Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and imagerymajestic
Breast Cancer In Younger Women
A new and troubling study published February 27, 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association authored by Dr Rebecca Johnson, herself a breast cancer survivor, indicates that the rates of advanced breast cancer among young women has risen slightly. Here is an abstract of the study.
The authors reviewed a U.S. government database of cancer cases from 1976 to 2009 and they discovered that among women aged 25-39, in whom breast cancer has spread to distant parts of the body, indicating advanced disease, has increased from between 1-2 cases per 100,000 women to about 3 cases per 100,000 during that time span.
This is not good news because the tumors of younger women tend to be more aggressive than those of older women and the fact that they are being found after they have already spread to other parts of the body makes it even more difficult to effect a cure.
Population Increase Not The Whole Reason
Although breast cancer is still more uncommon in women younger than age 40, the study indicated that in the mid 1970′s, there were around 250 advanced cases diagnosed in women younger than age 40. By 2009, however, the number had risen to more than 800. During this time period, the number of women of that age range rose nationwide from about 22 million to about 30 million, an increase that might explain part of the study trend “but definitely not all of it,” Dr Johnson said, who is a medical director of a teen and young adult cancer program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Dr Johnson also stated “The change might be due to some sort of modifiable risk factor, like a lifestyle change” or exposure to some sort of cancer-linked substance, she said.
I’m not reporting this to scare anyone (because I don’t believe scaring you is a good way to get you to make necessary changes), but to inform and empower you to be more proactive with your health. For mothers and daughters alike (and also men because they can get breast cancer too), it’s important to know the risk factors for breast cancer.
Free Report Covers Cancer Risk Factors, Offers Solutions
I have spent the past 20 years or so compiling information on breast cancer risk factors – delving into research, talking to doctors and natural therapists, and I have compiled what I learned into my report “24 Ways to Decrease Your Cancer Risk” which normally you would need to sign up for my free newsletters to receive. And you can still do that. But to show you how serious I am about getting the word out to younger women that they can decrease their risk of cancer by being very proactive, you can also download my report today by clicking this link: 24 Ways to Decrease Your Cancer Risk
Know How To Perform A Breast Self Exam
First and foremost, know your body. Learn how to check your breasts – click here for the 5 Steps of a Breast Self Exam from breastcancer.org, a wonderfully informational site. Don’t delay getting yourself to a doctor if you suspect anything unusual may be happening in your body. Read my report, “24 Ways to Decrease Your Cancer Risk” and do your utmost to keep the risk factors at a minimum. You owe this to not only yourself, but to your unborn children.
I send my love to everyone taking this journey right now. If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (FB.com/MarnieClark.com) and I’ll do my utmost to keep you informed and empowered on your healing journey… and beyond.
Brittany Wenger
Diverted this afternoon by an online article about this bright young mind, I decided to introduce you to her. Her name is Brittany Wenger from Lakewood Ranch, Florida. She’s only 17, but she recently won Google’s Science Fair Grand Prize for her breast cancer diagnosis app.
The Breast Cancer Diagnosis App
Brittany wrote a computer program, called a “neural network” which she designed to mimic the human brain. In her words for her summary of the project: “Artificial neural networks detect patterns too complex to be recognized by humans and can be applied to breast mass malignancy classification when evaluating Fine Needle Aspirates (FNAs). This project teaches the cloud how to diagnose breast cancer by implementing a custom-crafted neural network that consumes FNA data collected by the University of Wisconsin to answer the question – is a mass malignant or benign?”.
The problem with the FNA is that it’s often one of the least precise diagnosis tools. It’s quite easy for the needle to miss the mass or tumor and thus the cancer cells the technician is trying to detect. Often, if FNA results are not clear, the patient has to undergo a second biopsy with a larger needle or even much more invasive surgery. Brittany’s plan was to boost the less-invasive test’s success rates.
If Brittany’s information about her app is correct, her program will be able to quickly and correctly identify 99% of malignant tumors and improve breast cancer diagnosis results. That’s pretty darned exciting.
You can read her project summary here (and make sure you see the video on the “Step 1″ page. Brilliant.
What is an Artificial Neural Network?
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are programs built to model the brain’s neural syntax structure. They have the ability to learn, to understand the meaning of complicated data, and can be used to detect patterns too complex for a human or another computer program to notice.
Young people like Brittany give me hope for the future.
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
Photo courtesy of rgbstock.com and hisks
Johns Hopkins Advocates Integrated Cancer Care
For those who were not able to attend the webinar put on by Johns Hopkins Medicine on December 17th, following please find my notes and ramblings from that webinar. I hope you find them useful.
The webinar was titled Integrative Medicine: How Acupuncture, The Mind/Body Connection, Holistic Eating and Chinese Medicine and Other Modalities Can Help Survivors During and After Treatment. Which is kind of a long-winded title, but they wanted to tell you exactly what they’d be covering and that title does the trick
Webinar Overview
The webinar was presented by Dr Linda Lee and Mr Jeff Gould and it ran for about an hour. Dr Lee spoke about how the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine Center viewed integrative medicine as being the best of scientific medicine with a broader understanding of the nature of illness, that integrative medicine enhanced conventional medicine rather than replacing it. They preferred the term “integrative” rather than “alternative” or “complementary” because alternative seeks an “alternate” approach to conventional medicine, it connotes a turning away, while the term complementary was too broad.
The Johns Hopkins website further defines integrative medicine: “Integrative medicine encompasses a broad range of therapeutic approaches to achieve optimal health and wellness for those who are ill or those who are concerned about disease prevention. It is a powerful resource for those seeking to participate actively in their healthcare.”
A Holistic Diet for Cancer Patients
Dr Lee spoke first and discussed holistic eating quite simply – she quoted author Michael Pollan, whose advice was to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I loved that – it says so much so succintly!
Dr Lee warned us against eating highly processed foods and too many food additives. She said we should try not to eat too much meat, especially beef, and that we should strive for a balanced approach in our food choices. Volumes could be written (and have been) about the best nutrition for cancer patients – for more definitive information, see my page Diet and Cancer.
Dr Lee addressed the concerns of those going through chemotherapy, she had some good advice for what to eat when you don’t feel like eating, for those taste bud issues and digestive problems. She advised using a blender or food processor (I would say JUICER) and put your food into that.
She had no real recommendations about WHAT to put in the blender – other than you wouldn’t put a spaghetti dinner in there, for instance. She just said it’s easier to process liquid foods like smoothies and shakes. She recommended having multiple small meals, rather than 3 bigger meals per day. Dr Lee recommended the book One Bite At A Time – Nourishing Recipes for Cancer Survivors and Their Friends by Rebecca Katz, which I’ve added to my Recommended Reading list.
I’ll go a little farther than these recommendations and direct you to my article Do You Know The Benefits of Juicers For Cancer Patients.
Dietary Myths in Cancer
Dr Lee discussed some of the dietary myths she had encountered from her patients – we’ll start with the myth, then Dr Lee’s refutal:
- Avoid sugar because it feeds cancer – this one surprised me because I do advocate avoiding sugar if you have active cancer in your body. Dr Lee disagreed, saying a moderate amount of sugar is okay, it won’t cause your cancer to get bigger. So, I’ve softened my stance on this a little bit and found a good article for you that discusses moderation.
- Eat whatever foods you want and as much of them as you like – eating as much as you like of something isn’t advisable if you’re undergoing chemotherapy and having digestive issues, smaller meals are better.
- Eat fried foods because they will give you more calories if you’ve lost weight during cancer treatment – Dr Lee advised fried foods are NOT a good idea because they increase nausea.
- Being overweight is better than being underweight – Not true for breast cancer, Dr Lee says. Fat cells create estrogen and if you had/have estrogen receptor positive tumor(s) being overweight can actually cause more problems for you.
Vitamin Supplements
Dr Lee advised caution when taking vitamins – because adverse affects are not always known and they may have interactions with some of the drugs you are on. She did not have anything against taking vitamins, she merely advised caution, suggesting a person see an herbalist or dietician for guidance (I’d say see a trained naturopath) and always let your oncologist know what you are doing. Dr Lee suggested referring to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website.
Mind/Body Approach
My favorite part of the webinar was the discussion of how using mind/body medicine can help cancer patients. Dr Lee went out on a limb and said that STRESS CAN AFFECT CANCER GROWTH. I’ve been saying this for years and I was so glad to hear someone from the medical world acknowledge and affirm this.
Dr Lee advised that chronic emotional stress can have a negative impact on cancer, and she discussed how the hormones released during stressful periods affect inflammation, cellular immune response and other key factors and that getting stress treated was really important. She advocated the use of one or more of the following therapies (all of which I also recommend on this site and in my newsletters):
- yoga
- meditation
- tai chi
- massage
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy
- guided imagery
- hypnotherapy
- support groups
- journaling
- exercise
I found a good article for you from the Mayo Clinic which discusses exactly how stress hormones wreak havoc on our body.
Mr Jeff Gould On The Chinese Medicine Approach
The second part of the webinar was handed over to Jeff Gould, a Chinese medicine practitioner at the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine Center. Mr Gould discussed many aspects of Chinese medicine, I will highlight the most interesting points he made:
- Chinese medicine is what he termed individualized medicine. He might see 10 patients with breast cancer, but each patient may get a different treatment protocol based on the symptoms they present with on that day.
- Chinese medicine is very holistic – practitioners don’t just treat physical symptoms (such as cancer), but also the emotional and spiritual aspects of a person. He said one of his patients, in an effort to describe what they felt like after an acupuncture treatment, called it “a lightness of being”. I thought that was a very good description.
- Mr Gould called Chinese medicine a highly effective adjunct to Western medicine, it has been utilized quite effectively for over 3,000 years.
- Mr Gould mentioned that the Chinese also use diet as a therapy – that Chinese medicine looks at the energetics of food vs the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. They use food to promote health AND also to treat illness. I was quite interested to find out that certain restaurants in China will have doctors who will greet you at the door, take a look at your vital signs (which are quite different to Western medicine – they are more likely to look at your tongue and take your pulses than to check your blood pressure, etc.) and then recommend certain things on the menu to assist with your current signs/symptoms.
- When using Chinese herbs, your herbalist will tailor make a formula for you based on your unique constellation of symptoms and these are modified each week as symptoms change.
- Mr Gould specifically mentioned chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, saying that the best time to treat that is BEFORE symptoms begin – he said it’s much easier to keep it from happening than to treat it after it has already happened.
- We were reminded that herbs are drugs and as such, can have side effects and interactions with other drugs. He also warned to use a trained herbalist when using herbs for any illness.
- Mr Gould also did not recommend using Chinese medicine alone to treat cancer, but as an adjunct.
All in all, I thought it a very good webinar, well presented, and with good, concise information. If you have any specific questions, please contact me.
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and xedos4
New Research Shows Resveratrol Benefits Breast Cancer
I’ve had my eye on resveratrol for quite some time because all kinds of health claims were being made about it, but as far as breast cancer is concerned, I was unable to find any definitive studies that showed it had the ability to help in the fight against breast cancer. Until today.
Resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant that is produced by some plants (most notably grapes) to protect the plant against environmental stresses.
New Spanish Study
A new study has been published on 17 November 2012 in Plant Foods for Human Nutrition Journal titled Cytotoxic Effect of Natural trans-Resveratrol Obtained from Elicited Vitis vinifera Cell Cultures on Three Cancer Cell Lines by Fernandez-Perez F, Belchi-Navarro S, Almagro L, Bru R, Pedreno MA and Gomez-Ros LV at the Department of Plant Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Murcia, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain.
The researchers tested grapevine cell cultures on two human acute lymphocytic and monocytic leukemia cell lines, and one human breast cancer cell line and found that the effect of natural trans-Resveratrol (“trans-R”) “on cell proliferation is not only dose- and time-dependent but also cell type-dependent, as seen by the different degrees of susceptibility of the leukemia and breast cancer cell lines tested.”
The researchers found that treatment with low levels of trans-R concentration decreased cell proliferation by blocking certain cell cycles, rather than by inducing cell death, while high concentrations of trans-R decreased cell proliferation as a result of apoptosis (planned cell death) which is induced in all the cell lines.
Consult Your Naturopath for Proper Dosages
As a lay person, I cannot advise you as to the correct dosage for you but your naturopath can read through the study (and here is a link to it) and decipher the proper dosages.
I have been holding off recommending resveratrol on my Diet and Cancer page until a good study had been published, but I added it today.
References:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11130-012-0327-8/fulltext.html#Sec11
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23161277
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and Sura Nualpradid
I’m loving the new way of attending seminars – live, online, via webinars you can register for and sit through in your pajamas if you want to!
I’ve just received an email from Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine notifying of a special webinar they are holding on December 17th and I wanted to make sure you knew about it. It should be a great one, here are the details:
Title: How Acupuncture, The Mind/Body Connection, Holistic Eating, Chinese Medicine, and Other Modalities Can Help Cancer Survivors During and After Treatment
Cost: Free
Register online: CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Time: 7:00pm (1 hour) Eastern Standard Time
Speakers:
Linda Lee, MD – Director of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine & Digestive Center
Jeff Gould, LAc, DiplAc, DiplCh – Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist
I will be attending this webinar and taking notes, so if you miss it, you can rest assured that I will tell you all about it. It should be great information.
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and jscreationzs
I’ve been reading a lot lately about a new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors, particularly from the City of Hope, one of the cancer centers I like to follow because they are doing such interesting research on treatments for cancer, both pharmaceutical and natural.
PARP Inhibitors – What They Are
Here is the whole skinny (well, at least what I was able to find and make sense of) on PARP Inhibitors.
PARP stands for “poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase”. PARP is an enzyme that researchers say is over-expressed in a variety of cancers, and its expression has been associated with overall prognosis in cancer, especially breast cancer.
PARP is important for repairing single-strand breaks in DNA, termed “nicks”. If the nicks in the DNA are not repaired, then when the cells divide and replicate themselves the new cells can cause double-strand breaks to form.
Drugs which inhibit PARP1 cause multiple double-strand breaks to form. The reason that this is a good thing is because in tumors with BRCA1, BRCA2 or PALB2 mutations, the double-strand breaks cannot be efficiently repaired and that leads to the death of those cells. Research is showing that cancer cells that are low in oxygen (which is the case in fast growing tumors) are sensitive to PARP inhibitors.
I wondered what that meant for normal cells – how they would be affected. The research shows, however, that normal cells (which don’t duplicate their DNA as often as cancer cells) still have repair mechanisms operating and that allows them to survive the PARP inhibition.
PARP Inhibitors and Chemotherapy
Research is showing that by adding a PARP inhibitor to chemotherapy, the chances that the cancer cells will become resistant to the chemotherapy decrease. When cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy, the chemotherapy is no longer able to fight the cancer cells. By lowering the chances of resistance, a PARP inhibitor may increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
City of Hope Research
In September 2012, The City of Hope released an article titled Triple Negative Breast Cancer Treatment Gets a Boost. The article explains a little about PARP inhibitors and states “Scientists think the drugs may work especially well in cancers with BRCA mutations or triple negative breast cancers”. Triple negative breast cancer accounts for only 14-20% of breast cancers and is not driven by hormones like the bulk of breast tumors are.
Dr George Somlo, a researcher at the City of Hope in Duarte, CA, felt that this new class of drugs showed a lot of promise “because the drugs seem to be a little easier on healthy tissue, which helps reduce side effects, and they may make chemotherapy more effective“.
Good news!
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARP_inhibitor
http://www.cityofhope.org/about/publications/eHope/2012-vol-11-num-8-september-19/Pages/triple-negative-breast-cancer-treatment-gets-a-boost.aspx
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/25
http://ww5.komen.org/Content.aspx?id=19327354168
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
I’ve been checking out an interesting website today that I thought you should know about – it is www.pi3k.org.
Remember the “Stand Up To Cancer” telethon? It’s a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation and they raise money for cancer research. Apparently several “Dream Teams” have been formed with the funds from this telethon and these Dream Teams are comprised of very talented scientists and clinicians who are collaborating.
Who is PI3K.Org?
PI3K.org is comprised of the best minds from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vall D’Hebron Institute of Oncology, and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. Some great minds collaborating indeed!
Here’s a video explaining where the money goes when you donate to Stand Up To Cancer.
The mission of PI3K.org is to “take scientific and clinical observations and rapidly apply them to cutting edge clinical trials for patients diagnosed with breast cancer, ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer. Our Dream Team is composed of researchers and clinical investigators that have pioneered the discovery of the PI3K pathway and have proven its significance in women’s cancers.”
So What Is PI3K?
Having never heard of the PI3K Pathway before today, I had to go into research mode. Here’s a good explanation of the PI3K Pathway offered by PI3k.org.
Wikipedia also has this to offer: “Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases (PI 3-kinases or PI3Ks) are a family of enzymes involved in cellular functions such as cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, motility, survival and intracellular trafficking, which in turn are involved in cancer.”
Researchers have discovered that with many breast cancer patients, problems occur in the PI3K pathway, resulting in disregulation of cell functions which can contribute to the development of many different types of cancers, including breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers.
If you want ALL the gory details about cell signalling and how PI3K plays its part, click here. If not, suffice to say that researchers are very actively involved in developing new drugs and therapies which target the PI3K pathway, which is abnormal in about 20-30% of patients with advanced breast cancer.
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). It is my honor to help you through this.
Photo courtesy of KimCameronMusic.com
Kim Cameron of Side FX Donates Song Proceeds To Breast Cancer Research
Today I wanted to just mention that I was recently contacted by the PR guy for Kim Cameron and her band, Side FX, to tell me that they wished to donate the proceeds of one of their singles to breast cancer research. I confess to never having heard of Side FX, but I have now.
They are doing extremely well, apparently one of their videos already has around 300,000 views after just over a week, so congratulations to them.
I believe that Kim Cameron has recently lost a family member to cancer and has decided to donate all of the proceeds from the song “The Man I Used To Know” to breast cancer research, which is commendable.
If you’d like to support that band (and breast cancer research in the process), here is a link to their song:
Personal Appeal to Kim Cameron
I would like to make a personal appeal to Kim Cameron at this stage. Rather than donating the money to breast cancer research, I would challenge her to donate those funds to an organization that is actively working to end the breast cancer epidemic, Breast Cancer Action. It’s not that I think “breast cancer research” isn’t doing what they should be. But Breast Cancer Action is not dependent on pharmaceutical companies or any corporations for funding, making them much more independent and able to effect real change at a grass roots level in the breast cancer epidemic.
Breast Cancer Action has been working since 1990 to put patients first, to create a healthier, less toxic environment, and to eliminate the social inequities that exist. Their “Think Before You Pink” campaign has been extraordinarily successful in raising public awareness of the pinkwashing problem and other empty gestures that do little to change the breast cancer epidemic.
BCA’s current campaign “It’s An Epidemic, Stupid!” (the name was sparked by Bill Clinton’s slogan “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”) was begun because BCA feels that now is the critical moment. After more than 30 years of “awareness” campaigns and billions spent on pink ribbon products, we are still losing 40,000 women per year to breast cancer and more needs to be done by each of us, our politicians and our government.
Kim, if you read this, congratulations on your decision to help breast cancer research. Now take it one step further and donate to a cause that is actually doing something about it. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and Ambro
More Migraines, Fewer Tumors?
A 2010 research study made its way onto my desk today that I thought was worth sharing.
Published in January 2010 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and titled Migraine History and Breast Cancer Risk Among Postmenopausal Women, the study found that postmenopausal women who have been treated for migraines have a 26% – 33% lower risk of breast cancer than other women.
The researchers made the point that estrogen plays a role in both migraines and some breast cancers. 60% of women with migraines reported having more headaches around the time of menstruation, when estrogen levels change. Many women reported having few migraines when they were pregnant, particularly around mid-pregnancy when estrogen levels stabilized.
Knowing you’d want to know more, I did some further research.
How Estrogen Plays a Role In Migraines
Estrogen has several important actions in the central nervous system that may account for its association with migraine headaches. When estrogen levels decline, serotonin levels also fall due to a decline in production coupled with an increased rate of elimination. Serotonin is a nerve transmitter (primarily created in your gastrointestinal tract) and is thought to be a contributor to feelings of well-being and happiness.
When serotonin declines, that triggers another hormone known as calcitonin (made in the thyroid gland, it helps to regulate calcium levels) to be released, and along with a few other substances that are released, this causes cranial blood vessels to dilate (expand) and sensitizes particular parts of the trigeminal nerve, which is the largest of the cranial nerves and is responsible for sensation in the face and certain motor functions such as biting, chewing, and swallowing.
I had a massage teacher who always said that headaches were nothing more than a cerebrovascular event – “cerebro” meaning brain and “vascular” meaning blood vessels – it’s when the blood vessels in your brain dilate, causing that pain and throbbing and sometimes impaired vision that migraine sufferers describe.
My very own husband suffers from migraines sometimes and a few years ago I finally found something that absolutely stops a migraine in its tracks – at least it does for him. Several others who have tried this recipe have also reported success, so I knew I had to share it with you!
Stopping A Migraine Quickly
Supplies:
- A large glass bowl of cold water
- Tray full of ice cubes
- Essential oils of peppermint, ginger, marjoram (make sure they’re therapeutic grade)
- Washcloth
To the bowl of water, add the tray of ice cubes and two drops each of the three oils. Mix it up a little but not too much – the oil will float on the water and that’s okay. Dip in the washcloth and then place onto the forehead of the migraine sufferer. They will express shock initially because of the icy-ness of the compress, but should within 2-3 minutes gain great relief. Keep soaking the cloth in the icy mixture and reapplying to the forehead (making sure the oils don’t get into their eyes, that will create a whole different kind of pain!) until the headache is gone. Wishing you success with this recipe!
If you need to know where to get therapeutic grade essential oils, just contact me.
Source articles:
http://www.uptodate.com/contents/estrogen-associated-migraine
http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/6/1005.abstract?sid=217c62b5-cef1-4211-9352-5e9d568e9f12
If you would like my help with getting through breast cancer in an inspiring and ultra-healthy way, please sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com). When you’re in a desperate situation, you need an ally. You can depend on me to help you through this.
A SCIENTIFIC MAP TO NAVIGATE THE MEDICAL MAZE WITH A BREAST CANCER DIAGNOSIS TO EMERGE CANCER FREE AND LOOK ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!
by Catherine Doughty, MS, CCHI, Award Winning Author
The award winning book, Breast Cancer! You’re Kidding…Right? Living Life Through The Prism Of Uncertainty And Having A Good Time is the distilled essence of my cancer experience and the use of scientific methodology to assist in navigating the medical maze bringing clarification to treatment decisions in an uncertain decision space. I have condensed the subject matter into the smallest compass possible because, as everyone knows who has fallen into what I call the “Cosmic Cancer Bunny Hole,” conciseness, tools for clinical discussions with physicians, and precision in treatment scenario planning is of the greatest assistance in decision making.
Once you have heard the three little words, “You have cancer!” The first thing that needs to be realized is a fact of fundamental importance, and that is uncertainty. Because it means breaking away from all of the ordinary predispositions of thought you were living with and reconstructing a new phase of your life. You also need to give yourself some room to understand the absolutely fresh new scale of values which the prism of uncertainty presents to you. After you get ahold of uncertainty as the true reality for everyone, it is the sexiest way to live and, every day you will have a rocking hot good time!
In the beginning, don’t imagine that you can assimilate a breast cancer diagnosis, what you will or won’t accept in the treatment planning stages and all that it contains in one or two clinical visits with your surgeon, oncologist or other subject matter experts, or in one or two readings. You need strategy to navigate the medical maze and fast. You should review your reports and go over your options again and again with your physicians until you have thoroughly grasped the magnitude of the treatment plans you are willing to consent to because it is you who will live with the aftermath of every clinical decision carried out.
I designed the book with the principles and elements for success, in response to the requests I received from all the cancer patients who I coached voluntarily. So often, they had been crying for days and weeks at a time and they all had the same question, “Where do I begin to unravel this, and where do you start?” Hence, the birth of the book, which is loaded with thought provoking strategy to assist anyone with any stage of breast cancer emerge stunning, and get their life back in control while learning how to make decisions in an uncertain decision space and live their life through the prism of uncertainty. The fascination lies in the simplicity and pure scientific methodology used to provide a complete step by step guide inclusive of discussion documents, clinical consultation worksheets, criteria solution matrices and treatment scenario planning which is critical to a successful outcome.
The book is literally pulling the curtain back and getting the word out there that there is a clear cut strategy for anyone with any stage of breast cancer needing treatment planning that is on the merits and works with life threatening and lifesaving clinical decision making in uncertain decision spaces to minimize the risk for recurrence. The book provides perspective and a practical method for selecting an appropriate treatment plan that is right for you.
Honestly, you will be on the edge of your seat with every single word in this book. It captures the reader from beginning to end, and makes them want to live their life through the prism of uncertainty and have one rocking hot good time. This is an adrenaline thrill ride from start to finish, that you cannot put down.
One of the questions people want to know is how do I get a copy of the book? The book is available worldwide, including Amazon.com, both paperback and Kindle versions at http://www.amazon.com/Breast-
About the Author: Catherine Doughty, MS, CCHI is an award winning author who lives in Bellaire, Texas. She serves as an adjunct associate professor for three universities and holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Informatics earned at the University of Texas. Her career as Director in a Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging is enhanced by the fact that she is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
She is available for interviews, media appearances, bloging, radio interviews, book signings, and speaking engagements. If you would like additional information on the secrets of scientific methodology or would like to meet the physicians that endorsed this award winning book, please visit her website at http://www.thecancercat.com/. In order to contact the author directly, send an e-mail to http://cldoughty@yahoo.com or telephone at 832-545-6239.
Follow Me:
