It is day six past my chemo session and the side effects this time are by far worse than before. I had been told that the affects are cumulative and that each time you will feel worse, for longer, but well, quite frankly I guess I didn't want to believe it.
Who would I be without him defining who I was? How could I keep a marriage going that no longer had trust, no longer had commitment, and no longer had love?
The Supreme Court's decision about today's case will either extend or crimp the capacity of patients, doctors, researchers and other biotechnology firms, to use information about the human body to detect and treat other illnesses in the future.
Once you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, the word "worry" takes on a life of its own. You worry about the treatment working, the cancer coming back, the cancer spreading, how you're supposed to live a "normal" life. You worry. But you live. Because you have to.
The caregiver is critical to the success of a patient's participation in a clinical trial, because the caregiver is the closest and most constant observer of the patient.
This ongoing debate on gene patents boils down to one simple question: Should anyone, in this case Myriad Genetics, be allowed to patent human genes? For me this case is personal.
I was diagnosed with Stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer. I was 30 years old. I had no insurance. I was screwed.
A friend of mine, a mom, recently asked me for ideas on how to distract herself during an upcoming medical procedure. I told her to think Bucket List, and then I told her my story.
I didn't choose to cultivate equanimity. It chose me. My experience has taught me that nothing is permanent. Change is inevitable; sometimes it brings pleasure, sometimes pain. While you can't avoid pain, you can choose to suffer less.
I realized that my seed of a wish to witness change in people's experience with cancer was blossoming before my eyes. Just within my relatively short lifetime, we have evolved in opportunities and options, enabling people with cancer to have a better quality of life.
The diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer has had the most profound impact on my life. I have had to learn to live differently. I have no intention of going out without a fight, but if I have learned anything it is that I must make the most of every day.
A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine just came out showing that women who receive radiotherapy for breast cancer have a higher risk of ischemic heart disease.
Survivors can learn to avoid worrying about the small stuff and attend to the awe and wonder all around us. But how does this dramatic transformation happen?
I have come to realize recently that my memories of my mother over the past 30 years consist more of those times when I have felt her presence since her death than when she was alive.
Statisticians and statistics are even more fundamental in this era of personalized medicine, as sponsors seek to target treatment to patients most likely to benefit and develop "adaptive" study designs to identify these patients sooner.
My mother is convinced that weird genetic anomalies happen in sets of three. She is certain that this third thing will be like that: just a part of my son's body that's unlike most of ours. But what if it isn't?
Most Popular
