Tuesday, August 4, 2009

“What to Do After a Radiation Treatment” plus 2 more

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“What to Do After a Radiation Treatment” plus 2 more

What to Do After a Radiation Treatment

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 08:13 PM PDT

Radiation therapy, which destroys cancerous cells, is probably the biggest single treatment method of cancer in the world today. Sufferers of breast cancer can actually be free of cancer after receiving radiation treatment. Radiation therapy can be given alone or as part of a sequence of treatments such as chemotherapy or operational surgery.

It is vitally important as a patient to understand radiation therapy, the uses it has, the side effects it can cause and what will happen after treatment.

All cells, either cancerous or healthy, continually split to make new cells. Cancerous cells go through this process significantly quicker than normal cells which allows the disease to spread.

Radiation therapy involves the accurate delivery of high energy particles or waves in large doses to the cancerous cells to stop them multiplying by causing irreversible damage to them. The radiation breaks a strand within the DNA molecule inside cancerous cells to prevent growth. This will have an effect on healthy surrounding cells but these seem to fully recover from the effects of radiation therapy. Chemotherapy is different in that the whole body is exposed to agents that fight cancers whereas radiation therapy can be performed on a more local area of the body.

As far as side effects go, breast cancer patients can experience several things either during or after treatment. These may include fatigue, difficulty or pain when swallowing, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, coughing, changes in the pigmentation of the skin, swelling or loss of hair in the treated area. Some patients suffer no side effects whatsoever.

After radiation therapy, a patient must undergo fairly extensive follow-up care. This will include regular visits to the Doctor to check the day-to-day progress of the patient as well as managing any problems that arise.

In some cases, medical care being administered before or during radiation therapy will need to continue such as dietary needs, exercise plans or medicine.

Some patients may continue to experience continued discomfort of the skin around the treated area. This must be looked after gently with no tight clothes or dressings worn around it, with the area to be lightly padded dry after washing instead of wiping. Patients should rest often while the body works to build up healthy supplies of skin tissue again.

For patients that continue to experience prolonged period of fatigue, rest should once again be on the agenda and this can last for several months after treatment. Patients that continue to feel pain will need to visit a Doctor who may refer them back to the hospital if it fails to subside.

There is also an emotional price to be paid after having breast cancer and radiation therapy. This can lead to patients suffering from depression, anger, grief, anxiety, stress and many other strong emotional feelings. If these feeling become overbearing, seeking the help of trained mental health care specialists is an absolute necessity.

Recovering from cancer can be a long, tiring, painful and emotionally exhausting experience. However, radiation therapy can frequently kill the cancerous cells on a long-term basis with patients living long, happy and pain-free lives for many years afterward.

Breast Cancer Awareness - An Alternate Perspective From a Cancer Survivor

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 05:59 AM PDT

I would like to honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month a little differently than most others. I have a different perspective. You see, I had breast cancer nine years ago. I rejected conventional medicine and went with an alternative approach.

I'm quite cynical about Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Throughout October I see stories about brave cancer survivors who survived their toxic treatments and went on to run marathons. I see stories about new, expensive cancer breakthroughs on broadcasts lucratively sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. These are the same multinational corporations that manufacture plastics, pesticides and fragrance chemicals that actually cause cancer!

Whether you count by dollars or numbers of people employed by it, Cancer is one of the largest industries in the country. How is it that the companies that cause cancer also manufacture the cancer drugs? When it comes to Big Pharma, news stories aren't so much news as propaganda. Watch carefully this month: How many breast cancer stories will show women being healed by natural, non-patented medicine? None.

Why is it that the research we're asked to fund looks for new treatments (as long as they can be patented), but never at the carcinogenic effects of plastics, pesticides and fragrance chemicals? Because it would rock the industrial boat that funds the research. Their definition of "prevention" is earlier detection. My definition of "prevention" is not getting it in the first place!

So why did I choose to risk my life with alternative medicine?

Two women whom I loved very much died of breast cancer not long before I got it. More accurately, they died of their cancer treatments. One was like a mother to me, the other, like a sister. They were both seemingly healthy when the cancer was discovered. Indeed one had no tumor site at all. At her annual physical, the doctor found some cancer cells trapped in a lymph node. That's what lymph nodes are supposed to do. Her immune system was working well.

They gave her every test they could to find the location of the cancer, to no avail. Then they proceeded to bombard the poor woman with "as much chemo as we can give you without actually killing you." After that, they gave her radiation therapy.

Once she had no immune system left, the cancer that her body had been keeping at bay took over with a vengeance. It spread to her hip bone. More radiation. Oops! Too strong. The radiation killed her hip bone so she needed a hip replacement. More chemo. No more visits from her beloved grandchildren because she had no immunity to germs.

The bone cancer spread to her arm. She had a painful surgery for that. Then to her skull- exactly where her mobile phone antenna had touched her head. The last three years of life for this once-vital, beautiful woman were spent in pain, wretched illness and isolation. She never complained once. She just accepted it as her fate. I held her hand as she died.

My other friend was only in her late 30's when they found the lump. She was a healthy vegetarian who practiced yoga, meditation, and alternative medicine. One day when she was getting a chiropractic adjustment, the doctor said her thyroid felt a little strange and suggested she get it checked.

She did, and it was fine. But the new doctor felt a breast lump and prescribed a mammogram and biopsy. Yep, take a little sealed-up tumor, crush it, radiate it and poke it repeatedly with a needle. Then act surprised when it suddenly metastasizes like crazy. The doctor actually told my friend that she had likely had the tumor for at least ten years.

My friend wanted to do alternative cancer therapies. Her oncologist said she should only do them as an adjunct to conventional treatment. Within a year she had lost her breast and was almost killed by chemo and radiation. The natural medicines, which are much more gentle, had no hope of working on a body that was so ravaged and sickened. Within another year she had lost the other breast, had more rounds of chemo, and died shortly after that.

The next year I found my lump, and within six weeks I had six lumps. I consulted with an M.D. and several alternative doctors. I read a bunch of books they recommended. I prayed and fretted, then decided that, live or die, I was going with non-toxic alternative medicine.

I called my late friend's husband and told him the news. He said, "Whatever you do, don't let the doctors get their hands on you. My wife told me before she died that she was sorry she ever listened to them. I believe that if she had gone a natural route she would be alive today."

So here is my advice for Breast Cancer Awareness:

  1. Question Authority- Don't automatically believe the doctors, or anyone else. That includes this article.
  2. Take Responsibility for Your Life- People who will spend weeks researching the pros and cons of a new car, carefully studying the fine print on a contract, will never study their medical options! Your doctor doesn't have to live or die with the consequences of your treatment, you do!
  3. Learn About Your Options- They're out there, but your medical doctor has not studied them. Even if she has, she is forbidden to suggest them! Educate yourself before you're ever in a health crisis.
  4. Be a Difficult Patient- Demand thermography instead of, or at least before, a mammogram. Thermography uses no radiation, does not crush the breast tissue, and can detect cancers months or even years before a mammogram can.
  5. Learn About the fungal link to cancer It can save your life.
Wishing you and yours the best of health!

Cancer and PTSD - Run Silent, Run Deep

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 05:56 AM PDT

"...Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst."-D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1928)

The eloquence of early twentieth century writers notwithstanding, today's prose would probably lead to a quick internet link: PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, twenty-first century terminology for delayed reaction to everything from school shootings to rape. My former job as a Foreign Service officer had me working at our embassy in Saigon during the Vietnam War. After trying to survive for two years on the inside of war, PTSD and cancer manifested later on in my life, (1) from the emotionally shattering effects of the war itself, and (2) from a poisonous substance I thought little of at the time.

Since there is no history of breast cancer in my family, the logical conclusion was that my excessive exposure to Agent Orange or dioxin, the toxic defoliant used extensively in Vietnam was the culprit. FYI many returning GIs suffered from cancer-related illnesses due to exposure to dioxin (see: ejnet.org/dioxin).

Because of strict curfews following the Tet Offensive, government civilians like me spent considerable time on the rooftops of our hotels. I had a front row seat to beautiful downtown Saigon and to American aircraft swooping and looping in the distance, spraying Agent Orange around the perimeter of the city. The herbicide dioxin was meant to kill the dense brush where the Viet Cong concealed themselves to fire their mortars at us. What we didn't know was that the misty substance could kill us too.

I vividly remember the day I was first diagnosed with breast cancer by one of the most prominent specialists in Washington, D.C. Specifically, I remember his insensitive response to my initial reaction, the arrogant manner in which he bragged about how many mastectomies he'd performed in the past, and how quickly and easily he could "lop off" a part of my body that defined my womanhood. Scared, panicky and in tears, I fled his office and into the arms of a friend who recommended a physician more concerned with the well being of his patients than with his own god-like reputation.

Prior to the breast cancer detection I had also been experiencing severe migraine headaches and anxiety attacks. Like the D.H. Lawrence quote in my opening paragraph, emotional scars are deep and can be long lasting and destructive if we are acquiescent. Doctors had me on Valium for the anxiety; nothing helped the headaches. Then I discovered a meditative spiritual path that taught me about living in the present and looking within for the peace that does not exist anywhere else. I've learned that the past is past and there is nothing we can do to change it, the future is now and now is all there is while we are on this earth. I no longer need Valium and the headaches have lessened in frequency.

For the thousands of women who will be threatened with breast cancer, or any other physical or mental illness, here is my wish: For you to not panic, to be treated by the right healer for you and your temperament. Get opinions from different physicians, and when possible, contact other women who have had similar illnesses. The Reach to Recovery program (see internet) is a marvelous before and after source of information and therapy for breast cancer patients. Get spiritual guidance. Be grateful for all the good in your life. I am a survivor and you can be too.
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