All right! It’s here! I was going to save this for Freebie Friday, but I can’t wait.
The 2008-2009 version of Fertile Hope’s Cancer and Fertility Resource Guide is now available.  Click on the title to download a  free .pdf version or, go to http://www.fertilehope.org/learn-more/publications/print-materials.cfm to order 1 or 5 or 100. All free. Since this fabulous and free resource is almost 300 pages, you might want a hard copy.
If you are still undergoing cancer treatments and think others at your oncologist’s office would benefit from this, you can use Fertile Hope’s Tell Your Doctor tool and they’ll take care of …read more

You may have heard the term Oncofertility mentioned here at Fertility Notes before.
A Newsweek article that will be published in the August 4th issue of the magazine gives a great explanation of what Oncofertility is and why it matters so much to cancer patients.
According to Newsweek:
Of the 125,000 people under the age of 45 who are diagnosed with cancer each year, roughly half will receive treatments that will affect their fertility. The cancers that most commonly strike the young—leukemias, lymphomas and breast cancers—require some of the most toxic forms of chemotherapy, which target rapidly growing and fragile cells like hair …read more

Perhaps sometimes I dwell too much on what I have lost because of cancer, more specifically because of the chemotherapy and radiation given to me to treat it. The reality is, I owe an awful lot to the chemo and radiation I often curse.
And I owe an awful lot to Dr. M. Lois Murphy,
a pediatric oncologist whose leadership advanced early work on chemotherapy, especially for childhood cancer, and led to markedly higher survival rates.

Today marks 20 years cancer free for me.
This means I am part of an ever-growing group of young adult survivors of childhood cancers. And finally, finally! thanks to increased odds of remission and survival rates, we are growing large enough in numbers that lasting effects of chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments can be studied and better understood. 20 years ago, we were the guinea pigs – the ones whose families told the doctors, “just make them better! Whatever it takes.” Now we know that curing the cancer is just part of the issue.
I am thankful that I can share …read more