Black women in the United States have about a 41% higher chance of dying from breast cancer than white women. Some of that disparity can be linked to genetics, but the environment, lingering mistrust toward the health care system, and suspicion over prescribed breast cancer treatment also play roles, according to a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
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In the 21st century, “show-me-the-bodies” seems a cruel and outdated foundation for public policy. Yet history is littered with examples—like tobacco and asbestos—where only after the death toll mounts is the price of inaction finally understood to exceed that of action.
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As you maybe get dressed up for a party tonight, remember it's the last day of the month we've raised awareness for breast cancer. Hopefully, we've celebrated those who were blessed to recover and remembered those who have passed from the disease.
This was always my intent with the publication of Loose Threads thirteen years ago. I caught the characters in my life, particularly my grandmother, Margie Garber, and her walk with the disease.
I'm thankful that today a book can continue to reach the right readers through e-books and print-on-demand.
Here's to compassion and assistance for those in treatment right now, readergirlz. May books be used as comforts on their journeys, and may they renew those who love and support them.
Lawmakers around the country are rushing to enact laws that require providers to notify women if their screening mammograms find dense breast tissue. Meanwhile, clinicians remain at a loss concerning how to counsel such women.
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By Patricia Prijatel
A little evergreen tree has died alongside our road and, as we walked by it yesterday, my husband wondered why. All the other trees around it are healthy and it did not look like it had been hit by lightning or damaged by wind or attacked by bugs. The tree is about six feet tall, so it lived several years. We are in the Rocky Mountains and this little guy took root on its own, growing precariously in that place by the road.
Oak Tree. Photo by Glyn Baker. Creative Commons License.
The trees all around it are scrub oak, so maybe the soil was not right for an evergreen. Maybe it just grew in the wrong place, in soil that could not sustain it. Still, there are evergreens nearby that soar to the sky, so maybe this little tree was just too weak to begin with.
Could we have done something to save it? If we were in the city, would we have babied it and maybe kept it alive? Or would it have died sooner there?
These are the same questions we ponder about why some people get sick, why one disease affects one person more than others, why people who live healthy lives still can’t beat some illnesses, yet people with deplorable habits keep going and going.
It’s the old nature versus nurture argument. Bad genes or bad environment? Or both?
I am sort of over being angry at people who have dodged major illnesses — largely because there aren’t that many of them. Seems like most people I know have something to contend with — debilitating arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s somewhere in their network of family and friends. But when I first got cancer I did look around at people who obviously were not living as healthy as I was and wondered: why me and not them? And then I realized that I had no idea what they were dealing with and I should just stop being so angry and judgmental and get over myself. It was not their fault I got sick.
Still, you have to wonder about this poker game we all play with our health. Some seem to be dealt a good hand to begin with, some make the best of a poor hand, some try but can’t make a straight out of a pair of twos, and some look at their cards and just fold.
I have one friend who never exercises and has a diet full of fat, yet she is in her mid-80s, hale, hearty, and youthful-looking. Another smoked all his life, drank, and never exercised, yet he is pushing 80 and has nothing seriously wrong physically, although I do think he looks back at his life with serious regret. But the big C didn’t get him, nor did any major illness. I wouldn’t swap places with him, though, even if I knew my cancer would return.
I also know a wide variety of cancer patients who approach the disease like the individuals they are — fighters who refuse to let the disease get the upper hand; questioners who search for their own information rather than listening to the docs; accommodators who go along with whatever the doctor says; worriers who can’t get beyond the fact that they might die. Most of us are a mix of these traits, fighting one day, living in worry the next. But we are all built differently, both physically and mentally, so we all react to our disease differently. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. We’re all just us, being our own little trees fighting our own little battles.
We cannot escape our genes — they make us prone to certain diseases, give us the strength to fight others, and offer a blueprint for either a long or a short life. Still, we can change some of that; the science of epigenetics demonstrates that lifestyle and environmental factors can influence our genetic makeup so that, by improving things such as diet and physical activity and by avoiding unhealthy environmental pollutants including stress, bad air, and chemicals, we can eventually build a healthier DNA.
I was born into a history of cancer. My grandmother and both of my parents had forms of cancer, although none of them had breast cancer. I was the pioneer there. But both parents lived into their 80s and remained in their home until they died, surrounded by their family. So, I might have a tendency toward cancer, but perhaps my genes also mean I will hang around for a couple more decades. And my particular mix of nature and nurture has given me an ability to love, to laugh, to process health information in a way that might make me proactive, and to keep going, assuming all will be well, at least at some level.
Maybe I won’t end up as one of the stronger trees in the forest; maybe I will be the gnarled, crooked one. Maybe disease might slow me, but I feel I am rooted deeply in decent soil — family, friends, community — so I am going to push on, grow how I can, and, in the process, help shade and nurture the other trees around me.
Patricia Prijatel is author of Surviving Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, published by Oxford University Press. She is the E.T. Meredith Distinguished Professor Emerita of Journalism at Drake University. She will do a webcast with the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation on 16 October 2012. Read her previous blog posts on the OUPblog or read her own blog“Positives About Negative.”
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The post Questioning the health of others and ourselves appeared first on OUPblog.
English: The seconds pendulum, a pendulum with a period of two seconds so each swing takes one second http://weelookang.blogspot.com/2010/06/physical-quantities-and-units.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Most readers here know that I write on occasion in reaction to things in the news. I troll news feeds looking for subject matter for all sorts of things, including poetry. This morning I took my inspiration from my Facebook home page.
A couple of my writer friends had posted links to two stories that left my reactions in a chaotic state of pendulum swing.
The first story reported about a group of 64 high school seniors who were suspended for riding bicycles to school on the same day. You did read that correctly. This Michigan student group merely rode to school on bikes, escorted by police, sanctioned and lauded by the mayor, and then punished for the act.
Can someone point out to me the sanity peeking out of this story? The one official who should have applauded the students’ behavior was the one having conniptions at the other end of it. The principal’s reason for her hysterical reaction? They could have gotten hurt, hit by a car or worse! This with a police escort and the mayor’s approval?
Now you can see the reason for my immediate response. Insanity holds the reins of the school.
Okay, so that’s a bit strong, I admit. The principal’s reaction, however, was far more out of connection with reality than mine. I have my own suspicions as to the real trigger for her reaction.
The point is that just the day before it was reported on Yahoo that a four-year-old girl was kept from inclusion in her class photo because she had her hair up in a bow. Her very neat and tidy hair kept her out of a photo.
Am I the only one who thinks perhaps those presently in charge of schools need a check-up? It seems to me that the irrational responses by school leadership in the past few years are spreading rapidly. But hey, retired teachers can have opinions, too.
When I got to the second story, I could do little but smile. It was about a photographer, Bob Carey, who for the last nine years has traveled around the country taking self-portraits wearing little other than a Pink Tutu. You may have seen the Today Show segment on this man and his inspiration, his wife, Linda.
Bob’s
6 Comments on Rampant Insanity vs. Purpose, last added: 5/25/2012
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award from Georgetown University in 2005 and has received honorary doctorates from Creighton and Union College. In his new book, 
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You know, when Chloe was in first grade, her teacher set up a class project to depict a nativity scene. Me, an atheist with a child in PUBLIC school, very quietly and gently put a stop to that with a compromise to build a depiction of all sorts of the student’s religious beliefs at Christmastime, making the project one of understanding and acceptance rather than a focus. (I know, anecdote, oh well, I write magazine, (and some newspaper) articles) So I do feel I’m a little responsible for what you read.
What absolutely bizarre people the world has! In my experience there’s nothing worse that a person who doesn’t have enough authority to please himself. They are the ones to push the boundaries and proclaim that what they think is right absolutely must be. Usually this is confined to border guards and passport checkers at the security gate, but it seems like it extends to school principals as well. The trick, I suppose, is sorting out the treasure from the drivel. Hooray for the husband in the pink tutu, yay for the students who biked to school and I hope there were plenty of parents who told the principal to shut up.
PS. I have plenty of friends who let their sons wear pink tutus and other dress-up gear to school. More power to them!
PPS. If my dad were a hairdresser I’d have bows every day. Wasn’t that fantastic?
PPPS. There are signs all over town, this town of 3.5 million people, proclaiming it’s bike to work month and reminding people to get their tyres pumped up.
btw, that pendulum thing is hypnotizing @_@
Whenever I hear stories like that, I wonder what other stressers these people had in their moments at that time. Are they really incompetent (which I honestly don’t think they are), or are they just having a bad day?
I tend to go with the latter.
Veronica, there will always be those who seek to extend their authority, whether it’s their right or not. Humans are like that sometimes. That’s why we get dictators, people at work who much take credit for another’s work/idea/initiative, etc.
I’ve never understood why anyone would want power over others. The energy drain trying to keep that power is exhausting and few, if any, of them ever look happy or satisfied. What a waste of good life.
Cool effect, though, isn’t it?
One can only imagine what drives another’s life. I have enough trouble driving my own without dealing with those of other people.