thinking I'd just "listen' to the TV. Woke up at 6:15. A good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I Love This Quote

"Don't be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upward."— Vladimir Nabokov

Conventional Cancer Treatments Can Cause Cancer to SPREAD

This article explains one of the reasons that I decided not to do chemo or radiation. I probably still would have done the surgery (lumpectomy) but, had I been more informed at the time, I would have instructed the surgeon to do and/or NOT to do certain things (things I only learned of after the fact) that would have lessened the chances of the surgery itself causing the cancer to spread.

The fact that NONE OF MY DOCTORS TOLD ME about these surgical options was one of the things that so enraged and depressed me, in the first couple of months after my diagnosis (example: you can tell the surgeon that you don't want him/her to do the standard "massage" of your breast that they typically do....I can't remember why they typically do it; I just remember that it's not absolutely necessary, and you can ask them not to do it, because it's now known that such massage can definitely increase chances of the tumor cells spreading to the lymph nodes!). I discovered that these options existed only after doing extensive research on my own.

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treating cancer with surgery, chemotherapy or

radiation may sometimes cause tumors to spread and U.S. researchers said
on Thursday they may have nailed down one of the causes -- a compound
called TGF-beta.

Tests in mice show that using the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin or
radiation both raised levels of TGF-beta, which in turn helped breast
cancer tumors spread to the lung.

But using an antibody to block TGF-beta stopped the process, Dr. Carlos
Arteaga and colleagues at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee reported.

Developing drugs that block TGF-beta might help prevent cancer from
recurring, Arteaga's team reports in the May issue of the Journal of
Clinical Investigation.

"The repopulation and progression of tumors after anti-cancer therapy is
a well-recognized phenomenon," the researchers wrote. "It has been shown
to occur following radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery."

You can read the rest of this article here.

Chicken Scratches

April 4th? How did that happen? What can I say? My life has been a flurry of flyers (Writing Salon flyers....I made 1200 of them over the weekend), walking up Bernal hill and back, walking over to St. Mary's dog run and back, trying to keep eating healthy (made four more cookie sheets' worth of crispyy nuts - walnuts and pecans), and a few crazy little chicken scratches of attempts to begin...gulp....a novel.

As far as the novel goes, mostly I've been just thinking about it, jotting down thoughts as they come to me, and trying to be brave (as in trying not to totally panic). My chicken scratches consist of two or three paragraphs, a  couple of lists of miscellaneous images and ideas, and one animated conversation with Jack, when I told him about my hour or two of Internet "research" that I did after I had a particular idea about how to flesh out a character by going back into her childhood. 

I still don't know what the PLOT is going to be, but I'm scratching away anyway, trying to eke out paragraphs, lines, character sketches, moments, scenes, and ideas for themes (which isn't the same as a solid plot, but is better than nada).

The good news is that it's kind of a fun kind of torture, and I can tell that Pearl is going to be a good character. I also suspect that my "research" may require a trip to southern Utah, where Pearl grew up. Jack and I will need to rent an RV for this. We'll take Olivia, we'll see painted sand dunes and desert stone formations and amazing waterfalls, and I'll be able to deduct it all as a business expense. Yes!   

Causes of breast cancer — the estrogen controversy

This article is worth reading.