I read an article back in March 2005 that had the words of the title of this article in it. I picked it up at the Cancer Center at Beaumont Hospital, in Detroit Michigan. It was a heartfelt story of a woman who had lost her breasts to Breast Cancer. The story went on to talk about Melissa Etheridge and of her deliberate boldness at the 2005 Grammy’s, when she came out with a bald head, after her cancer treatments, as if proudly displaying it as her “gift” of life. The story went on to talk about women who in desperation for survival had in some ways traded their beauty for life.

I related to the story, being a breast cancer survivor myself. But, what truly touched me about that article was the woman in the story talking about how when her outer beauty had faded away, and during treatments, she was “left with spirit, raw and powerful and hanging on with claws, daring her to live.”

What a concept. Have you ever been dared to live? Tim McGraw has an old song titled “Live like you were dying,” about a man, who seemingly is given a certain number of years or months to live due to some type of fatal disease. In the song when asked what he was to do about this news, he replied with, “skydiving,” “mountain climbing,” and a wish to all of his friends to one day know what it feels like to “live like you were dying.”

I remember what it felt like going through my cancer treatments. I remember the ugliness of my body and the forced humbleness of a deep seeded pride. I recall wondering if I would live through it, the pain, the blisters and stress. Looking back, I realize, I “lived” every day. I lived more then each day then I sometimes do now. Why is it that we have to be faced with something tragic to appreciate LIFE? What is it in our human-ess that makes us forget the grace and mercy of God and the power of prayer until we are brought to our knees at a crucial point in our life and MADE to remember? Funny, how God sometimes has a way of reminding us of the fragility of life. I believe He does this just so that we DO remember.

I recently was reminded again last week when another lump was found after almost two years of “survival.” I’m a prayerful, faithful woman, but I found myself even MORE prayerful. I found more time to enjoy my days, to kiss my kids and tell my husband I loved him. I also found a lot more time for God. Hmmm, makes me wonder why. But isn’t life funny that way? We move along forgetting that our time is short, our days are numbered, our fate is destined and we truly have no idea when Gods hand will reach down and pluck us from our busy, appointment filled, carpooling, grocery shopping, house cleaning, business building days. These precious days that we can’t seem to find time to get on our knees and give thanks because we don’t have the time. Why, because our lives are just too full. Too full. I want you to remember that last statement. Life IS full. Praise God our lives are filled! Live every single day of it!

We have one month, one day a year to get our families together to gather in praise and thanksgiving. A National Holiday will do that for most of us. But how about not waiting for that Thanksgiving Holiday or that crucial moment of unknown fate.

When you find yourself on your knees at times like these, stay there. We could all stand to kneel a little longer. My hope is that this year we remember Gods graces and appreciate our lives and everything in them because God is good! Something as simple as feeling your pulse each morning is proof of that. Keep on remembering. While you’re at it, remember those full days when your inbox is so full that you can barely find time to breathe? Those are the days to be grateful for. Those are the days to get on your knees in praise because when your “in-box” is empty, you’re dead.

By the way that lump in my breast? Nothing but a small cyst. Cancer Free another day! Praise the heavens for this and every day. I intend to fully live ALL of mine. How about you?

Melissa Privett is a Transformational Workshop Leader and Keynote Speaker. She is intensively trained to facilitate a myraid of seminars and workshops for personal and spiritual growth and self-acceptance. Her workshops are highly praised for their inspirational empowerment of women. Melissa is also available for Spiritual Life Coaching by phone or in person and Chakra and Energy Balancing by appointment. She can be reached at 248-231-8018 or visit her website at lifepathworkshops.com lifepathworkshops.com

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Tags: breast cancer, cancer treatment

In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer among women has increased. As a result of this, organizations that aim to raise breast cancer awareness have doubled their efforts to give women around the world the right information to help them prevent and deal with this disease. These organizations teach women to detect early signs of cancer and recognize the symptoms of the disease. It has been proven that early detection increases a woman?s chance of survival by as much as 96 percent.

Symptoms

Some of the symptoms that women are told to watch out for include lumps, which are usually firm and painless. Other possible symptoms include swelling on the underarms and on the skin on the breasts which then develops an unusual appearance. Women are also asked to look out for veins that become prominent in the breast area. Other symptoms also include inverting of the nipples, rashes and changes in skin texture, depressions on the breast area and discharges other than breast milk.

Early Detection Plan

However, looking out for symptoms is usually not enough in detecting this disease, since there are instances in which patients are asymptomatic until the cancer reaches stage 3 or 4. To be able to prevent this, breast cancer organizations encourage women to come up with an early detection plan, which includes clinical breast examinations every three years for women aged 20 to 39, then every year thereafter. A monthly breast examination for women beginning at age 20 is also encouraged. Mammograms every two years for women in their 40s and yearly mammograms for women in their 50s are also being emphasized. Women are also told to keep a record of these exams and their appointments with their doctors. Additionally, women are urged to eat a low-fat diet, engage in regular exercise and avoid smoking and drinking alcohol.

The importance of early detection of breast cancer cannot be denied since it has been proven to increase a cancer patient?s survival rate by as much as 96 percent. Given this, it is then important for women to do what they can to prevent having to suffer unnecessarily from this disease. Having an early detection plan is an effective way of doing just that.

i-BreastCancer.com Breast Cancer provides detailed information on Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Treatments, Breast Cancer Symptoms, Cause Of Breast Cancer and more. Breast Cancer is affiliated with e-Lymphoma.com Hodgkins Lymphoma.

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Tags: breast cancer, cancer awareness, cancer patient, cancer treatment, lymphoma

With early detection, cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. However, an initial diagnosis still brings with it a host of questions: What is the best course of treatment? Are conventional approaches best? Or are non-traditional therapies preferable—particularly if the cancer does not seem to respond to chemotherapy and radiation.

In recent years, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on unconventional therapies for cancer. For instance, in an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Elizabeth Kaegi of the Task Force on Alternative Therapies of the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative discussed the fact that cancer patients are trying a number of intriguing therapies, including Essiac, Iscador, hydrazine sulfate, vitamins A, C, and E, and 714-X. But perhaps one of the most popular therapies that has been tried is green tea. In fact, go to your local convenience store and you may find jug after jug of green tea in assorted flavors. Still, you may be wondering what makes green tea so special—and if it really can help to combat cancer.

Green Tea—The Basics

Green tea is produced by steaming or frying the leaves of the shrub known as Camellia sinensis. The leaves, which are not fermented, are then dried. For 5,000 years, families in China and Japan have hailed green tea as a valuable stimulant and an effective remedy for stomach ailments. You can even purchase green tea in capsule form now, although the actual medicinal benefits from such capsules have yet to be established.

Dried tea leaves are far more complex than you might think. Specifically, they are made up of phytochemicals, plant alkaloids, proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, phenolic acids, and minerals. Of course, the exact composition of the leaves varies, depending on when the leaves are harvested and how they are processed. You should also be aware of the fact that the composition of green tea varies from that of black tea, since black tea has fewer polyphenols because of the fermentation process.

Side Effects

Green tea can contain anywhere from 10 to 80 milligrams of caffeine—the actual amount depends on how it has been produced and stored. Since caffeine is a known stimulant, green tea may lead to a racing heart rate and insomnia. As a result, heart patients, pregnant women, and nursing mothers should ideally drink no more than two cups of green tea a day.

Cancer Prevention

Numerous scientific studies have explored the use of green tea as a cancer preventative. According to Kaegi, digestive cancers appear to be particularly responsive to green tea. In fact, such tea appears to somewhat decrease the risk of experiencing cancer of the digestive tract. Given the fact that such conclusions are the result of a number of epidemiological studies, it appears that the idea that green tea can prevent cancer has some merit.

News from the Lab

But what about treating cancer? Can green tea be as effective in treatment as it is in prevention? There has been some limited lab work investigating the possibility that green tea can be used as an alternative form of cancer treatment. However, at this point, there have only been a few animal studies and no human studies. The results of these studies are, at this point, inconclusive.

Yet, it should be noted that one study showed that, if extracts of green tea are applied to mouse skin, it appears to stop the development of skin cancer when known carcinogens have been applied to the skin. Other research indicates that green tea can stop the growth of tumors or decrease the number of tumors in animals that have been exposed to cancer-causing agents.

In some animals, green tea and tea extracts prevented cancer cells from metastasizing. There are also indications that green tea extracts can prevent chromosomal abnormalities that can lead to cancer, as well as reduce the size of breast and prostate tumors.

The Magic of EGCG

Green tea contains an antioxidant known as epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG. This substance appears to inhibit enzymes which are responsible for cell replication, stop the adhesion of cells, and disrupt the communication pathways which enable cell division to occur. However, EGCG seems to be most critically important as an antioxidant.

Final Conclusions

Researchers believe that there is evidence to suggest that green tea can be used to treat cancer. However, scientists add that additional research is absolutely essential in order to determine the full range of treatment that green tea might provide. For instance, researchers must determine which cancers are most likely to be abated through the use of green tea or green tea extracts.

Since there is also evidence to indicate that green tea can prevent cancer as well, drinking green tea is not only safe—it’s also highly recommended by some medical experts. Therefore, green tea may not just be a thirst-quencher—it may also be a key ingredient of a healthy diet.

Jon M. Stout is the Chairman of the Golden Moon Tea Company. Golden Moon Tea carefully selects the finest rare and orthodox teas, which are processed slowly and handcrafted with extreme care. At their website, you can learn more about their current

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Tags: breast cancer, cancer patient, cancer prevention, cancer treatment, chemotherapy, prevent cancer, skin cancer

There are many forms of cancer that exist today. One of the more severe types of cancer is mesothelioma. Mesothelioma affects the mesothelial tissues of body organs, typically the lungs or abdomen. The cause of mesothelioma is usually a result of prolonged exposure to asbestos. This is not the only cause as there are many people inflicted with mesothelioma who never had any type of exposure to asbestos.

Years ago, exposure to asbestos was more common. Many companies had employees working with asbestos. Not only were the employees at risk, but their families were too. People who even wash the clothing of people exposed to asbestos are at risk. So it is not unusual for a wife of one of these employees to be affected if she were the sole person washing clothing. Such employees would be in the fields of construction, insulators, and boilermakers to name a few.

There are two different forms of mesothelioma. These are pleural mesothelioma and peritoneal mesothelioma. The expected survival timeof a person who has mailgnant mesothelioma is between 4 months and 2 years. This is from the time the symptoms present themselves.

Mesothelioma is not always fatal. The patient will have a chance to survive depending on the size of the cancer, where it is located, how old the patient is, and how their body responds to the different cancer treatments. Typical treatments for mesothelioma are radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy, and photodynamic therapy. Another form of treatment, though not proven, is that provitamin A or beta-carotene may decrease the risk.

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Today, the majority of breast cancers are diagnosed by mammography. There cancers are small, often too small to be felt and surgeons usually rely on radiologists to localize these small cancers with a hook wire or some injected dye. The technology has changed drastically and we have entered a new era of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Because of the many elements that come into play in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, coordination is necessary among the team of physicians: surgeon, radiation oncologist, cancer pathologist, plastic surgeon, radiologist and medical oncologist.

Ideally, a woman with a recent diagnosis of breast cancer communicates with a primary physician who takes charge of developing a treatment plan with her and then coordinates its implementation. These team members can work at a single institution or be drawn from a wider geographic distribution and any of the cancer specialists can act as the coordinating physician. Often, it is the medical oncologist who coordinates the flow of information and treatment for the patient, but many surgeons and radiation oncologists take on this pivotal role as well.

It is important that breast cancer patients find a cancer specialist that she can communicate with and who will address her concerns. However, there are medical systems in which it may be difficult for the patient to connect with one physician who will act as her coordinating team leader. If you are in this situation, don’t despair. You just need adequate information to get you the treatment you need and be your own team leader. It is possible to go through this process without a physician to spearhead your treatment plan and still get high quality health care.

The overall treatment plan revolves around two critical decisions. One deals with local control and the second with the need for systemic therapy. Often, cancer patients and their doctors cannot decide upon the issue of systemic therapy until all the information is available from the surgical procedure.

Since the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer are done primarily on an outpatient basis, cancer patients may travel to various locations for different aspects of treatment. Some women may come to a breast cancer facility for the definitive surgery and then have radiotherapy at a facility closer to their home. If patients require various therapies, it is important to consider doing something similar in order to make treatment appointments as convenient as possible.

One of the key tools used in coordinating a woman’s care is a treatment planning conference. This conference is a meeting of treatment team members to discuss the patient’s case and to develop a coordinated treatment plan based on the patient’s situation. The conference allows each of the team members to view a common history, the radiological breast images, the pathology report and pathology images. The patient is usually excluded from the treatment planning conference in order to allow an honest exchange of opinions between the team members. The treatment planning conference is very important in coordinating care. Each of the potentially treating physicians can, in one setting, agree on an overall treatment plan and their particular contribution to that plan. This united approach also guarantees that the physicians line up the sequencing of the different therapies correctly and in the manner that is most beneficial to the cancer patient.

Besides benefiting the woman with breast cancer, the nature of the conference itself promotes education and understanding on the part of various physicians involved. Women diagnosed in the future stand to benefit greatly from the shared pool of information that these conferences provide medical professionals in general.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to breast-cancer.treatment-and-guides.com/ Breast Cancer

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