Breast Cancer Blog

Submitted by Jayne’s Breast Cancer Blog

No matter where you are in your cancer journey, I hope that there is some peace and some joy in your life this holiday season.

I took some of my vintage cuties outside yesterday.

The rest of these have been with me since childhood. These little elves aren’t even two inches tall. We used to have snowmen and angels, too - where are they now?

Santa pulling sleeping reindeer? Weird but charming. The reindeer lift off. I guess it’s a candy dish or something like that.

And, if you are interested, here is last year’s It’s beginning to look a lot like (a vintage) Christmas post.

Cheers.

This little elf is new to me this year. I just love his sweet little face.

Cheers.

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Submitted by Jayne’s Breast Cancer Blog

Have you discovered Etsy yet? I have, and I could spend all day there! It’s a place to buy and sell handmade items. Browsing around, I discovered this two-sided pendant by Allison Strine:

This photo shows you the size:

WOW. I find a lot of breast cancer jewelry to just be ho-hum, but this piece is gorgeous.

Here is the Etsy link to the pendant:

She Is So Brave by Allison Strine

(Photos courtesy of Allison Strine and posted here with permission.)

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

If there’s anything that shows that cancer survivors need help and support throughout their lifetimes, it’s this article from The Wall Street Journal. I would have thought that most childhood leukemia survivors live fairly normal adult lives. It’s a great shock to find out that a significant number have difficulty finding and keeping jobs.

read more | digg story

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Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog

Rep. Mary Bono is part of a bipartisan effort to improve medical, emotional and social care of childhood cancer survivors throughout their lifetimes.

read more | digg story

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Submitted by Jayne’s Breast Cancer Blog

There are some great websites that will either get you started or give you some new ideas.

Journaling and the Cancer Experience:

Journaling the Cancer Journey

Journaling Through Breast Cancer Treatment

Writing for Wellness

General Journaling Sites with lots of articles and links:

Journal For You

Journaling Life.com

Journal Writing at the Creativity Portal

I’ll keep adding to this list and I’ll put it on the sidebar.

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Submitted by the stupid cancer blog

Coverage of an exceptionally well-written bulletin/blog entry from a young adult breast cancer survivor named Carolyne.

I just got a letter from a myspace “friend”, telling me the reason she is to delete me from her profile, is because she has a friend who beat breast cancer, who gets offended by my profile name.

I don’t quite understand.

I wrote her back, because the last thing I want to do is to offend anyone. I understand that many people want to move on and forget that they have had breast cancer. I am even suffering from PTSD up the wazooo! But the type of breast cancer I have been diagnosed with has no cure, no research, and no one has ever heard of it. This page is to try and create awareness about that. I have to build/move mountains myself. And I try and do it from an empowering point of view. I see things quite clearly, and go about getting them done accordingly.

The intention of my page is strictly for my soul to get a boost of strength, and to also reach out and hopefully inspire anyone who might be going through a rough time of it!

But it does raise a question. Why do people only think about themselves and their own personal piggy-bank? I try and take my strengths, and give them to others. I try and take my weaknesses, and let others know that they are not alone. I completely understand all about having Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, where the sight of something can trigger painful memories, etc.

During the Civil War, there were hundreds of thousands of photographs taken of the battles, the soldiers, the aftermath, etc. By the time the war was finished however, people were so sick and tired of seeing these images, that most were destroyed.

I think therapy is an essential part of recovery for anyone who has undergone a cancer diagnosis. I also think that each situation is unique, and some people would like to keep private and that is a beautiful thing, and I wish I could do the same. It was when I went to the Young Survivors Conference last year, that I began fighting. I almost didn’t even go, because I had to go “alone”, and i couldn’t find a parking space! However, the purpose of the conference was to celebrate being alive and being a survivor, having fun and letting go - learning about treatment options - knowing that you have people who care and support, who are wild and free and hilarious and young and who are also faced with a dangerous road.

I don’t know, I am kind of rambling.

I just love my sisters, and I love actually being able to be a part of trying to change the world. If it wasn’t breast cancer, i would be knee deep in animal rescue and anti-horse slaughter movements. I am trying to do as much of that as I can, but because I physically do not feel well, the sarcoma crap has become priority.

lalalalalala. I do wish sometimes that I was just the wind instead

– Carolyne

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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

The FDA advisory committee has recommended against Avastin for use in women with advanced breast cancer. Are they depriving these women of a life prolonging treatment? The simple answer to this question is no.

Avastin is a drug that treats cancer by blocking the blood supply to the cancer. This way, the cancer starves to death because it is deprived of nourishment from the blood. For many years, scientists have known that one of the main steps in a cancers growth was the formation of new blood vessels to supply it with nutrients. Avastin, also known as bevacizumab, prevents this new blood vessel growth.

Researchers have been attracted by the concept of treating cancer with blood vessel-blocking agents. It makes sense. Starve the tumor. But, in practice this hasn’t worked that well. The drug has had a little success in treating widespread colorectal cancer and lung cancer but only when combined with chemotherapy.

It also seems to slow the progression of widespread breast cancer – also combined with chemotherapy. That is why it was brought up for FDA approval. The FDA advisory committee was bothered by the fact that the drug didn’t prolong the lives of the women, it cost a lot ($100,000/year), and it caused a lot of toxicity (holes in the intestines, bleeding into the lungs).

And there is another issue that was mentioned. We already have a lot of drugs that are effective in treating breast cancer. My own experience was that there was always another drug to treat patients with widespread breast cancer after the last one failed.

The problem is that after a woman has been through treatment with several different drugs, her cancer usually doesn’t respond to anything anymore. And also, she is generally not strong enough for another round of chemotherapy. So having a drug like Avastin, which would be the most toxic and expensive of all drugs used for breast cancer, would not help much.

We don’t need another drug that helps a little. We have lots of those. We need one that can hit a home run.

I think the FDA is becoming suspicious of all these drugs with only marginal benefit after being burned by the overuse of erythropoietin – a very expensive drug that stimulates blood production. After that drug was approved, the manufacturer, Amgen, marketed it like it was running for president. And so oncologists, like everyone else, susceptible to marketing messages, and seeing a profit in providing the drug, gave it to everyone. The bill for cancer care went up, but patients weren’t helped much. In fact, people may have been hurt – see my other blogs (5/10, 8/4) on the subject. Now the government, through Medicare, and private insurers, are limiting the use of the drug.

Perhaps the FDA advisers saw this as a potential problem with Avastin. Its manufacturer, Genentech, would market it to everyone, including patients. It would be given to lots of women with widespread breast cancer, and the cost of medical care would inch up.

So congratulations to the FDA advisory committee for a wise decision. To the women with widespread breast cancer, you will not lose by this. Indeed, you will gain less toxicity and get to keep some of your hard-earned dollars.

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Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

The other day in my class with second year medical students, one of them asked me how I handled the stress of oncology practice – namely caring for so many patients who would eventually die of their disease. He was planning to specialize in pediatric neurology, a specialty with a dismal success rate. At least we oncologists have a fair number of cures. Not so with brain damaged children.

I often wondered myself why I didn’t get overly depressed by my practice. Sure, there were certain times that were quite sad, particularly with certain patients who did not survive. But, generally life went on for me.

This question has actually been the subject of many articles in the oncology journals. Dealing with dying patients is a major stressor and many ways to deal with this have been proposed. They range from more vacation to talking to others. All probably effective, but the one I’ve seen most often is apathy. That is, instead of talking to patients about their issues and about dying, many oncologists just give more chemotherapy or whatever drug hasn’t yet been used for the particular patient.

It is much easier to prescribe than talk. That is why we have such an excess use of antibiotics in this country. It is simpler and quicker to prescribe an antibiotic than discuss why a viral illness such as a cold won’t get better faster with antibiotics. The same is true of many oncologists. Giving more chemotherapy is easier than discussing a patients’ symptoms and their likely outcome.

How can oncologists be so unfeeling in the face of gravely ill patients? Recent studies in how people react to pain may explain this. Scientists have learned how to measure the brain’s reaction to pain by a certain imaging procedure called functional MRI. When people feel pain, the fMRI lights up certain parts of the brain that have now become more active with the pain. Also, when people see others experiencing pain, some of the same areas of the brain also “light up” – appear more active. A measure of empathy.

But what if someone sees lots of people who experience pain – even mild pain? Recently researchers performed fMRI studies on acupuncturists – consistent pain producers. When the acupuncturists saw people getting needles stuck in them, their brains didn’t “light up”. The fMRI showed no pain response, no empathy.

Why no empathy? Maybe acupuncturists have trained themselves out of empathy. Perhaps this is a defensive measure that allows them to work without the stress and agony of seeing others experience pain. It makes sense.

So I ask, is this what happens in oncologist’s brains when they see people with terminal illness? Are their empathy receivers turned off? Perhaps that is true for those that respond to patients’ distress with more chemotherapy. Did I also turn off my empathy receiver? Although I wasn’t a chemotherapy giver (in fact patients would sometimes leave me because I recommended against more chemotherapy), I did have to get through the day, the week, the year. I don’t know. Perhaps we all learn to “turn off” in certain situations – starvation in Darfur, floods in Bangladesh, you name it. Bad things happen and if we feel them too deeply, we would suffer too much.

I guess that is true of oncologists also. It would be intolerable for them if they suffered along with their patients.

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An FDA panel will meet on Wednesday to determine whether the labeling for the drug Avastin can now include breast cancer. Although the drug is approved in Europe to treat breast cancer and doctors use it in the United States to treat some breast cancer on an off-label basis, data from an Avastin study did nothing to show regulators that the drug improves the overall survival. In fact, the recent study concluded that the drug improved the all important “overall survival” less than a month.

This panel vote will help guide the administration when they decide in February whether to extend the label for the drug. Avastin has been on the U.S. market since 2004 and is approved to treat colorectal and lung cancers.

An analyst at Credit Suisse said he expects the Advisory Panel to recommend approval.