A slip of paper with the information below was handed to me by one of the brave women I had the pleasure of knowing during the meeting of a local support group. She said, “Whatever you do, make sure at least one person reads it.”

”Of all the cancer related deaths, breast cancer is the second cause of death after lung cancer among women. This disease strikes the male population as well. An estimated 40,200 women will die of breast cancer this year, but many may be spared by early detection. Some medical providers may be offering low or no cost mammograms. Some referrals for information: Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization 1 800 221 2141 National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations 1 888 806 2226 www.medicare.gov National Cancer Institute 1 800 422 6237 Komen Breast Cancer Foundation 1 800 462 9273 or 1 800 IM AWARE American Cancer Society 1 800 227 2345”

I had asked a friend to ask the group to let me sit in on one of the survivor meetings. When the group accepted my presence, we met in a comfortable lounge with five wonderfully vibrant women and two robust men, all ranging in ages from twenty-eight to sixty-four who had come together to talk about their battles of survival and their innermost feelings. They told me that they were twenty-two people but a few couldn’t make it to this session. Having two men in a group like this was unusual because men refuse to tell their problems in a group setting, especially about a disease like breast cancer that is known to be a women’s malady.

Celia, the first one who spoke, was twenty-four when her cancer was detected. Now, she is forty. She said, her cancer comes back uninvited every few years. She is currently under treatment again. There were times when she wanted to do away with herself to save her parents the heartache and trouble. She still has awful nightmares. The night before she had a hippopotamus chasing her into a lake filled with milk. Celia is a very bright woman. She doesn’t easily give in to depression and has an indomitable spirit. She said what she tells here to the group, she’d never tell to her family or to her doctors. The group has always understood and respected each other’s confidence.

During her first round of treatments, Celia got to know one of the male social workers. It was the best time in her life, although she looked awful with no hair and an uncontrollable nausea. He became her lover while she was in treatment. She said, he held her while she vomited, took off from his work to be with her on her bad days, and waited for her at the door while she was going through chemotherapy. As soon as she was given a clean bill of health, he left her; she was devastated.

“Why is it,” she asked the group, “Some men love women only when they are in despair?” Then she answered her own question, “Saving the damsel in distress syndrome! It inflates the male ego.”

I couldn't help but reflect that this affair had hurt Celia more than the illness. Still, she tried to have a positive attitude and considered herself a survivor, even though her cancer had returned again.

Eileen, the bubbliest in the group, was forty-one when the cancer was discovered. There was no breast cancer in her family. She was an athlete who ran every day and played singles tennis twice a week. She ate a low-fat diet with practically no red meat. Moreover she had a mammogram done when she was thirty-five and then another one when she turned forty. Both those mammograms’ reports were clean. Fortunately she examined herself frequently. Several months after her last mammogram she discovered a lump in her right breast. Three months later she went in for a follow up and had a biopsy. The diagnosis was benign but the doctor called her back in three months.

When she went back, the same spot showed some scar tissue. She wasn’t afraid because she trusted in her first biopsy. She said, at the time, she had a ‘this can’t happen to me’ attitude.

This time, however, things were very different. The breast cancer was in her body, but Eileen wasn’t going to give up. She obtained all the information she could get her hands on.

She says she went through a wide range of feelings. The strongest emotion she felt was anger. She went around the house kicking in the doors.

Eileen is one of the lucky ones. She is healthy at the moment and has finished her last reconstructive surgery. “Thanks to advances in medicine, my figure looks better than ever,” she said jokingly.

Martha has raised two children to adulthood after her cancer was discovered fourteen years ago. She has a wonderful, supportive, sunshiny attitude and she is a joy to be with. She has just retired from a twenty-five year teaching career.

Martha says she wasn’t always like this. She went through all the emotions and then some. Now, she is learning to play the guitar, something she yearned for all her life. She is also very active in the affairs of her church. She prefers to believe that she is living with the cancer with gusto and in spite of it. She has done a lot to bring about cancer awareness nationwide. She has even attended fancy parties without a wig. “I try to make at least one person aware per day,” she said.

The oldest one in the group that day was Paul. Paul was already suffering from skin cancer when the breast cancer was discovered four years ago. He went to see a surgeon in another state because this surgeon was one of the few doctors around who specialized in male breast cancer. Paul has a wry sense of humor. He described with motions the funny incidents of himself getting a mammogram and of being pulled like taffy when almost nothing was there to pull. He said all the bad feelings he had experienced were already finished with “the other C”, referring to his skin cancer. So there was nothing left for this one. As he put it, he has been through the “four horsemen”: Mastectomy, Chemotherapy, Radiation, Tamoxifen. He felt bad only when he discovered his wife weeping secretly before the mastectomy. He didn’t let her know he saw her. One person in the group suggested that maybe he should. He said he can’t handle that. Paul still cuts his own lawn and fixes things around the house but talking to the family about fears--his or theirs--is not his thing.

Sheila now believes that breast cancer is not a death sentence, even though her cousin, who was also her best friend, was diagnosed with this terrible disease around the same time as Sheila was diagnosed. Her cousin is no longer alive. “She always wondered what we did wrong,” she remembered. She felt, when her cousin died in a year and a half, her life had to come to a stop also. She went under extensive counseling because of it, and she discovered that her family, her children, and her life were the most important things.

Nowadays, Sheila sees her battle as a blessing. She believes her cousin would be living now if her cancer had been caught ahead of time. She volunteers at the clinic in her free time, especially counseling the newcomers.

When he too was diagnosed, Jonathan, the other man in the group, had already lost a sister and a cousin to this “woman’s disease”. He was furious. He blamed the medical profession, God, his mother, his wife, his co-workers, the government, and everybody in existence. After the surgery, he picked a fight with the doctors accusing them of not paying enough attention to him. Jonathan still felt that people were more compassionate to women with breast cancer. He said he didn't blame them because of the losses in his family but nobody knew how to give support to frightened men. “I am not afraid of showing my feelings on the subject but the medical profession is not ready for men with emotions,” he said.

According to him the best way is what they have now, the support group of survivors receiving encouragement from each other. He said, “There would be more men here if we could only get them to agree to talk about it.”

The last one of the group and the youngest, Karen, found a lump while she was in the shower. She immediately went to her doctor and asked for a mammogram and an ultrasound. The results were normal. They showed nothing nasty. Both the doctor and the radiologist thought that the lump was fibrocystic.

After a few months, Karen still had the lump. So Karen went to see a surgeon on her own. The surgeon also thought that the lump was fibrocystic. After two more months when she found few more lumps near the original lump, she forced the surgeon to remove them. On the surgeon’s recommendation, she went to have a needle biopsy one early morning. Later that day the pathologist called to inform her that she had breast cancer.

If you want to get nervous about developing breast cancer, then just read some figures. The reality is that one woman out of nine will develop breast cancer some time in her life. So even if you manage to be one of the eight who doesn't get it, chances are you will know someone, perhaps someone quite close to you, who will develop breast cancer. Breast cancer doesn't care if you're in your teens or a mature woman. All women need to know the symptoms so they can get treatment as early as possible if breast cancer develops.

The good news is that even though breast cancer occurs so frequently, if it's treated in the early stages it's highly curable for about six out of seven cases. So one of the most important things you can do is keep watching for symptoms, so that even if breast cancer occurs, you have a good chance of beating it. If you don't discover breast cancer until an advanced stage, your chances of recovery are much lower - only about one in seven.

So what are the symptoms? They vary from woman to woman, and unfortunately many of them can occur for a multitude of reasons, but if you observe any of the following symptoms on an ongoing basis, do yourself a favor and get it checked out by your doctor. Many symptoms don't involve any noticeable discomfort or pain; so don't wait for that to happen before seeking advice. Symptoms include:

- Breast is warm to touch
- Itching in the breast region or armpit
- Ridges or thickened areas of the skin on the breast or nipple
- Pink, red or dark colored area that has a texture similar to orange skin
- Something that looks like a bruise that doesn't fade
- Nipple starts becoming inverted
- Pain in the breast, anything from stabbing pains through to a constant ach
- The aureole changes in color and/or texture
- The breast shape or size changes
- Lump or swelling in the armpit
- Discharge from the nipple
- Dimpled skin on the breast

Research has shown that certain groups of women are more at risk of developing breast cancer. So if you belong to a high-risk category, it's even more important that you regularly monitor your breasts, and either have your breasts checked for lumps by your doctor, or learn to do it yourself. Major risk factors include:

- Hormone replacement therapy
- Obesity
- High fat diet
- Taking the oral contraceptive pill
- Family history of breast cancer
- Alcohol use

Again, always remember that breast cancer is highly treatable if it's caught early. It's better to get something suspicious checked out by your doctor and be proven wrong, than let it go and find out later you could have reduced the chance of mastectomy or even death because of breast cancer. Most of the time any symptoms will prove to be unrelated to breast cancer, but don't take that risk. Always get suspicious symptoms checked by your doctor, so you can get an accurate diagnosis.

There are more and more organisations and groups around the world who will offer support and advice to not just women but men as well who have been affected by breast cancer.

Many of these groups and organisations not only spend time counselling people but they hold many fund raising events and campaigns to help pay for further research into the disease.

In some cases some of these groups or organisations will offer treatment to those patients diagnosed with the disease who can not actually afford to pay for the treatment themselves.

Below is a list of the various organisations and groups that can be found in the USA which have been specifically set up to fight this disease and provide support to those who have been diagnosed with it.

One such group in the USA is the American Cancer Society (ACS) who are a community based health organisation and which helps to fight all the various types of cancers that now seem to affect the population.

They also spend vast amounts of their time not just focusing on treatment of cancer but also its prevention and how to reduce the suffering felt by the patients and their families and saving lives.

They also help with costs for carrying out further research and educating people on the disease and making the population more aware of its effects.

Another organisation is Cancer Care Incorporated who provide a telephone support service for all cancer issues, and this includes medical information, cancer terms and definitions, counselling, guidance on local services, free information material, as well as information on local support groups to the patients area as well as an abundance of educational programs on cancer matters.

Now we come to CRFA (Cancer Research Foundations of America) which is a national group and which focuses on the prevention of cancer both through educating people and scientific research.

It is also able to provide people with information on other forms of cancer as well as breast such as prostate, lung, colorectal, skin and cervical.

Then you could if you wish contact The Living Beyond Breast Cancer Foundation which has been set up and provides a helpline where you are able to obtain support after being diagnosed with the disease.

You will discover that the people at the other end of the phone talking to you will have previously been diagnosed with the disease and survived.

They are able to provide you with first hand information on the treatments offered, the way in which it is diagnosed and how to survive it.

But don't forget the people at the other end of the phone can only offer you emotional support and not actual medical advice, for that you will need to see your doctor who will then refer you to a specialist.

Then there is the Medicare Hotline which is another breast cancer foundation and this one can offer the patient information on mammography and the way it is used in helping to detect breast cancer during the early stages.

Also we have the NABCO (National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organisations) who can provide people with answers to the many questions that they will have relating to the disease and they can either call them or send them an email to obtain the information they require on breast cancer and the many issues relating to it.

If you would like to obtain a more individual response regarding a question you have in respect of the disease it may be a case of you contacting the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service, which can provide patients with answers to any specific question they may have relating to the disease.

Also a number of years ago a Foundation was set up called the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation which helps to fight breast cancer and are well known for organising lots of awareness programs as being a huge contributor in raising funds through various campaigns they have organised such as breast cancer walks.

This foundation also has a helpline where they have trained volunteers who can talk to individuals regarding the disease as they have suffered from it themselves.

The Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has been set up and is specifically committed to offering people with the latest information that is available concerning breast cancer and breast health to those that contact them.

Lastly we have the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organisation which helps fight against both breast cancer and provides support to those suffering from the disease by providing them with a helpline that is operated by trained personnel only.

These people are volunteers but who have all survived breast cancer and are not only prepared but have the experience to answer the various types of questions that will be posed by the caller regarding breast cancer.

They can also provide emotional support to the men and women who have been affected by this disease

Many women consider their breasts to be their defining feature and cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of the world. As the name signifies, cancer of the breast, or breast cancer, is a type of cancer. It is predominantly a female disease and it is one of the most common forms of cancer. In the United States alone, approximately 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, though the figure is somewhat lower in countries like Canada and Australia. It is also a major cause of cancer deaths in women. The majority of patients are women who have crossed the menopause stage. Birth control pills also increase the chances of its occurrence as do treatments like HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). Being overweight and the excessive consumption of alcohol also contribute significantly to it. The occurrence of breast cancer in family members can increase the chances as there is a gene which can be inherited.

What is Breast Cancer? Simply put, cancer of the tissues in breast is called breast cancer. It usually surfaces in the form of a lump or tumor in and around the breast. Every lump found in the breasts is not necessarily an indicator of breast cancer; sometimes it may not be associated with breast cancer at all. It is normal for lumps to be formed, especially during the growing up stage. They can also be formed as a result of hormonal changes and they are usually temporary.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

It is not possible to detect this disease in the starting stages. The symptoms start appearing slowly and slowly as the disease progresses. They could be anything like:

. A lump or swelling in the breast or adjoining area like the underarm.
. Increase or decrease in the shape or size of the breasts.
. Dimpling or change in the color of the skin
. Discharge from the nipples.

With several studies showing a relationship between fat intake and breast cancer, it is quite possible that the problem isn't fat itself, but overall nutrition; people who eat more may be more susceptible to breast cancer. Over nutrition may also correlate with some of the other risk factors; females with lower food intake stay thinner and often begin menstruating later than more heavily nourished girls. People who eat more also tend to be those who can afford to - those with an overall higher standard of living, who appear to be at greater risk of breast cancer.

If fat intake does indeed increase the risk of developing breast cancer, what makes it happen? There have been many theories regarding this. Some researchers think it changes the metabolism of estrogen. According to a study, people with a high fat diet tend to have more estrogen in their blood and a lower urine excretion of this hormone. Vegetarians who eat dairy foods excrete more estrogen, leaving less in the blood than people on macrobiotic diets. Macrobiotic diet involves the consumption of organically grown whole grain cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruits, in meals according to the principle of balance between yin and yang properties, in contrast to scientific dietary guidelines. Fat cells in the body can synthesize estrogen, so it is also possible that if you are obese you have an oversupply of estrogen in your body, which could heighten your vulnerability to cancer. However, studies aimed at confirming this hypothesis have been inconsistent.

It is also possible that cancer cells grow faster in an environment with a lot of over nourished cells and the fatter you are the more such cells there are for the cancer cells to grow with. There is also some evidence that among women with breast cancer those on low fat diets have a better prognosis than those on high fat diets.

It may be that fiber, rather than fat, is the more essential element. Oftentimes diets very high in fiber are very low in fat. It may be that with a low fat diet, it's the fiber or the carbohydrates or the vegetables, which have replaced fat are the ones responsible for reducing cancer susceptibility. Several studies show that soy protein may be protective. Perhaps the problem is not that the Japanese are starting to eat fat, but that they stopped eating tofu! There is also growing evidence that certain vegetables, antioxidants in particular, which contain vitamins A, C and E, may be protective against breast cancer.

Vitamin A from vegetables (beta carotene) has shown in various studies to decrease the incidence of several cancer types, including lung cancer. A recent study using fenretinide, a form of vitamin A, in women who had had breast cancer showed no decrease in secondary cancers (metastasis), although there was a hint that there may be different, more beneficial effects in premenopausal women than their postmenopausal counterparts. Vegetables with vitamin A include broccoli, kale, carrots and lettuce. Folic acid and vitamin C appear to be good against all types of cancer.

You may do well to encourage your kids to spend a little less time eating fast foods and to eat a bit more low fat, nutritional food high in vitamins. However, it is not wise to expect miracles. Even if dietary change does have an effect, it is likely to be a small one.

Testing for breast cancer is quite expensive. That's because the really hard work is searching for the specific mutation. It's like proofreading the whole manuscript to find the typographical error; once you know where it is, finding it in other copies is fairly easy. Initially, there was great fear that there would be insurance discrimination against women who have been tested. So far, this has not proved to be the case. Still, it would be wise to check out the policy of your health insurance company before proceeding. Additionally, it isn't only you who will need to deal with the consequence of your decision. It will have implications for your sisters who may or may not want to get tested. It will also have implications for your daughters, if any, as well.

If you choose to be tested and you know you have the gene for breast cancer, you will need to decide what to do with the information. Should you start getting regular mammograms and physical examinations? If your family has a history of breast cancer, you should be doing that anyway. If you do have the gene, you have a number of options. You can simply be frequently monitored to see if you do get cancer. Should you have your breasts and ovaries removed? Preventive oophorectomy (ovary resection) and mastectomy (breast resection) may help. You can take tamoxifen for 5 years.

If you feel strongly that you should get tested, you should do so at a research center. Do not go to your gynecologist or primary care physician, or to the medical school in the next town. Even if it costs a lot to fly to wherever the closest research center is, do it. You will only do this once and it will greatly affect the rest of your life, so you had better do it well. A research center will have counseling and you will do the tests appropriately, giving you the most accurate information that's possible.

When you yourself have breast cancer, the emotional conflict becomes more intense. You tend to think that you're unlucky and that you're bound to get it again, so you think you must have the defective gene. Further, your own psychological issues get mixed into your perceptions. Were you mean to your mother when she had breast cancer, so now you're being punished by inheriting a bad gene?

There are, of course, more rational reasons for women with breast cancer to consider getting tested. They may want to know if others in their family are likely to get it. They might consider having children and the possibility of passing on a breast cancer gene could play a role in that decision. Women with cancer in one breast are more likely to get it in the other and they might want to consider getting double mastectomies if they know they have the gene. People with the defective gene have a slightly higher risk of getting colon cancer as well. So if you know you have the gene, you should consider getting regular colonoscopies (a medical procedure during which a long flexible instrument is used to view the entire inner lining of the colon).

The question of testing depends on you and your family. The answer will be different for each person. If you are considering it, by all means get counseling so that you can get up-to-date information on the risks and benefits for you and your family.

I once came across an article which immediately caught my attention because, it talked about the very people who were trained to save our lives had the most trouble saving their own. And this, was in response to a survey where nearly 50% of doctors had replied. The sad thing is that these doctors admitted that they were in advanced stages of addiction, burnout and suicide.

One of the doctors openly admitted wondering how fast he could have driven the heart pacer wires into his patient (which he did in less than three minutes) had he been sober. Many of them are suicidal, and many on anti-depressants. If you think I'm making this up, the full page article appeared about a year ago in the Montreal Gazette, where I'm from.

About a year before this, many doctors and pharmaceutical companies (mainly drug stores) were under investigation for conflict of interest. The scenario was (since its now illegal to do so), where doctors would get free rent for their offices, situated in the same building as the drug store. In my country, and my province, it's common to see your corner drug store occupying the main floor of a building with doctors, dentists etc., offices on the top floors.

The return favor of course, you guessed it! The doctors were expected to funnel patients through these drug store doors, to fill out their probably unneeded prescriptions. I say unneeded because I personally experienced this ordeal with consequences that could have been fatal.

How many times have you gone to see a specialist, bringing your prescribed medication with you, only to be informed to throw it away? How many people do you know who spend $200 to $300 easily per month on prescriptions for all kinds of ailments that they could probably get rid of by proper diet, exercise, and at the worse case scenario, a good natural immune system booster that would rid them of most, if not all, of their ailments. I know quite a few.

My mother for one, only listens to her doctor because she believes he's next to God almighty. Blind faith, that's all it is. Don't get me wrong, I see a doctor once in a while, but I make damn sure who I'm dealing with. Get some references if you can. They have problems too. They're human and not infallible. They get depressed, take medication, drink, get divorced, and no how to kill themselves, without you even knowing about it. They are human with feelings and emotions.

Many of them, not all, are passionate about their work. But life, as usual, takes it's toll on all of us, doctors too. So it doesn't hurt to know more about your doctor and not to be shy about asking him or her about their opinion on certain things. I had a great relationship with my doctor for 30 years. He practiced medicine until he was 90. Unfortunately, I'll never find one like him anymore. I had a relationship with him. We discussed all sorts of things (other than medical) as he was examining me.

A doctor who persistently insist that you take this pill and that pill, has a vested financial interest in you. It is not uncommon to see doctors holding many shares in certain pharmaceutical companies, as I'm sure you know. The elderly (and the coming age of the baby boomers retirement process) is going to be one of the biggest financial eggnest of the doctors of today. Watch out

Have you ever wondered why so many women and men get breast cancer? After much research there are 3 main reasons why and how people get it.

1. At the cancer institute they discovered that 100% of all breast cancer patients, none of them have iodine in their systems. The most enriched form of Iodine is seaweed. With all of the sushi sales in the past few years more and more people are eating seaweed so that will help a lot.

2. Deodorant is a major factor also. Try to only buy deodorants that contain no aluminum. You are rubbing aluminum into your arm pits daily, and that metal is good for no one ever! Only get deodorants that say deodorant and if it says antiperspirant then never buy it.

Try not to cook with aluminum, throw away any Teflon pans that you own - and only use iron pans.

3. If you get pregnant then please nurse your baby if you are able. Try to nurse for at least 6 months. It is healthy for the baby and it will greatly reduce your risk for getting breast cancer. Studies show that longer you nurse the less likely you are to get it.

So take care of your body and eat right. Drink lots of water at least 8 glasses a day, and no sodas. Try not to let your body get too stressed out and all will be well with you. And most importantly eat as much sushi as you can keep down- yummy