#endometrial cancer survivor
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Two years ago today, I had a hysterectomy to remove my stage 1 endometrial (uterine) cancer. The cancer has not returned and God willing, it will never return.
#endometrial cancer#endometrial cancer awareness#endometrial cancer survivor#uterine cancer#uterine cancer awareness#uterine cancer survivor#not all cancers are pink
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informed "consent" does not really exist for some things in the medical system, and the people who hold power in these institutions (such as doctors, nurses, specialists) need to be doing more to avoid abusing the power they possess, even unintentionally.
and not to subject everyone to a long-winded personal anecdote to get my point across but this is my blog and if you don't like me talking about my experiences then idk why you're following me anyway since that's literally all i blog about.
recently, i went to a doctor to get my uterus checked out because i experience periods so rarely and, when i do menstruate, they're completely debilitating. i had to have a transvaginal ultrasound and a biopsy, and was told it was within the realm of possibility i could be developing endometrial cancer. now, thankfully, i am not nor am i necessarily at an elevated risk of developing endometrial or uterine cancer. but, for two weeks after the appointment, the uncertainty of my test results made me so upset, so stressed, and lose so much sleep because, after a life of psychiatric control both at home and in hospital environments, after having so many of my physical issues dismissed, being denied care or care forced upon me by bigoted providers, and generally having a shit run of things in a system that robbed me of bodily autonomy and agency of choice, for some reason, and i don't know why (maybe feeling like i was owed mercy after surviving so much for so long?), i felt like this was the one thing that shouldn't go wrong. after years of transitioning, i've reached a place where i'm happy with my top surgery results, i'm happy never having bottom surgery, i'm happy not needing to take testosterone anymore, i'm happy with all the permanent changes i've undergone. and i just thought 'this is all done, i summited the metaphorical peak of my transition, i am completely content with all my progress, and none of it will be interfered with or undone' but, of course, i did not account for my uterus potentially being a goddamn ticking timebomb.
like, let's say i really did have precancerous endometrial cells and i really did need to get my uterus removed. regardless of everything i was reading to reassure myself about things like the risks of premature menopause and the impact of a hysterectomy on future orgasms and sexual sensation, it would always be a decision about my body and medical care that i would have had to make to preserve my life, despite not wanting to make it in the first place. in the end, i would just have to have a hysterectomy and hope for the best. i'm relieved that, at least for the time being, this is not my reality. i get to keep my uterus. my hormonal treatment options are still not the most ideal… but at least i get to keep my uterus.
and i say all of this because it made me think about my traumatic history within the medical system, breaking my treatment options down into a matrix, using examples from my own medical history:
need/want (e.g. vaccines, top surgery)
need/don't want (e.g. biopsies, hormonal treatment for menorrhagia)
want/don't need (e.g. removal of small and benign pillar cyst)
don't want/don't need (e.g. psychiatric hospitalization, antipsychotic medications)
and when i thought of this, i was thinking about my intersex friends who have been subjected to "don't want/don't need" operations or 'treatments' in their lives, and fellow psychiatric survivors whose hospitalizations and prescribed 'treatments' also fall under the "don't want/don't need" category. and how doctors don't seem to really care about the wants/needs of patients.
medical providers have to do a better job of preventing the prescriptions of "don't want/don't need" options, especially in the cases of intersex, neurodivergent, and disabled patients who are almost always coerced into accepting them, if not forced by someone with conservatorship/control over them. medical providers also need to do a better job of helping patients experiencing emotional distress over having to choose something like a life-saving treatment option that they do not want other than simply referring them to a psychiatrist. speaking from experience, almost none of my doctors have ever actually given me the space to ask questions and receive answers. they just refer me elsewhere and refuse to help me. this has always been the case. i want medical providers to actually fucking talk to and communicate with their patients in scenarios like this, in which (potentially or literally) life-saving treatment is needed, but which the patient wishes they did not need. i feel like i am constantly being asked to tell my own medical care providers to do their fucking job and it is so goddamn tiring.
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Survivors of breast cancer are at significantly higher risk of developing second cancers including endometrial and ovarian cancer for women and prostate cancer for men according to new research studying data from almost 600000 patients in England.
Survivors of breast cancer are at significantly higher risk of developing second cancers, including endometrial and ovarian cancer for women and prostate cancer for men, according to new research studying data from almost 600,000 patients in England.
https://ift.tt/nxrEhCp
Submitted April 25, 2024 at 05:09AM by chrisdh79 https://ift.tt/MPYcChw
via /r/science
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The best cancer doctor in Kolkata has shared expert tips for endometrial cancer survivors to ensure their optimal recovery.
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Canspire: A book that tells inspiring stories of seven cancer survivors | Lifestyle News
Canspire: A book that tells inspiring stories of seven cancer survivors | Lifestyle News
Akama Vijayan was 78 when she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Two years later, at an inspiring 80, she is a survivor who lives to tell the world around her the story of her battle with the terrible disease.
The retired nursing supervisor is among seven cancer survivors featured in a book published by a prominent hospital group in Kerala. Aster Medcity, Kochi, has released the book…
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Why We Ride: A Note from Dana-Farber’s CEO
Hello, I am forwarding an update from Dr. Laurie Glimcher, President & CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In this update she highlights some of the advances at Dana-Farber that have been possible thanks to your donations:
A Note from Dr. Laurie Glimcher, President & CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
As Dana-Farber’s largest single contributor, accounting for 55 percent of the Jimmy Fund’s annual revenue, the PMC commitment touches every aspect of the Institute’s essential work. The funds you raise are of paramount importance in pushing the pace of progress across Dana-Farber’s labs and clinics to improve the lives of patients across the globe.
Inspired and empowered by PMC riders like you, Dana-Farber is accelerating revolutionary science, delivering compassionate care, and mobilizing the exceptional expertise needed to change the course of cancer for everyone. PMC funding allows the Institute’s best and brightest minds to prevent more cancers and relapses, treat more cancers successfully, sustain a robust slate of clinical trials, and spearhead comprehensive programs to address the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of patients, families, and survivors.
As this summer’s ride approaches, it is worth reflecting on the multifaceted impact of the PMC’s record-breaking $64 million gift in 2021. Here are some examples of the many advances enabled by your support:
New Car T-cell Therapies – Dana-Farber researchers spearheaded clinical trials resulting in the first CAR T-cell therapies approved by the FDA for indolent follicular lymphoma and multiple myeloma, a major milestone for patients with these cancers.
Approval of Immunotherapy for Kidney Cancer – Dana-Farber research helped drive FDA approval for a novel immunotherapy combination as a first-line treatment for advanced kidney cancer.
Novel Treatment for Uterine Serous Carcinoma – In a Dana-Farber-led study, a new targeted drug showed encouraging results in its first clinical trial for a hard-to-treat form of uterine cancer—an encouraging outcome in a disease with limited effective treatment options.
First Study of Novel CLL Therapy – Dana-Farber researchers demonstrated the efficacy of a novel combination of three molecularly targeted drugs in treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia, marking the first published study on this groundbreaking approach.
Drugging the Undruggable – Dana-Farber investigators demonstrated the promise of a novel agent that targets a form of the KRAS gene—long considered “undruggable”—in treating patients with lung, colorectal, pancreatic, and endometrial cancers.
New treatments. Better outcomes. More hope. That is what your impact has on patients across the country and around the world. In 2022, with your commitment and your donors’ support, Dana-Farber can achieve even greater strides in bringing a cancer-free future Closer by the Mile.
As you begin your fundraising, please share these advances with your donors. I look forward to riding with you this August!
Warmly,
Laurie H. Glimcher, M.D.
President and CEO
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Continue to help make a difference by donating today!
100% of every donation goes directly to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and supports cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber.
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Marty Middelmann
My 2022 Fundraising Goal: $15,000
Raised for 2022: $3,646
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Eye-Catching Cancer Drug Trial Results Have Researchers Asking: What’s Next?
— By Kim Bellware and Lenny Bernstein | June 10, 2022 | The Washington Post
Christian Hinrichs, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute, shows patient Fred Janick, a survivor of metastatic cancer, the difference between his CT scan showing cancerous tumors, right, and a clean scan after treatment in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 8, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
After a small cancer drug study yielded the unprecedented result of 100 percent of participants entering remission, oncologists — and patients — wonder if the approach from the experimental drug trial can apply to other types of cancer.
The study out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has oncologists excited over the prospect that immunotherapy, the treatment type used in the trial, has increasingly shown effectiveness — without surgery — against tumors with a specific abnormality. All of the trial’s participants had tumors with the abnormality known as mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency, a mutation that occurs in between 5 and 10 percent of rectal cancer cases and is also present in endometrial, bladder, breast and prostate tumors.
Though the trial was tested in patients whose tumor mutation is present in roughly 4 percent of all cancer cases, the results provide a template for how to tailor immunotherapy drugs to attack specific tumors that, due to their mutation, tend to be more resistant to traditional therapies, according to Julie Gralow, chief medical officer and executive vice president of American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Christian Hinrichs, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute, shows patient Fred Janick, a survivor of metastatic cancer, the difference between his CT scan showing cancerous tumors, right, and a clean scan after treatment in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 8, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
After a small cancer drug study yielded the unprecedented result of 100 percent of participants entering remission, oncologists — and patients — wonder if the approach from the experimental drug trial can apply to other types of cancer.
The study out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has oncologists excited over the prospect that immunotherapy, the treatment type used in the trial, has increasingly shown effectiveness — without surgery — against tumors with a specific abnormality. All of the trial’s participants had tumors with the abnormality known as mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency, a mutation that occurs in between 5 and 10 percent of rectal cancer cases and is also present in endometrial, bladder, breast and prostate tumors.
Though the trial was tested in patients whose tumor mutation is present in roughly 4 percent of all cancer cases, the results provide a template for how to tailor immunotherapy drugs to attack specific tumors that, due to their mutation, tend to be more resistant to traditional therapies, according to Julie Gralow, chief medical officer and executive vice president of American Society of Clinical Oncology.
“That’s the promise of this: It’s really the concept of being able to match a tumor, and the genomics of what’s driving it, with a therapy,” Gralow told The Washington Post on Thursday. “Because we can move this beyond just this subset of rectal cancer.”
The Sloan Kettering trial, which began in late 2019, took 18 early-stage rectal cancer patients with the same tumor mutation who had no prior treatment and gave them the drug dostarlimab every three weeks for six months. Tumors completely disappeared in all 14 patients who had completed the treatment by the time the study published (four more remain on track with similar results), and none have required follow-up treatment.
The results mark the first time immunotherapy alone eliminated the need for chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, which can cure patients but leave them with life-altering effects like infertility, bowel and sexual dysfunction or permanent reliance on a colostomy bag.
The study authors note the earliest patient to complete the trial is more than two years post-treatment, and all patients will be monitored for at least five years to ensure no tumor regrowth or reemergence.
Christian Hinrichs, an investigator at the National Cancer Institute, shows patient Fred Janick, a survivor of metastatic cancer, the difference between his CT scan showing cancerous tumors, right, and a clean scan after treatment in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 8, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
After a small cancer drug study yielded the unprecedented result of 100 percent of participants entering remission, oncologists — and patients — wonder if the approach from the experimental drug trial can apply to other types of cancer.
The study out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has oncologists excited over the prospect that immunotherapy, the treatment type used in the trial, has increasingly shown effectiveness — without surgery — against tumors with a specific abnormality. All of the trial’s participants had tumors with the abnormality known as mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency, a mutation that occurs in between 5 and 10 percent of rectal cancer cases and is also present in endometrial, bladder, breast and prostate tumors.
Though the trial was tested in patients whose tumor mutation is present in roughly 4 percent of all cancer cases, the results provide a template for how to tailor immunotherapy drugs to attack specific tumors that, due to their mutation, tend to be more resistant to traditional therapies, according to Julie Gralow, chief medical officer and executive vice president of American Society of Clinical Oncology.
“That’s the promise of this: It’s really the concept of being able to match a tumor, and the genomics of what’s driving it, with a therapy,” Gralow told The Washington Post on Thursday. “Because we can move this beyond just this subset of rectal cancer.”
The Sloan Kettering trial, which began in late 2019, took 18 early-stage rectal cancer patients with the same tumor mutation who had no prior treatment and gave them the drug dostarlimab every three weeks for six months. Tumors completely disappeared in all 14 patients who had completed the treatment by the time the study published (four more remain on track with similar results), and none have required follow-up treatment.
The results mark the first time immunotherapy alone eliminated the need for chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, which can cure patients but leave them with life-altering effects like infertility, bowel and sexual dysfunction or permanent reliance on a colostomy bag.
The study authors note the earliest patient to complete the trial is more than two years post-treatment, and all patients will be monitored for at least five years to ensure no tumor regrowth or reemergence.
Scott Kopetz, a professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, called the study “a solid advancement in the field” and described the way immunotherapy has been used to treat MMR deficient tumors as “absolutely game-changing.”
“The idea of using immunotherapy in patients that have localized early stage colorectal cancers certainly has been gaining momentum,” he said. The new study “provides recognition that if we can get the immune system properly engaged … we can eradicate” those cancers.
Even cancers in advanced stages have shown sensitivity to drugs like the one used in the trial. Known as “checkpoint inhibitors,” the drugs block a specific cancer cell protein that can cause the immune system to hold back its cancer-fighting response rather than identify and eradicate the cancer. Once eradicated for a number of years, the cancers rarely return, Kopetz said.
Data from other research show 70 percent of people with metastatic colorectal tumors treated with immunotherapeutic drugs to be cancer-free five years later, he said, a huge advance in treatment for a terrible disease. Metastatic cancers are even more difficult to treat than tumors that are confined to the rectum or colon.
The study does come with caveats. Kopetz and others cautioned that six months is not long enough to know whether the patients will remain permanently cancer-free. These drugs often need to be taken for a year or two before patients can come off them and remain confident that their cancer has been eliminated, he said. Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, however, the drugs are usually well-tolerated during that period.
Perhaps more importantly, the genetic defect in these patients’ tumors that allows the drugs to be so effective, is much less common in other forms of cancer than in colon and endometrial cancers. So a person with a lung or brain cancer that lacks that defect would have a much lower chance of this kind of cure, Kopetz said.
David Ryan, the director of clinical oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, previously told The Post that while the treatment used in the trial could become more widely available, not everyone who can receive the treatment will have access to the specialists who will help monitor patients like the trial participants and intervene if tumors come back.
“We do worry that if recurrences happen, that they have to be picked up as soon as possible to give people the best chance,” Ryan said.
Gralow, of ASCO, said the study affirms that the future of cancer treatment is a narrower approach based on cancer type, such as a tailored plan that addresses the specific characteristics of a tumor.
“I’m excited when you see such a dramatic response,” she said of the trial results. “It gives me hope we can find such a dramatic match for other cancers, too.”
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That nasty “C” word
Nope! Not THAT one! I’m talking about Cancer! Yes! I am a cancer survivor! Yes! It was the hardest thing I had to do in 2008! Find a lump, get a biopsy, get the “news” that it’s cancer, having a lumpectomy (and having your brother die the same day from a heart attack!!!) then it was the 16 rounds of chemotherapy every 3 weeks and a trip back to the cancer center the day after to get a neulasta shot the next day! Wasn’t that enough? No... ok, losing my hair (EVERYWHERE on my body!) and then the radiation! Oh and did I mention that the chemotherapy put me in medical menopause at 42? Well, it did! That sucked and didn’t suck! (No more “Aunt Flo” is always a good thing, right?) But no harmones for me... not exactly sure why, even now! Stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma... that’s what it was! VERY AGGRESSIVE type! That’s why I had som many rounds of chemo!
What? That wasn’t test enough? Ok, let’s go... fast forward 6 years... a LOT of check ups happened, but not just on my breasts, NO! Now we’re watching my uterus too! Because women that have breast cancer are at more risk for uterine, cervical, endometrial and vaginal cancers! INTERNAL ultrasounds for me! Woo hoo! I hit the lottery! NOT!!! Then I had some bleeding - minor. Go in for a check up to make sure Aunt Flo isn’t coming back! Yes! that was a possibility! UGH! Uterine lining was a little thicker than my GYN liked and she found a polyp hanging on to the lining. Uterine cancer, I asked... No, but it could be endometrial cancer, we have to get the pathology first. Let’s not go there just yet, she says!
Get an abcess on the right side of my neck... go to doctor and he says to go to the emergency room to get it lanced today or try to schedule an appointment with a doctor that does those... ER here I come! Today is better! Nurse put blood pressure cuff on my right arm even though they’re not supposed to use that arm for anything but she was putting my IV in my left arm... my cell phone rings. I answer with my right arm... GYN (calling from her cell phone) on the line! Yep! You guessed it! Endometrial cancer it is. Stage 2! She’s recommending a total hysterectomy and oopherectomy (ovary removal)! I now have to go to a new doctor an oncology GYN! A MAN! WTF! She would go to him if it were here... but it’s not her! It’s me! Went to the Oncology GYN... like the nurse practitioner! She’s awesome! Anyway, he recommends the same thing. So get that scheduled in a month.
By the time I go in for the surgery, a tumor had grown in my uterus! Yep! Uterine cancer! WTH! This one is stage 2 grade 3... whatever that means! So, here comes the chemotherapy again! But only 6 rounds every 2 weeks! Oh and radiation to follow! Lose hair AGAIN! UGH! There were only 4 radiation treatments... but they were done INTERNALLY! That sucked tremendously! Because I couldn’t have harmones after the breast cancer! And that causes vaginal dryness like you CAN NOT believe! Is this story finished? Not by a long shot!
I go to the primary care doctor with my husband because he’s not feeling well. I’m in shorts because it’s hot outside! Anyway, as he’s treating my husband he looks over to me and says “what’s that?” pointing to a mole on my right thigh. I said it’s my teddy bear. It really looked like a little teddy graham! He tells me to get it checked out! Yep! You guessed it! It was in the very beginning stage of skin cancer! I didn’t even know there was even a stage 0! THREE types at one time that are not related to each other! I’m just an overachiever! The skin cancer was removed for the biopsy but the dermotology surgeon wanted to take more margins!
You would think that would be enough for one person, right? Well, my gestational diabetes from my son in 2006 stayed with me as type 2 diabetes! I started having panic/anxiety attacks in the elevator on my way to the very first chemo treatment and still have them when I go to a new doctor/facility! And I suffer from TERRIBLE MIGRAINES too! But I started going to the chiropractor to see if it would relieve the pain. But it wasn’t working for that. So just recently, I started going for accupuncture! Strangely enough, that seems to be working for my migraines! It’s day 12 without one! YEAH!
Well... that’s my story so far! Skipping a lot of the smaller details (and anything I may have forgotten, which could be caused by the chemo or the menopause plus age and oh heck, I forgot what else! Just needed to get that off my chest! Get it? Chest? Breast Cancer! Ha! (Humor is the coping mechanism that I apply a lot!)
If you’re still here... thanks for reading! Have a great day!
#cancer#breast cancer#endometrial cancer#uterine cancer#chemotherapy#radiation#cancersucks#mycancerstory#firstblogdontjudgeplease#SURVIVOR
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This is way we need to be able to talk women’s health issues. How can we talk about women’s cancers being left out of programs for survivors if we have to dance around women’s biology to appease wokesters.
Leigh Calmar still can’t forget the dust. About a month after the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001, she returned to working downtown, at an architecture firm, after maternity leave. On the walk to her office building in the Financial District, she remembers seeing dust from the collapsed buildings. There was even dust in her office, on the window ledges and desks. “Our eyes would burn, I would breathe this stuff — it was just horrible,” Calmar says. “And it went on for months.”
It was this ubiquitous dust blanketing lower Manhattan in the days and months after 9/11 that caused both short- and long-term health problems for the neighborhood’s workers and residents, explains Dr. Joan Reibman, the director of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, which treats 9/11 survivors.
The dust contained harmful particles — like fiberglass, lead, and asbestos — that doctors believe are linked to cancer, and it has led to respiratory problems like chronic sinusitis, asthma, and pulmonary symptoms, Reibman says. The first death ever officially linked to 9/11 dust was that of a female lawyer who fled the area that day and died just five months later, after experiencing lingering difficulty breathing. Other victims include Marcy Borders, a bank employee in the North Tower who became known as “Dust Lady” from a well-known photo of her covered in powder. She died in 2015 from stomach cancer, at the age of 42.
In 2009, Calmar, then 48, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she had insurance, her chemotherapy and radiation treatments racked up huge medical bills. The federal World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP), set up to support survivors and responders alike, wouldn’t be available until 2011. Now 60, Calmar is enrolled in the program, so if her breast cancer were to recur, the government would cover treatment. “That is such a relief for me,” she says.
That isn’t the case for every woman survivor facing health problems. Like Calmar, thousands of women survivors of 9/11 — who worked, lived, or attended school near Ground Zero — have been diagnosed with cancer, asthma, mental health disorders, and more. But only a few “women-specific” conditions, such as breast and ovarian cancers, have been officially recognized by the WTCHP. (Still, it took the WTCHP over a year to recognize ovarian cancer as a covered condition, and nearly two years for a majority of breast cancers to be covered.) Other conditions, like uterine and endometrial cancers and autoimmune diseases, are not covered. For two decades, women have struggled to be fully covered by the health program, battling the narrative that people with 9/11-linked health problems are predominantly male first responders, say advocates and survivors.
“The public sense of who deserved help and who had sacrificed for that help was very male-focused, it was very responder-focused,” says survivor and advocate Lila Nordstrom, who was 17 and a senior at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero on 9/11. “Community members never got access to that narrative, which meant that a lot of them never — because they didn’t see themselves reflected in any coverage — thought to seek help, never thought to advocate for themselves.”
Though advocates estimate that survivors outnumber responders three to one, male responders make up nearly two-thirds of health-program enrollees, and most initial research to determine linked conditions was conducted on first responders, they say.
Like responders, survivors suffered both acute exposure on the day of the attacks as well as chronic exposure in the aftermath. But while responders automatically qualify for annual health-monitoring exams and treatment through the WTCHP, community members qualify for a one-time health evaluation and can enroll in the health program only after they start showing symptoms for a physical or mental health condition that’s been officially linked to exposure. At present, the program serves more than 100,000 responders and survivors, though the CDC estimates more than 400,000 people were “exposed to toxic contaminants, risks of traumatic injury, and physically and emotionally stressful conditions.”
As director of the Rutgers University WTCHP Clinical Center of Excellence, Dr. Iris Udasin primarily treats responders. She notes little clinical distinction between them and survivors: “I think if you’ve seen elevated diseases in the responders, you’d see the same things in the residents of the community.”
Cancer is the most common recognized condition among survivors. Women make up 47 percent of survivors (and 12 percent of responders) enrolled in the program, according to CDC data, and breast cancer in women is the third-most-prevalent cancer in the program overall. Data is lacking, however, on other female-oriented health problems like uterine cancers and autoimmune diseases, which are more common in women than men. A petition to add uterine and endometrial cancers to the list was rejected in September 2019 for lack of evidence, due to relatively small numbers of women studied. Still, “it was sort of surprising that so many cancers were included, but not uterine,” Reibman says. She supports a new push to get these cancers added, led by New Jersey representative Mikie Sherrill. Inclusion of uterine cancer will be reconsidered at a WTCHP hearing on September 28.
Stephanie Stevens, a spokesperson for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which houses the WTCHP, said that if the program administrator decides to add uterine cancers to the list, the change would need to go through the federal rule-making process, including a public comment period. It’s a process that typically takes months to complete. And under the Zadroga Act, the WTCHP does not pay for treatment until a condition is on the list, meaning coverage would not be retroactive.
Sara Director, an attorney at the firm Barasch McGarry, which represents more than 25,000 9/11 responders and survivors, supports the effort. “Certainly, a 9/11 survivor or responder who’s suffering from uterine cancer is frustrated that this cancer is excluded from the ones that have been presumed to be caused by the toxins,” says Director, herself a survivor, having attended New York Law School, located a half-mile north of Ground Zero, at the time. “We urge everyone in the community, that when they go to the [WTCHP], even if their cancer is not one that will qualify them, to make sure that the health care program knows about it.”
Unfortunately, this won’t do much to help women like Emily*, who had a civilian job with the New York Police Department before 9/11. Afterward, she was reassigned to help identify missing people, putting her downtown on the day of the attack and for several months that followed. In fall 2019, Emily, who is postmenopausal, suddenly started bleeding regularly, requiring pads. Soon after, she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer and had surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to treat it.
Emily is enrolled in the WTCHP as a responder, but at a checkup a few months following her treatment, her doctor told her that the paperwork they’d filed to WTCHP had been rejected, because endometrial cancer wasn’t a recognized 9/11-linked condition, and thus she was ineligible for coverage by the program. Her health insurance doesn’t fully cover her medical expenses, which she says have cost her between $5,000 and $7,000 and counting. She would have paid nothing out of pocket if the condition were recognized. “The reason that my paperwork was denied was [that] there aren’t enough studies, because there weren’t enough women,” she says.
And there’s even less data on women who were children or young adults at the time of the attacks — initial research on 9/11-related health problems reviewed by NIOSH was done on people who were, on average, in their 40s and 50s, Reibman says, leaving yet another knowledge gap for women. “There’s been a deficiency in surveying for a lot of sex-associated issues, and those include issues in terms of reproductive health that we really know little about,” she says.
Nordstrom, now 37, has been diagnosed with asthma, rhinosinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and PTSD, all WTCHP-covered conditions. While she was able to eventually enroll in the health program, during college she sought care for recurring asthma attacks — and faced skepticism. “I would see doctors who would tell me that there were no health conditions linked to World Trade Center exposure, or that only first responders got sick and so I couldn’t possibly be sick with 9/11-related asthma,” says Nordstrom, the author of Some Kids Left Behind: A Survivor’s Fight for Health Care in the Wake of 9/11. “I was just kind of told that it was in my head or that I should relax.”
Nordstrom — who testified to Congress in June 2019 alongside former Daily Show host Jon Stewart and first responders to fight for federal funding for survivors — says that, for those who can get in, the program is a godsend. But in her view, it doesn’t treat women the same as men, especially women survivors. “Part of the narrative that was necessary in order to get federal funding passed was that this was about heroes, but that left out the 300,000 people that had just been downtown doing whatever because they were told it was safe,” Nordstrom says. “When do women ever get access to a hero narrative? Never.”
* Emily asked to be identified by a pseudonym because she and her doctors plan to appeal her case.
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Uterine Cancer Survivor Gifts Funny Gag Gift Coffee Mug Tea Cup White 11 oz
https://amzn.to/2ECTfSz
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kinda upsetting / def not sims related under the cut but i just need to share
i have a really invasive appointment coming up in a few hours and i am not ready at all, it has to do w all the pain i’ve been having and my endometriosis and then giant cysts and endometrial cancer and other shit and i’m so tired of people shoving things in me and doing tests, i’m a rape survivor and i’m so tired of dissociating with doctors and then feeling humiliated and i don’t want to keep trying to figure out what’s wrong
#/ rape mention#/ medical#/ trigger warning#/ nonsims#/ saviorhide#i'm having a panic attack in the bathroom :')#/ anxiety#/ triggering#tbd
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Day 3: "You lived, so move on!"
Sometimes people say stupid things with the best intention. After my biopsy that showed no cancer present, people haven't really understood why my life hasn't just picked back up. I don't think people quite understand the psychological battle that comes along with cancer. Cancer isn't something that just goes away. Once you have it, even if it is gone, it gives you new fears, new insecurities, new goals, and a new perspective. I was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, and I have been cancer free for a year, but I didn't know I was cancer free until 7 months ago. I spent 6 months wondering if the choice I made was going to kill me or work out fine, and every 6 months I revisit it as I go in for biopsy after biopsy for at least the next 4 years. I hear over and over again people telling me to move on and get over the fact that I had cancer. They think because I didn't have to lose my hair, or poison my body, that I didn't really have a fight. These statements aren't my perception, its what people have said. They don't realize that the device implanted in me is a form of chemo therapy. That it's synthetic hormones being pumped in my body to try and keep me from getting cancer again. They don't realize that this "birth control" "normal" "safe" device causes me abdominal pain that I pop a pill for and don't talk about. They don't see the physical changes it has caused, and they don't realize that the treatment I chose could end up destroying any chances of what I am really fighting for, the chance to have a child. "You lived, so move on!" Do you really move on when your life changes, or do you learn how to live a new life? I think it's the latter. I can't say that I am even remotely the same person I was a year ago. To me its looking at two different people. I may have the same name, the same personality, but there is a transformation that took place. I have to learn what living this life looks like, and there isn't anyone who can teach me how.
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-110 lbs and counting!!
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Obesity And Cancer
Dr Cesar Lara
Obesity, the new smoking
Cancer is a terminal disease caused by inhibition of cell growth. It impairs the normal process of cell growth, transformation and even death (apoptosis). Cancer invades cells, tissues, blood vessels and molecules, spread into them and destroys them. Cancerous cells have been linked to malignant tumors which are quite life threatening.
Interestingly but quite disturbing, beyond the widely known causatives of cancer (exposures to carcinogens) which could be environmentally induced (radon and UV radiation exposure); biologically enhanced (genetics); occupationally facilitated (exposures to radioactive material) or lifestyle related (smoking, the most popular).
Obesity is associated with increasing the risk of having cancer and it is fast replacing smoking. Most people know smoking to be a deadly cause of cancer but in recent time, there have been a decrease in smoking rate (obviously because of the fear of having cancer) and an increase in the obesity rate. According to the new American Cancer Society report, about twenty eight thousand (28,000) obese men and seventy-two thousand (72,000) obese women have been diagnoses with cancer in the U.S. Also, out of the 544,000 cancer diagnoses globally, 3.9 percent have been caused by obesity.
At this point, it is pertinent to point out that being obese does not mean you have cancer; it only increases your chances of contracting cancer (the probability is kinda high).
Now, intimating everyone on the connection between obesity and cancer is inevitable especially at this time that obesity is on a fast rise. Nevertheless, how obesity causes cancer has not been properly documented as the connection between them is still being explored by scientist. However, some probable ways through which obesity can be linked to the ‘killer cells’ have been discovered. This article will attempt to point out some of these dimensions.
How obesity causes cancer
The probable ways through which obesity induces cancer are succinctly explained in the succeeding headings;
Hormonal increase
Excess fat in the body leads to increase in hormone levels. An increase in such hormone like insulin and Insulin growth factor for instance has been linked with cancer. Of course, these hormones instruct the body cells to split on a sporadic rate. In the process, cancer cells are birth. Once cancerous cells are produced, the normal hormonal activity that regulates cell growth is hindered. As such, the cells defying apoptosis (cell death) continue to split until a tumor is induced. Gradually, the body immune defence system is rendered powerless and death becomes imminent. Also, the intake of excessive sugar especially in high carbohydrate diet can increase insulin level and in turn, cause cancer.
Visceral fats
This body fat is stored around the abdominal cavity where it envelopes several critical body organs such as, the pancreas, the liver and the intestines. Usually, when this body fat is excessively accumulated by the body, it poses serious health risk to the body. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, visceral fat is a metabolic organ that produces the estrogen hormones which is linked to a higher incidence of breast and some other forms of cancer.
Furthermore, these fats impacts on insulin level (it drives it higher) through protein secretion which stimulates cell growth, consequently, increasing the risk of contracting cancer.
Impacts on immune-surveillance Natural killer Cells
Normally, the body has its defence system known at the immune system. This is an army of white blood cells charged with the defence of the body against harmful bacteria and pathogens. But when excess fats storm a person’s body, the functioning of these cells becomes inhibited and compromised.
According to a joint recent study by researchers from the Harvard medical school; trinity college of Dublin, UK; and the Brigham Women’s Hospital published in the Journal of Nature Immunology, the effect of obesity on the natural killer cells is quite profound.
Their study found out that in obese people, the natural killers cells are clogged around by fat such that they are rendered powerless to perform their defence function. Cancerous cells in these fats churn down the powers of the immune system.
Cancer caused by obesity
In recent times, obese people have been identified with the increased risk of contracting esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer (among post-menopausal women), prostate cancer, endometrium cancer and gall bladder cancer
Breast cancer as it relates to obesity is prevalent in obese women who have passed the stage of menopause. The production of estrogen by fat tissues after menopause becomes the main hormone source. As such, where excess fat produces excess estrogen, the risk of breast cancer becomes high.
Colorectal cancer affects the bowels (the colon and the rectum). It is caused by having excess belly fats (that is, a bigger waist line).
Endometrial cancer affects women uterus especially after menopause. It is induced by excess estrogen levels caused by fat tissues which changes a hormone called androgen into estrogen, hereby, increasing the risk of having cancer. Endometrial cancer has been found common in many obese women. It is also twice common in overweight women when compared to women who have health weight.
Pancreatic and liver cancer is caused by excessive visceral fats. These fats impair on the liver cells and pancreas cell, impacting upon their normal regulated functioning.
Prostate cancer is also induced by altered level of serum in hormones such as testosterone, insulin, leptin and oestrogen.
Gall bladder cancer is associated with the gall bladder which is a small organ beside the liver that produces bile which aids digestion. Excess fat in the body causes gall stone, consequently, increasing the risk of having cancer of the gall bladder.
At this juncture, it must also be established that the recurrence of cancer is highly associated with obese persons than those with normal weights. More so, in obese patients, there exist cases of unwanted and more severe side effects arising from the treatment of cancer. For instance, there is the risk of treatment related lymphedema in obese breast cancer survivors and even death from myeloma for people with high level of obesity.
How to escape this
Basically, one of the keys to avoiding cancer risk is to avoid gaining weight in the first instance. You can achieve this by being conscious of what you eat and through regular exercise. A mostly organic/non-GMO plant base nutrition with some animal protein like fish, chicken, eggs, grass fed beef and healthy fats is key.
Although, it is undeniable that it is a challenge to attain and maintain a healthy weight, nevertheless, there are compelling reasons to strive to do so. We must know that improving our nutrition enhances the ability of our body to heal itself. It also helps us to improve our blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, hence, decreasing the risk for diabetes and heart disease. Most importantly, improving our nutrition helps us to decrease the likelihood of developing cancer.
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References
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323654.php
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-018-0251-7
https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/prevention-and-healthy-living/obesity-weight-and-cancer-risk
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/obesity-weight-and-cancer/does-obesity-cause-cancer
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/obesity-weight-and-cancer/does-obesity-cause-cancer
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/155598.php
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/endometrial-cancer/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3179687/
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Chronic lower extremity lymphedema has dramatic impact on physical function in large number of older female survivors
A new study has found that nearly one third of older adult female survivors of colorectal, endometrial and ovarian cancer have quality of life-impacting challenges with physical activity due to chronic swelling (lymphedema) in the lower extremities. This is the first study to assess lower lymphedema in colon cancer survivors.
Source Link Chronic lower extremity lymphedema has dramatic impact on physical function in large number of older female survivors
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