At some point in their lives, most people are likely to know or be acquainted with someone who is unfortunate enough to be stricken with one form of cancer or another.

The very diagnosis of the disease is likely to be crippling in itself, causing untold fear and anxiety over an unknown, perhaps dreaded or prematurely curtailed future.

The victims is likely to be worried not only about their health (obviously!) but also about their family, friends ad perhaps even something as seemingly unimportant as their looks o their hair, when a doctor pronounces this terrible sentence. In these circumstances, it does not serve anyone for you to shy away from the victim – things are bad enough for them as it is!

In fact, your support and encouragement could be key factors in keeping the sufferers spirits high, as there seems to be little doubt that a patient in good heart is probably more likely to recover than one who is less favoured.

So, what can you do to help a cancer sufferer? Well, perhaps not surprisingly there are a wide range of things that you can do to make your friend or loved one feel more at ease.

1. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, don’t do anything different! That’s right, treat them the same way as you always have done. Don’t be too hesitant or treat them too gingerly, as though they might break or fade away. At the same time, don’t overdo it, however, by talking too much or perhaps playing too roughly with children who may be physically fragile. Just treat the person the same as you did before. Of course, if the prognosis is poor, you need adapt your attitude accordingly and not treat the sufferer like a fool by glossing over serious implications.

2. Be a good listener. Often a person with a serious medical condition that may, indeed, prove to be terminal may simply want to reminisce about the past, discuss future plans, or share difficult emotions. By making yourself available to listen can provide a fantastic and most generous source of support. Don’t try to push or pry, however. Just e prepared to wait until the person is ready to talk.

3. Offer simple practical assistance. When you have time available, be a great friend and perhaps run errands or bring in a home-cooked meal. Pooping the mail in a postbox, doing the grocery shopping, and dropping kids off at sporting events can save the sick person’s time and all too precious energy. Depending on how well you know the victim, you might want to help by spending a few hours each week cleaning their house, baby-sit, or cooking meals for freezing for future consumption.

4. Provide a transportation service, especially if the victim is weak or unable to drive, or if family members are not available to provide this service. Getting around is one of the greatest challenges facing people whose serious medical condition has caused them to become less mobile than they were previously.

5. Just generally try to be as upbeat and encouraging as you can. Send a funny get-well card, an inspiring note or even a amusing email, if you cannot access the victim in any other way.

6. Try to get other people involved in your efforts to assist the sufferer, as seeing a variety of different people will certainly be better for their spirits than seeing the same person time after time! Variety is the spice of life, after all, and never more so than when the patient has little choice about whom they see..

Of course, this is not a complete list, and no doubt that, whatever your circumstances, chances are there I something, however small, that you can do to ease the position of someone struggling with cancer. It will certainly be appreciated!

Steve Cowan is an Asia based businessman and writer. Get two free reports dealing with Self

Help and Natural Treatments Cancer at webbiz99.com/cancer/free_report.html webbiz99.com/cancer/free_report.html

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Tags: cancer patient

Mesothelioma is caused by the inhalation of the asbestos particles and patients suffer a lot due to this. Harmful effects of asbestos have alerted citizens and workers about their rights and legal instruments available for their protection. The root cause of mesothelioma has been established to be asbestos fibers. Many law services now provide services to avail compensation for life threatening effects of asbestos. Many law firms now have dedicated departments for asbestos cases that provide highly professional and reputed services to workers fighting for compensation.

Many asbestos cases are very difficult to fight, as this disease cannot be detected at an early stage. It is one of the major hurdles in court proceedings as it becomes difficult to establish asbestos as the culprit. Nevertheless, dedicated lawyers who understand the disease, its implications and its outcomes take this as a challenge and try every kind of litigation technique to win such cases.

Specialist lawyers have the necessary experience to offer asbestos law services.

It is essential for customers to find and select a reputed mesothelioma law service. This is because patients of this deadly disease often need to file case against established large companies who have the best legal talent as their fulltime lawyers. Hence it becomes extremely important to fight their case with equally talented law firms. Company lawyers use every possible trick in the book to mislead and misdirect the court and to mask vital information from the judge. An early failure in these types of cases delays the whole justice seeking process hence law firms need to be selected judiciously.

Asbestos attorneys provide a range of services for processing litigations. They design their packages in such a way as to help customers recover all damages and medical expenses in the form of lawsuit compensation. They also make a provision for themselves in the form of certain percentage of the recovered amount as contingency fees.

e-AsbestosAttorneys.com Asbestos Attorneys provides detailed information on Asbestos Attorneys, Asbestos Cancer Attorneys, Asbestos Litigation Attourneys, Asbestos Mesothelioma Attorneys and more. Asbestos Attorneys is affiliated with e-AsbestosLawyers.com Asbestos Trial Lawyers.

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I believe that all of us are drivers of our own vehicles. We are all on a very special and challenging trip called “life.” As we take our own journeys, we may meet different forms of hardships and obstacles on the road. Some of these natural phenomenon like stormy weather that makes the road slippery, or it maybe big and huge rocks on the road that hinders us in continuing our trip.

Problem really comes on our way. In fact nobody is exempted. All of are experiencing it. It only varies in forms and shape, but I believe that all have sixes and dimensions. And one of the biggest problems that we consider is when we are in a crucial situation like a matter of death and life. Having a disease or illness that is almost incurable is a good example. And one these diseases is the big “C”… or the cancer.

One of the public health problems worldwide is cancer, which is a deadly disease that afflicts of all ages and races. It varies greatly in cause, symptoms, responses to treatment and possibility of cure. But do you know what cancer really is?

Cancer is a kind of disease characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by direct growth into its neighbor tissue or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis.

A process called staging helps in assessing the prognosis and in determining the most appropriate treatment to the unrestrained growth of cancer cells. It is used by physicians to describe the extent of spread of a cancer. In this system, cancer is being classified into four stages. The early stage of cancer is stage I where in there’s no involvement of lymph nodes and no spread of the cancer from metastases or its original site. Stage IV is the advance cancer, with both distant metastases and lymph node involvement.

Cancer, which is the unrestrained growth and spread of cells, has the ability to affect almost any tissue of the body. The five most common cancers in the world include the stomach, lung and colorectal cancer. Among men, lung and stomach cancer are the most common cancer worldwide while cervical cancer and breast cancer are the most common types of cancer for women.

The first year of life is the age of peak incidence of cancer in children. The most common infant malignancy is leukemia, followed by neuroblastoma, and the central nervous system cancers. Other common types of cancer in children include lymphomas, Wilm’s tumor, retinoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma. There’s a rising incidence of pediatric cancers like leukemia.

Every year, more than 11 million people are diagnosed with cancer and about 77% of all cases were diagnosed at ages 55 and above. About 25% of all deaths in the USA and other developed countries are caused by cancer. Annually, 0.5% of the population is diagnosed with cancer. There’s an estimation that 16 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed every year by 2020.

Exposure to environment factors such as tobacco, smoke, radiation, alcohol and certain viruses can cause cancer. Some of these can be avoided but the sad fact that there is no known way to entirely avoid the disease.

Cancer is just one of the monsters of life. We can minimize the chance of meeting this monster and deadly disease if we clearly understand it.

I am a professional nurse and I would like to share my views and opinion to other people who are making this community a rich source of information. I would like also to share some of my views about the most dreadful disease of the world - cancer-studies.info CANCER

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Tags: breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, leukemia, lymphoma

Knock, Knock. . . Who’s There?. . .Cancer

I have been told that each person’s experience with cancer is different. Each approach to treatment is different. And each person’s reaction to treatment is different.

It was summer of 2001 and I was driving home from having spent a nice weekend camping at the coast. While in the cab of my truck I experienced a startling pain in my left breast. I drew my right hand to the spot, testing for tenderness to touch. It didn’t feel sore as a bruise would. But there was a lump.

By March of 2002, the lump felt more noticeable. A bit larger and harder to the touch. The lump moved about freely; it was not attached to anything, but I felt a deep concern, and an inexplicable need to have a doctor look at it.

On 3-11-02, I called the doctor’s office and explained I felt I needed a mammogram as soon as possible. It had been a year since my last mammogram so I was due. My desire to have it done ASAP I could not explain except to say I felt deeply compelled to make the request. Following the mammogram several more tests were conducted.

On an April afternoon, on my way back to the office from a home visit with a client I received a call on my cell phone. It was my doctor. He asked me: “Are you in a good place to hear some bad news?” I pulled over and turned the engine off. The test results had come back positive for cancer.

My moments before, lucid world shut down. All doors closed on what had been, in an instant. My world was suddenly a world filled with delirium. What I said, or how I was able to respond at all is mostly a mystery to me. I recall thinking the sun seemed extraordinarily bright. I thought about the people on the street around me, going about their normal and rational activities and how I felt cut off from their reality. I know I spoke to my doctor while at the same time my silently screaming self was reeling.

My mother took me to the hospital on that cold and rainy Tuesday, the last day of April. It was dark out in the early morning hours. I signed in and registered. I had a mastectomy and left the hospital the next day.

My oncologist was a physician at a California Cancer Center, and it was at the Center where I was to have my chemo treatments. I remember dreading my first appointment–my first treatment. My mother, may God bless her, drove me to my first session. I walked into the Center, looked around, saw the people in the waiting room–the patients and their families…and fell apart.

Having been apprised of what chemo could do to a person, the side effects, I felt a little prepared for what might happen to me. But actually facing it…sharing that experience with others was heartrending and spirit-buckling at the same time.

My attitude, in the beginning, was one of defiance, anger, and disbelief. I felt vulnerable and helpless. I felt mortal. None of which felt comfortable.

But after a time, the feeding of those negative emotions began to take their toll on me mentally and physically. They were doing me no good. They only served to cripple my functioning. Rob me of any sanity I might yet be able to cull out of my changed life. I wanted peace and serenity back in my life. I wanted to feel and function as normal as I was able.

The tools to transform my existence into a satisfying experience were within my grasp. There are timeless moments. Many of them. And they blow about just as the wind blows autumn leaves, or scatters words in the skirts of a breeze. The routes of the pockets of timelessness move by no planned course. They just are; like the wind. And they can occur anytime. Any place. They are offered, and only by accepting them will I live them. It is so simple, really. Savor the brush of high emotion on the face of a dear one; allow my spirit to be carried with the wind as it courses through the trees; open myself to all that lives around me. On that walk I may take in the morning one of those pockets may be within my reach. The window of opportunity to reach out and grab hold can be as long as only a single breath. If I hesitate, I have lost that opportunity. I cannot say: I’m too busy now to enjoy that. I’ll wait until the next time. There will not be a next time, for that particular moment. Each one is special and unique. For me, I do not hesitate-I grasp like a starving soul, at each moment.

And I have learned . . .

Each minute I draw breath something divine is happening, and somewhere else, something harrowing. Other beings are experiencing the most exciting moments of their lives. While on the flip side, other beings are suffering through their darkest hours. I will rarely be able to change or affect any of it. I know that it is true and when I am experiencing tough times, I recall that somewhere, someplace, the extraordinary is happening. The sublime. I draw on that. Picture it in my mind’s eye and a peace suffuses my spirit.

Give thanks: It never hurts to do so, and it improves your attitude, gives you a brighter perspective on your outlook for the future.

I give thanks–thanks that God listened to my prayers and the prayers of others, and responded. Thanks that I can still enjoy things like I used to, with a childlike joy and awe. Thanks that life goes on and the world still turns. Thanks that the close friends I have now are the same ones I had before. Either they have good judgment, or I do, or both. It is a blessing! Thanks that though I feel more mortal than before, at the same moment, I feel more alive.

And I respond now: To my heart, my mind, my questing spirit. I don’t let an opportunity slip past me to explore more of the world around me. More of the splendid wonders still wait to be discovered.

I reach out to others who might benefit from my experience. From my pain and my joy. I give them honesty, but do so with compassion.

I respond to my friends and family. They still need me, as I need them. That hasn’t changed. It is what friends and family do for each other. I respond to my needs, be they medical, nutritional, health, physical, mental, emotional, occupational, or financial. I don’t neglect them.

Life goes on: Lock the door, or leave it open. The world continues on, and life in whatever form it exists in goes on, too. I’m not going to change that. So I accept it with a smile. It can’t hurt. And I will live it, every day, for as long as I am here.

The world around me is there for me–today. It is no different for every person on this globe, young or old or middle aged. This is my time and it is no less substantial than any life lived a lifetime ago, or a century ago.

I hope I live it well, honorably, and fully.

Copyright 2003 by Kathy PIppig Harris

Kathy lives in Central California where she shares her life with her husband and furry family. She says, “I work full time for a living, and write in order to live fully.” She is also a weekly columnist for the publication Frank Talk, which is distributed in several counties in the tri-state area of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. Her fifth book, For the Spirit-Soul, is a collection of her short stories and poems and will be released soon.

One nevers gets over hearing the words, “You have cancer.” It is getting beyond that which enriches our world and gives new meaning to the very word LIFE.

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Tags: mastectomy