“What can I do to help?” That’s a question you’ll hear often when you share the news of a cancer diagnosis. But it’s surprisingly hard to answer when your mind is whirling with shock, anxiety and complex medical data. Right after your diagnosis, all the concern and questions don’t make you feel better—they make you [...]
To say that cancer—and medicine overall—is big business is a gross understatement. The National Institutes of Health estimates the United States will spend around $130 billion on cancer treatments alone this year—a number that is expected to climb to as high as $207 billion by 2020. And that’s just for treatment. That doesn’t account for [...]
“I think metastatic cancer is a messy, lively, profoundly conflicted place to be,” says Val Profitt, a licensed clinical psychologist. For patients whose cancer has spread, anxiety, fear, defiance, sadness, regret, longing, acceptance … and moments of peace, tumble around in their hearts and minds, realigning themselves over and over. Add to that physical changes [...]
Dear Cancer, You want a fight? You picked the right guy, because I’ll throw hands with you all day long. Anyone who has watched ESPN in the last decade has likely seen Stuart Scott, the ultra-popular on-air personality known for his quick wit and hip catchphrases. He was the perfect choice to be one of [...]
In the wake of a cancer diagnosis, and often for years post-treatment, many cancer survivors throw themselves completely into causes that raise funds and recognition for cancer research. Organizations such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the American Cancer Society promote education about early detection and gather critical funding to continue their missions [...]
Anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis knows what a dark and life-changing day that is. And that day is followed by weeks of uncertainty and distress as a cascade of medical appointments fills the calendar and friends and family continually ask what’s going on. Without knowing what’s next and how you’ll feel, the first [...]
In 2008, I became a family statistic; a breast cancer diagnosis meant I was the first member of a third generation of women in my father’s family who had been diagnosed in her late 30s or early 40s. Every female member of the past two generations had gotten “the Big C,” as they called it. [...]
By Mike Macdonald Many of the things that affect our health are in fact choices we make. We know smoking is bad and exercise is good. We know that eating a big plate of broccoli is better than eating a double order of chili cheese fries with extra ranch and bacon. We make decisions about [...]
Local facilities fight cancer through treatment, research and education When 2010 comes to a close and the final numbers are tabulated, the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics projects that there will have been 49,586 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the state, an increase of more than 17 percent from 2009. Of [...]
About halfway through the first Touched by Cancer roundtable, one of the participants was relating an incident but suddenly became stymied. She got stuck searching for a certain word. It wasn’t a difficult or obscure word, and it was on the very tip of her tongue—but it somehow kept eluding her. In computer terms, she [...]
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