I really liked this post -- because I love QUOTES. Sometimes I just want a "pat on the back" or "something to think about".Try it!
Image: http://www.thebreastcaresite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/coworker_support.jpg
Saturday, November 29, 2014
ENCORE! #1 -- Twelve Quotes For Men Who Care For Women With Breast Cancer...
I really liked this post -- because I love QUOTES. Sometimes I just want a "pat on the back" or "something to think about".Try it!
Image: http://www.thebreastcaresite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/coworker_support.jpg
Saturday, November 22, 2014
GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT #9…Face And Breast Cancer!
So I had my face scraped on Monday (aka The Mohs Procedure) this
week to destroy the basal cell sarcoma cells growing on my mug.
Afterwards, I walked around my school with two great-big,
white gauze patches on my face.
Now, I work with teenagers and they are almost without
exception body image conscious in the extreme, and many (if not all of them),
exclaimed, “What’s wrong with your face?”
The obvious answer would have been, “Nothing, what’s wrong
with yours?”
I restrained myself, replying instead, “I have skin cancer.”
The responses were startling. Ranging everywhere from,
“Ewww!” to “My grandma had…” to “Oh! I’m so sorry!” These are adolescents from
EVERY walk of life – internationals, recent immigrants, born-and-raised-heres,
white, black, Mexican, Ecuadorian, rich and privileged, poor and homeless, and
from every socioeconomic status and race you can ask about. They all
understood; they all offered various degrees of sympathy (the ones who were
grossed out covered their mouths in horror and apologized), and there were
others as well, who totally ignored the elephant in the room (or the gauze on
the face as the case may be).
I got the same response when it became general knowledge
that my wife had breast cancer.
For whatever reason, this horrendous disease unites people
across all sorts of boundaries, imagined or real. This joins people into a
cohesive mass that says only one thing, “I know someone with cancer, and I hate
cancer.” It unites us in our Humanity through our vulnerability. Breast cancer,
skin cancer, liver cancer, leukemia, brain cancer, colon cancer, prostate
cancer...and every other kind of cancer can strike any person, any where, any
when. You can live in a New York penthouse and have 82.2 billion dollars and
you can get cancer. You can live in the Congo-Kinshasa and make nothing a year
and you can get cancer.
At this time in history, the only thing all Humans share unequivocally...is cancer.
At this time in history, the only thing all Humans share unequivocally...is cancer.
As an aside: My wife and I are walking in the
Cooper-Armstrong Relay For Life this spring 2015 and as with last year, we’re
hoping people will sponsor us (we’ll be on the Cooper Faculty Team) so that
someday – SOMEDAY – I won’t have to
say:
“My _______ has skin
cancer.”
Or “My ______ has breast cancer”.
Or even the euphemistic, “We’re gonna get rid of the Big C”.
Anyone care to join me?
Saturday, November 8, 2014
BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! 25: Weight Training Can HELP Stop Or Reduce Lymphedema
From the first moment
my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from
the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer
seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did
little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known
reason, I started this blog…
Every month, I’ll be
highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from
different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into
understandable English and share them with you. Today: http://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/exercise-program-successful-in-life
Exercise and breast cancer – at first thought, you might
say, “What!!!!!” The implication of a breast cancer diagnosis or treatment,
brings to mind hospital beds, recuperation, and convalescence.
Not hitting the weight room!
But this study, while it’s neither large nor longitudinal
for more than a year, seems to indicate that gentle weight training has a good
chance of either preventing the occurrence of lymphedema or reducing it.
We’re NOT talking pumping iron, here folks! In the words of
the study: “As in PAL [Physical Activity and Lymphedema Trial], the researchers
found that the Strength After Breast Cancer program didn’t increase the risk of
lymphedema and helped ease lymphedema
symptoms. The women were also stronger at the end of the program and felt
better about their bodies.”
Does this mean you have to join a gym and get into those
leotards and exercise?
Not necessarily. Simply returning to moderate exercise after
breast cancer treatment and surgery is GOOD: “...one study found that women who
followed a slow, progressive strength-training program lowered their risk of
developing lymphedema by 35 percent; women who had at least five lymph nodes
removed and started lifting weights reduced their risk by 70 percent.”
As well, the article goes on to talk about other aspects of
exercise after breast cancer and as always, do so with your doctor’s knowledge and
under her supervision. Even so, “Increased physical activity after cancer
treatment has been consistently linked to better physical function, reduced
fatigue, and bodily pain...Compared to sedentary women, regular exercisers, who
have been diagnosed with breast cancer, have a much lower risk of breast cancer
recurrence, breast cancer death, and all causes of death.”
And NOT just the wives/girlfriends/moms/sisters, gentlemen!
We need to exercise as well to maintain our health and support our women!
Capisce? (From
Neapolitan capisci, the second-person present-tense form of capire (“to
understand”), from Latin capere (“to grasp, seize”).)
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