I love a good glass of wine, particularly red. I’m not a fan of white wine although I appreciate a good one, especially on a hot summer evening. I try to avoid stories about if wine is good for you or is harmful for you because, to tell  you the truth, it’s one of the pleasures that I think is worth the risk. I don’t jump out of airplanes, I don’t ski out of bounds, I don’t mountain climb. Let me have my wine! Of course though, I’m not in a high risk group (that I know of) and I …read more

Cervical cancer is one type of cancer that may be caught before it’s actually a full-blown cancer. Women who go for regular Pap smears may find out that they have changes in the cells on the cervix, called cervical dysplasia. This is precancer – it may or may not develop into cervical cancer.
If the cancer is caught at such an early stage, cure rates are extremely high. Now, with a bit more investigating with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and/or positron emission tomography (PET) plus computed tomography (CT), finding the right treatment for even better cure rates may be possible.
…read more

If you experience gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) frequently and it’s left untreated, you may be at risk of developing Barrett’s esophagus. Although rare (less than 1%), it is often the precursor to esphageal cancer.
Reducing the effects of GERD may involve lifestyle changes (losing weight, not wearing tight waist lines, raising the head of your bed, for example) or it may involve taking medications. This should be discussed with your doctor and a lot depends on the severity of your disease. However, new research has found that drinking one glass of wine per day may lower the risk of Barrett’s …read more

If you are battling the effects of cancer treatments, it may be tempting to use herbs to relieve stress, pain, and other problems – if you’re not already. You don’t even need to go to a health food store or natural products store; you can find these herbal products in many drugstores and even in big name stores.
But if you have cancer, should you even consider taking them? First of all, it’s important that you speak with your doctor, because the treaments you’re receiving may interact with certain herbs or substances, which could make the treatments more intense (not always …read more

If you’ve been hoping to start a family but have been diagnosed with cancer, you may not need not give up hope of having children. Much research has been done into the field of infertility and cancer treatment and this has given rise to a new field of medicine called oncofertility.
To help you understand what is involved and what some of your options are, a new website has been started called My Oncofertility.org. The site is for people with cancer, parents, and partners. They offer videos, resources, and links to sites where you can get support.
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Tags: cancer blog, cancer and …read more

As medicine progresses, so do the specialties. Once, there were no official specialists in senior care and now there are gerentologists, for example. Another new field is now oncofertility – doctors who work with people who have had cancer to help them be able to have children. This is a big field now because of the larger number of children who are surviving childhood cancers and young adults who are also surviving treatment. Statistics show that almost 80% of children in the US who are diagnosed with cancer survive into adulthood.
To help doctors in this field, a guide has …read more

Getting a good night’s sleep isn’t always easy, whether you’re healthy or not. But, experts say that almost half of people with cancer can’t get good quality sleep. Sleep is more than relaxing and refreshing, good sleep helps your body try to heal itself.
As well, getting enough sleep helps you cope with every day life. If you don’t have enough sleep – and we’ve all experienced this at one time or another – a small irritant can turn into something much bigger if you’re tired and less patient. People who don’t sleep well can become anxious or depressed, or …read more

We often hear of people who beat the odds, people who were given only weeks to live going on to live for years. Here are a few stories I found over at Forbes.com that I thought I’d share with you:
A cancer patient, given just months to live, stages a miraculous recovery. Doctors dismiss it as a fluke. Yet the mystery may offer crucial clues to fighting cancer.
An experimental drug helped Sharon Belvin, who was diagnosed with melanoma in her lung when she was 22 and spent two years in standard treatment.
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Tags: cancer blog, cancer miracles, melanoma

I haven’t read this book so I’m not offering a review of it. I found the information as I was doing my daily search for information and though it was appropriate to mention here since so many people with cancer end up having some sort of surgical procedure, and in my other blogs as well.
According to the press release,

Here’s a Self-Advocacy Book that Can Change Your Life!
Before the Scalpel: What Everyone Should Know about Anesthesia,a new book from Tell Me Press.
The decision has been made: you are going to have surgery. You’ve met with your surgeon. You have a good …read more

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg underwent surgery today to remove a 1-centimetre tumor on her pancreas. The 75-year-old Justice had no signs of pancreatic cancer during a physical examination last  month, but the tumor was discovered during a routine CT scan, news reports say.
Justice Ginsburg is no stranger to cancer. Her mother died of cancer just before Ginsburg graduated from high school and her father successfully battled cancer while Ginsberg was studying law. Ginsberg herself had colon cancer in 1999.
Pancreatic cancer is a particularly tough cancer to beat, but since it was discovered early because of the routine scan, rather …read more