ENCORE #137! – Why Do So Many Women Have breast Cancer?

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer in March of 2011, there was a deafening silence from the men I knew. 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…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in June of 2011.

The roommate of our foster daughter is somewhat estranged from her mother and through the grapevine last week, discovered that her mother had had a preliminary diagnosis of breast cancer. It turned out to be benign cysts, but my wife raised the immediate question: Why do so MANY women have breast cancer?

A legislator in the district in which I live sent an email to her constituency that she had finished a recent session (though it ended deadlocked and a special session is in the works). She also shared that she was in the final stages of ovarian cancer and she was in hospice. We all raised the question: Why do so MANY women have cancer?

Is it something in the environment? Is it the fast food and processed foods we eat constantly? Is it because we’re living longer that cancers get a chance to grow? Is it because we’re better at detection now and deaths that were at one time “unexplained” now have a clear cause?

Well, a dose of the facts never hurt anyone – it only shakes preconceived notions and perceptions.

FACT: Incidence of Breast Cancer

1975-80 –       held steady at 110/100,000 women

1980-87 –       increased by 4% per year

1987-1994 –   held steady at 140/100,000 women

1994-99 –       increased by 2% per year

1999-2006 – decreased by 2% per year to 120/100,000 women

(http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@nho/documents/document/f861009final90809pdf.pdf)

What causes breast cancer? The short, concise answer is: “Don’t know, trying to find out.”

There are risk factors – none of which are related to the environment or food additives. In order, they are advancing age, family history, use of hormones, high doses of radiation (ie – nuclear reactor), obesity, booze and a fatty diet.

So as people get older and exercise less they increase the risk of breast cancer. The perception that it’s everywhere, while frightening, isn’t exactly true – HOWEVER the fact that the longer you live the more friends you have is an observable phenomenon. That increase in the number of friends makes it a statistical certainty that your chance of knowing someone with breast cancer will approach 100%.

This all means…what?

For me it means I will continue to write this blog; next year I will join one of the endurance events targeting fund raising to find a cure for breast cancer and I’ll speak at Cooper’s Relay For Life like they asked me to do this year.

It means we’ll all keep fighting, bankrolling, inspiring and looking for ways that a cure for one kind of cancer can apply to another kind of cancer.

UPDATE: Even at the beginning of the second decade of the 21^st Century, no one has bothered to answer the question. You can REAMS of words, but no answers Why hasn’t breast cancer been eliminated? Why isn’t there a CURE for breast cancer? Everyone on Earth is at some level of risk for breast cancer (and YES, dad blast it!, MEN have breast cancer, too! Whether you’re an Evolutionist or a Creationist, males and females have the same layout – hormones that flood the body shortly after CONCEPTION are activated by certain parts of the SECOND X or Y chromosome (all Humans have one X chromosome…), so all of the “stuff” is there! So men can and do get breast cancer…) Why DON’T scientists find a cure? The National Breast Cancer Coalition has this to say: “ But until we better understand the biology and progression of the disease, being ‘cancer-free’ is not the same thing as being cured. And we cannot tell any individual woman at the end of her treatment that she is ‘cured.’ We just do not know. It’s hard to look at the disease in this way—it seems pessimistic.”

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

ALZHEIMER’S RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #8: Live In The Moment or Live Reflectively?

From the first moment I discovered my dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it seemed like I was alone in this ugly place. Even ones who had loved ones suffering in this way; even though people TALKED about the disease, it felt for me like they did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting Alzheimer’s 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: “Why some older adults remember better than others”

In a recent study conducted in Stanford University’s, Aging and Memory Study, “researchers found that, on average, recall ability declined with age. [author: duh!] Critically, however, regardless of one's age, stronger hippocampal activity and replay in the cortex was linked to better memory performance.”

OK, as I’ve done for breast cancer when I was writing my breast cancer “Translating the Doctors”, I’m going to do that with the somewhat opaque statement.

First of all, “Memories aren’t stored in just one part of the brain. Different types are stored across different, interconnected brain regions. For explicit memories – which are about events that happened to you (episodic), as well as general facts and information (semantic) – there are three important areas of the brain: the hippocampus, the neocortex and the amygdala. Implicit memories, such as motor memories, rely on the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Short-term working memory relies most heavily on the prefrontal cortex.”

Where the heck are THOSE things? https://qbi.uq.edu.au/files/23535/Where-are-memories-stored-brain-diagram.jpg

The researchers found that “remembering entails neural time travel, replaying patterns that were previously established in the brain.” In other words, when something happens, it lays down a path from the senses to the cortices where the particulars will be stored.

For example, I walk into a bakery and smell a hard ginger snap cookie and fall in love with it. I buy trays of them for years. Then I move away and am gone for years, missing the bakery. Then on an unexpected trip, I go back to the spot – and it’s gone. Depressed and dejected, I’m walking through the mall and I smell a very peculiar, gingery cookie smell – and the memory returns full force of the joy of those cookies and the specific place I first smelled it.

That memory is stored in the cortices; those and many more. As Alzheimer’s progresses, more of the recent memories erode; but the oldest remain. “…long-term memory is not located in just one specific area of the brain. The hippocampus is the catalyst for long-term memory, but the actual memory traces are encoded at various places in the cortex.” Hence, the reason an Alzheimer’s patient remembers all sorts of odd memories.

So, how does the hippocampus catalyze long term memories?

According to wiki: “During the acquisition process, stimuli are committed to the short term memory stage. Then, consolidation is where the hippocampus along with other cortical structures stabilize an object within the long term memory stage, a process strengthening over time and time again, and is a process for from whom a number of theories have arisen to explain to as of why and how it actually works. After encoding, the hippocampus is capable of going through the retrieval process. The retrieval process consists of accessing stored information; this allows learned behaviors to experience conscious depiction and execution. Encoding and retrieval are both affected by neurodegenerative and anxiety disorders and epilepsy.”

OK – now put it all together and then tying that how the Stanford study is hinting at:

Things happen to people; some stuff just slides over us (like how many times I breathed while doing this post); some things happen fairly often, that they only make a vague impression (like what I had for lunch last Thursday); other things we will never forget (the day my dad died after a long, long decline). Why is that?

The memories are always stored in the brain, but you have to THINK about the memory in order to strengthen that memory. The more you think it, the more you remember it.

Alzheimer’s comes in and starts to eliminate recent and vague memories. It ALSO messes with the storage of new memories.

The Sanford study found that the more we go over our memories, the better they will withstand both the aging process and Alzheimer’s memory erosive progress, it may also defend against the disease itself gaining a foothold in the brain.

Many people live life “in the moment” and experience as much as they can with gusto, then move on to the NEXT intense experience. Certain religions suggest that we “be present in the now” and not worry about the future OR THE PAST.

Stanford University’s study MAY be suggesting that a life lived in reflection rather than in thoughtless indulgence may help us remember our lives...if or when Alzheimer’s strikes.

Resources: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200603132518.htm, https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/memory/where-are-memories-stored, https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_07/d_07_cr/d_07_cr_tra/d_07_cr_tra.html#:~:text=The%20reason%20is%20that%20long,various%20places%20in%20the%20cortex.,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampal_memory_encoding_and_retrieval#:~:text=The%20hippocampus%20is%20located%20in,during%20encoding%20and%20retrieval%20stages.

Image: https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/web/fileadmin/_processed_/e/1/csm_shutterstock_142671010_4683b6bf13.jpg

ENCORE #136! – Husbanding a Bigger Middle

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer in March of 2011, there was a deafening silence from the men I knew. 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…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in May of 2011…

With my focus on Liz’ cancer, I’ve not paid much attention to what I’m eating. Well, not exactly. My problem is that I pay too MUCH attention to what I eat and what I don’t do.

See, I’m not an exercise nut. I’m exercise-a-phobic. It’s strange, but my GOOGLE search turns up a name for being afraid of everything EXCEPT fear of exercise. Smartalecks chime in on CHACHA and YahooAnswer to quip that the fear of exercise is laziness. But I’m not so sure – this person isn’t, either: http://exercise.about.com/od/plateausmotivation/a/overcomingfear.htm so I’m going to name it: exercerophobia: fear of exercise; from the Latin from L. exercitium "training, exercise," from exercitare, frequentative of exercere "keep busy, drive on," lit. "remove restraint," from ex- "off" (see ex-) +arcere "keep away, prevent, enclose,"

While that may not seem significant to you, naming something allows me to deal with it. When the breast cancer Liz had received a name: infiltrative ductal carcinoma, I was able to GOOGLE it and read about it. While I don’t consider myself an expert, some of my terror was allayed and I was able to read about treatment, steps to take and what it was.

Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favorite writers both as a kid and as an adult, has this to say about “naming”:

"I Name you Echthroi.

I Name you Meg.
I Name you Calvin.
I Name you Mr. Jenkins.
I Name you Proginoskes.
I fill you with Naming.
Be!
Be, butterfly and behemoth,
be galaxy and grasshopper,
star and sparrow,
you matter,
you are,
be!
Be caterpillar and comet,
Be porcupine and planet,
sea sand and solar system,
sing with us,
dance with us,
rejoice with us,
for the glory of creation,
seagulls and seraphim
angle worms and angel host,
chrysanthemum and cherubim.
(O cherubim.)
Be!
Sing for the glory
of the living and the loving
the flaming of creation
sing with us
dance with us
be with us.
Be!"

- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door

Knowing what something IS helps me to face it. To know it, it needs to have a name. Once it has a name, then I can call it out. Breast cancer has a name I can understand and while we haven’t experienced complete victory yet, the enemy we confront has a name and we can do battle.

I’ve been fighting exercerophobia for years without knowing what its name was. Now that it’s REALLY important that I remain healthy, I’ve found its name – and can engage in battle.

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…Alzheimer’s #30: How Many Times Can I Revisit the Past?

Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…

As I detailed in Alzheimer’s In the Time of COVID-19 (https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2020/03/guys-gotta-talk-aboutalzheimers-28.html), I’ve been thinking a lot about what my parents would have done, what I do, and where this all might end…

Not the spread of the disease itself – we already expect that there will be a surge in July or August of this year. With the wave of protest against police brutality blossoming across the face of the planet, and the close confines that promotes (in addition to a “mask optional” paradigm, despite leadership trying to lead by example), a surge is inevitable. The same types of protests have exploded in other countries, giving rise to the sense that while it’s horrible in the US (and I’ve lived in the epicenter of Minneapolis most of my life), it is an issue everywhere.

Not the protests – we’ve set ourselves up for a major societal paradigm shift (and there’s plenty of blame to go around (as well as strenuous efforts by our elected politicians to shift the blame off of their desks and onto anyone else they can think of (https://time.com/5848705/disband-and-replace-minneapolis-police/)). HUMANITY has to come up with a better way to interact.

And that’s another reason why I’m glad my parents are not here to witness this.

A local CUB that used to be open 24 hours has both boarded up its windows, redirected customers to use a single entrance/exit, and cut its hours in half. That was the CUB my (mother usually) they shopped at. I can only barely imagine the look on my mother’s face on pulling into the parking lot to see the windows boarded up. Now, don’t get me wrong, Mom was a tough old bird. She worked in a first-ring suburban high school, and when she married my dad, she married an inner city, 1940’s “youth gang” member. This Wikipedia entry precisely explains what my dad experienced from 1946 (he was 15) to his adulthood: “However youth gangs are said to be an important social institution for low income youths and young adults because they often serve as cultural, social, and economic functions which are no longer served by the family, school or labor market. Youth gangs tend to emerge during times of rapid social change and instability. Young people can be attracted to joining a youth gang for a number of reasons. They provide a degree of order and solidarity for their members and make them feel like part of a group or a community.

“The diffusion of gang culture to the point where it has been integrated into a larger youth culture has led to widespread adoption by youth of many of the symbols of gang life. For this reason, more and more youth who earlier may have not condoned gang behavior are more willing, even challenged to experiment with gang-like activity. Youth gangs may be an ever-present feature of urban culture that change over time in its form, social meaning and antisocial behavior.”

She would be no stranger to this kind of unrest – Mom and Dad raised us through the 1967 Minneapolis North race riots (https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2017/07/july-1967-civil-unrest-plymouth-avenue/). This was where Dad  grew up and Mom worked…

But, how would she have coped with this? I have a good idea what Dad would have said – if he hadn’t been creeping into stage three (https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search?q=Stages+of+Alzheimer%27s), he’d have had plenty to say…

Mom was always the positive one; often looking for the best in people. Dad was more cynical with the world at large – though not with his grandchildren!

At any rate, my initial question, “How many times can I revisit the past?” is pertinent here. I often drive past the place they spent the last four years of their lives because I shop at the grocery store that Mom and (rarely!) Dad shopped at when they lived in the Assisted Living and Memory Care facility. It’s expanding, and the marvelous view they once had of a nearby park and playground has been blocked by a “newer” Independent/Assisted/Memory Care facility (in fact, I believe these kinds of places (ALL of which require VERY LARGE BANK ACCOUNTS for collateral in order to even apply to live there)) have become a cash cow for “apartment builders”…

Sorry, a bit of a soapbox there. I can continue to visit the past as long as it has relevance for the present and the future. While the chances for me and my siblings developing Alzheimer’s aren’t all that much worse than if Dad hadn’t had Alzheimer’s ( https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2019/10/guys-gotta-talk-aboutalzheimers-26.html, https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2020/04/alzheimers-research-right-now-7.html), it’s still there.

I will CONTINUE to visit the past as long as it informs the future – which sounds an awful lot like what I’m going to be doing in this new age of civil unrest…Oh, and just for comparison, I’ll point you to the following comments on an episode of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE – https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/02/possibly-irritating-essays.html

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_States#Juvenile_gangs

Image:  https://upload.inkspire.org/uploads%2F1503370874800-Alzheimer-disease-patients.jpg