Faced with a cancer diagnosis, or any challenging life event, you want to talk to someone who has already experienced what you are about to experience. You want to find stories about other people who have overcome adversity, preferably told by the people who went through it first-hand. You want to know what to expect.

Last year, when Katherine Brown’s mother-in-law Ruth was diagnosed with Lymphoma, she went on an internet search to find people Ruth could talk to, who knew what it was like to be diagnosed with cancer, be inspired by the personal stories of triumph over the trials and tribulations of a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment and cancer survivorship.

After an extensive internet search for the kind of community Ruth could connect with, Brown came up empty-handed. As need is the mother of all invention, Brown decided to create what she was looking for and could not find.

The Cancer Buddy Network is a result of Brown’s vision. At the Cancer Buddy Network, you create an account; tell your story; be a buddy. Newly-diagnosed cancer patients, family members and friends, and cancer survivors are welcome. It is the blend of cancer patients, cancer survivors and the loved ones touched by cancer that brings real life hope and inspiration in cancer community support. The Cancer Buddy Network is a recent web destination and it looks very well done. Stop by and give it a look, add your voice to hope.

Source: The Cancer Blog

While public and private groups, along with researchers and a few drug companies, have been making serious efforts to help smokers quit smoking cigarettes, the tobacco industry has been spiking the level of nicotine in cigarettes, according to a study by the Department of Public Health. Between the years 1998 to 2004, the amount of nicotine in cigarettes has risen by ten percent.

According to Lois Keithly , director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, “We in public health have tried to spend a lot of time figuring out why people don’t stop smoking.”

Full withdrawal will be felt after the first day of not smoking. But symptoms from nicotine withdrawal are felt within the first 30 minutes after the last cigarette, with smokers reporting cravings within the first hour after the last cigarette. In one hour, smokers reported anger. In three hours of smoking cessation, smokers reported heightened levels of anxiety, sadness and difficulty concentrating. Nicotine is what makes cigarettes so addictive.

The Boston Globe reports when contacted, representatives of the three major tobacco makers in the US declined to comment on the study and would not answer questions about the nicotine content of their products.

Source: The Cancer Blog

WASHINGTON — It took eight agonizing months for Charles Linzey to decide how to treat his early-stage prostate cancer. His wife, in contrast, had her early-stage breast cancer surgically removed just a month after diagnosis.

It’s not that the Baltimore businessman was less decisive. Instead, Linzey ran into a distressing reality: Unlike with breast cancer and many other malignancies, doctors simply couldn’t tell him which therapy was a better bet for the leading male cancer.

There is little good research directly comparing prostate treatment options to help the newly diagnosed choose between surgery, two types of radiation, or watching a small tumor to see if it needs treating at all.

“I never felt comfortable, even when I made my choice, with my choice. Because no one would say, ‘That’s a good choice,’” says Linzey, 59, who ultimately went with implanted radioactive “seeds” and is faring well.

Two new studies suggest the advice gap has consequences: overtreating early-stage tumors, and therapy choices driven by fear and misperceptions.

“When we give people choices, it’s sometimes more difficult,” acknowledges Dr. John B. Fiveash, a radiation oncologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who is at the forefront of a fledgling trend to try to change that – through specialized prostate clinics.

Key for patients to know: “Not all prostate cancer is the same,” stresses Dr. John T. Wei, a University of Michigan urologist who recently reported that about 55 percent of men with low-risk tumors are overtreated, unnecessarily exposing them to such side effects as impotence and incontinence.

Certainly aggressive prostate cancer can kill. But often, prostate cancer is so slow-growing, and discovered when it’s so small, that men will die of something else before it ever causes symptoms, much less becomes life-threatening.

One man in every six will get prostate cancer, but only one in 34 will die of it, the American Cancer Society says.

That sounds reassuring until you’re the man wondering if you’ll be in the lucky majority or not. Unfortunately, doctors have no easy way to tell.

Adding to the confusion: Studies are contradictory about whether aggressive treatment really improves a low-risk man’s long-term chances of survival – or if a better option might be to closely monitor the tumor and treat it only if it starts to grow, so that he doesn’t endure side effects until he really has to.

And while some older studies do suggest that radiation and surgery recipients fare equally well for up to 10 years, Fiveash laments that there are no direct comparisons of more modern surgical and radiation techniques, including more precisely targeted, potentially safer ways to deliver radiation.

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August 25, 2006 – A bubble bath that improves memory – that gets the attention of most senior citizens. A kitchen cleaner that wards off nausea and energizes. A scented handkerchief that calms a patient entering the MRI. The benefits of aromatherapy are real, according to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. A cancer specialist shares her advice on using oils for healing.

Aromatherapy is the use of oils extracted from plants to alleviate physical and psychological disorders, usually through massage or inhalation.

Scan the shelves of the local bath and body stores and one is sure to find products labeled for aromatherapy. Many might be surprised to learn the science behind it. So what is aromatherapy, how is it used and will those products actually work?

Cherie Perez, a supervising research nurse in the Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, teaches a monthly aromatherapy class to answer those questions for cancer patients and caregivers undergoing treatment at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Perez’s classes are offered free of charge through M. D. Anderson’s Place of wellness, a center within the institution that focuses on helping patients and caregivers deal with the non-medical issues of living with cancer, and is the first complementary therapy facility to be built on the campus of a comprehensive cancer center.

Perez, who first became involved with aromatherapy to help relieve the physical pain and discomfort caused by fibromyalgia, shares her professional knowledge of the basics of aromatherapy, safety precautions and interactive demonstrations in each hour-long class.

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The idea of Casting for Recovery is to not just survive, but thrive.

It’s a program that puts together breast cancer survivors with fly-fishing instructors for a weekend retreat on the water, combining physical therapy with spiritual and emotional recovery.

Linda Keller, a professor of rehabilitation counselor education at Western Oregon University, knows a lot about both.

Five years ago, she became a breast cancer survivor and had to apply to herself the same lessons she teaches.

Keller attended the first Oregon retreat as a survivor in 2004.

She returned in 2005 — and will participate in the Sept. 8-10 retreat this year — as a “psycho-social facilitator.”

That’s a fancy term for doing everything from serving as a group counselor, activities director and cheerleader to providing a handy shoulder to cry on or a listener who’s all ears.

“You know, it gives you new eyeglasses to look through,” Keller said about her dual experiences. “It does weave into my conversations.

“Dealing with loss and adjustment to loss, and dealing with disability, and all that kind of thing. And now of course, it’s different now having worn the shoes myself.”

But fishing?

“I hadn’t been fishing since I was a kid,” Keller said with a laugh. “I’ve been involved with the YWCA breast cancer support group since I went through chemotherapy. That’s been about 4 1/2 years ago now.”

Eileen Hirsh of Salem, a longtime volunteer with the 10-year-old Vermont-based national Casting for Recovery program, came to speak to the group when the first Oregon retreat was set up, pitching for recruits.

“I said ‘It looks nice, but I don’t see myself fly-fishing,’ ” Keller said about her initial skepticism. “But I thought, “What the heck? I’m going to put my hat in the ring.’ And I was one of four from Salem who was chosen.”

The extended weekend of bonding and fishing at the Big K Guest Ranch on the Umpqua River had the intended effect.

“It was more than I ever expected,” Keller said, adding with a laugh about the transformation upon her return, “My husband though I was crazy because I was like, ‘I’m going out and buying my waders, and I’m getting my boots. And I doing this, I’m doing that.’ “

It seemed like a perfect fit from the get-go, said Kathie Larsen, the guest ranch director and part owner of the family run Big K, a working ranch as well as fishing lodge.

“It’s an awesome group, a wonderful group,” Larsen said of the annual invasion, adding that first year, “We had basically heard about groups like them, but not to where I really had an idea as to who they were.”

Now Big K is a partial sponsor, offering Casting for Recovery a discount on the stay.

That first retreat, Keller was one of the only participants to catch a fish and got a prize for the biggest.

And her reaction — going from mild to wild about the experience — is pretty typical, said Cathy Tronquet of Medford, one of the founders of the Oregon retreats.

“I’d taught fly-fishing to women for about 10 years, so that part of it was a no-brainer for me because I love to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for the sport,” she said. “So this was my way of just giving back.”

Some of the 14 who are picked for the all-expenses-paid weekend have fished before, some are just curious.

All have a need to share, though.

“I see the connection with nature and the connection with, you know, your fishing buddy who’s down the way and does catch a fish,” Tronquet said. “And, you know, that whole spiritual connection with the outdoors is healing, and I’ve always looked at fly-fishing that way.

“Even before Casting for Recovery.”

For the volunteers, enough for one-on-one with the participants, the goal is pretty simple, Tronquet said.

“Our mission is to just spoil them rotten for a weekend, to give them a weekend where they don’t have to lift a finger, they feel special, they’re given an opportunity to do what they want,” she said with a laugh.

For some, it’s a lot more than the physical therapy that’s needed, Tronquet added.

“I know that first retreat we had a woman from the netherlands of Eastern Oregon who, you know, the doctor just lopped off her breasts and sent her home,” Tronquet recalled. “And she didn’t have any kind of support network.

“She was a phenomenal experience, just to see how much she just needed to laugh and cry and be with other women who have been through the same thing.”

Source: Statesman Journal

A study of women with ovarian cancer undergoing chemotherapy shows that those with a more optimistic outlook were less distressed and had a better quality of life.

The study team also found that higher levels of optimism at the start of treatment were associated with greater declines in cancer antigen 125 (CA 125) levels during treatment. Declines in CA 125 have been used to predict the likelihood of remission and survival in ovarian cancer patients.

“It is important for health care providers to identify patients who feel less optimistic about life and their cancer and treatment because this population may be vulnerable to distress, diminished quality of life, and suboptimum clinical outcomes,” said Dr. Janet S. de Moor, now at the Ohio State University School of Public Health in Columbus.

“Patients who are less optimistic may benefit from interventions to help them cope with their cancer diagnosis,” she added.

While Dr. de Moor was at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, she and her colleagues assessed levels of optimism, distress, and health-related quality of life, and the change in CA 125 at the start and end of chemotherapy in 90 women with ovarian cancer.

As reported in the July/August issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, the researchers found that women who reported higher optimism about life in general and about their cancer and treatment reported lower anxiety, depression, and perceived stress, as well as better health-related quality of life. They also experienced greater declines in their CA 125 levels during chemotherapy.

“The association between optimism and CA 125 is plausible given other research linking psychosocial variables to tumor-related markers,” Dr. de Moor told Reuters Health. “It should be tested further in future research.”

SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine, July/August 2006.

Stuffing your emotions, or keeping it all inside, has led more than one person down the path to trouble. At some point, if you do not express your thoughts and feelings, especially the negative ones, you stay emotionally frozen in time. It’s kind of like physically clubbing yourself over the head repeatedly day after day. Of course, we cannot go around randomly screaming at people or speaking before we give ourselves time to think. There are effective ways to open up and share that will lead you to better health and help you to maintain a good relationship with family members and friends at the same time. Journaling is good, as is talk therapy or belonging to a support group.

The point is, until expressed, you are stuck with whatever you are feeling. With the passage of time, you might not even be aware of the emotions you are carrying around inside affecting you and your health, as they tend to pile up and become obscured from view.

Adelaide University psycho-neuro-immunology researcher Vikki Knott understands the benefit of letting it all out emotionally, and that sharing and releasing distressful emotions can help a cancer survivor survive cancer longer. Knott will be conducting research in emotion-focused treatments to improve cancer survivorship by charting the physical changes to the immune system before and after talk therapy sessions.

According to Knott, “It’s about the link between the mind and the body and how your mind state can affect the disease state in the body.” The researchers will be examining three techniques — journaling, meditation and hypnosis. Previous research has already proven that breast cancer survivors who belong to a support group tend to live longer than their more isolated and disconnected counterparts.