I Wear It Well - Helping Women Affected By Cancer

As I embark on being a SURVIVOR for year “3″, I sit and reflect on not only how fast the time has gone, but on my journey thru treatment and how my life has changed in such a short period of time.  I was watching “Brothers and Sisters” this past Sunday night and one of the characters was facing her own mortality and had begun chemotherapy.  As I watched with a tearful eye, I realized the tears were not as much for the characters role, but from knowing exactly what it feelslike sitting in that big lounge chair with IV’s plugged into your arm.  It was a snapshot in time not knowing what to expect, facing your own mortality, still numb from the realization that you are the one in the chair and trying to pull up all the mental strength you can possibly feed off of to look brave at a time of such uncertainty.  In the show, the nurse described to her what the chemo would feel like and it was just as I remembered.  As the chills ran down my spine, I remember the chill running thru my veins just three short years ago. 

Today I am happy and healthy.  I try to follow the doctors orders of exercise, low fat foods and avoiding alcohol.  Well, I fall off the wagon probably more than I should, but when my kids ask for a trip to DQ or popcorn and milk duds at the movies, I enjoy life more if I can be a kid again myself.  They love it when I indulge with them.  And if the weekends would not come around so fast, I may be able to stay away from that luscious Cabernet or that refreshing Sauvignon Blanc that was just shipped straight from the vineyards in California.  I have decided life in moderation is a great place to be.  So I don’t pass up desert and I certainly don’t pass up sweet potato fries!  If my cancer comes back, so be it.  I won’t live my life in fear that it might.  There is still not a day that goes by that I am not reminded of having cancer, but I have learned to not fear what is uncertain or what is unknown.  God bless all of the survivors and supporters out there!  Stay strong and live life!

Cutie in a Kidwrap

This season, iwearitwell.com is thrilled to announce the addition of our “Children’s’ Line”.  We are in the process of adding head wraps for both boys and girls with hair loss and will be accessorizing the girl’s head wraps with dazzling earrings, both pierced and clipons available.  Sadly, there is an estimated 10,730 children who have been diagnosed this year with Cancer in the USA alone, some of which are stricken with this horrible disease at birth and lose their life before the age of 1.  The majority of pediatric cancer patients are diagnosed between the ages of 0-14.   It’s difficult enough for children at these young ages to comprehend what it is that is happening to them, so just imagine how much more confused and distressed they become when they lose their hair.

There is very little available for kids enduring chemotherapy to help them feel more comfortable.  We want to help these children feel better and offer some comfort with a fun, comfortable and trendy new head wrap.  Some of our colors will include…Bouncy in Blue, Ticklish in Turquoise, Courageous in Camo!  Our head wraps are simple in style and simple to tie.  Tying instructions are included with each order.

Fun, Fearless or Fancy…we will have head wraps that will put a smile on any child’s face.  Stay tuned for our official launch of our “Kidwraps”.  Visit our site at www.iwearitwell.com soon.

The Holiday Season is upon us!

Let’s take time this season to reflect on what is important to us.  Although our economy continues to struggle and families are being forced to alter their way of living, let’s remember to be thankful for all that we know is good and true in our lives.

I have had the conversation several times over the past few weeks with friends and loved ones, that this season, let’s “get back to the basics”…let’s remember and celebrate what our Holiday beliefs mean to us… let’s not fret over frivolous “consumer spending”, when most of our country is in financial distress…let’s not worry about what to buy “Uncle Joe” who we only see once every five years, but he’s coming to visit, so we have to get a gift for him…let’s take advantage of our “technologically advanced world” and send e-cards for the Holidays and download your latest family photo’s…saving a few trees in the process…how about a “Charlie Brown” tree this year…and keep it in the ground!

Think about this…a Holiday with friends and family gathered around the fireplace…some homemade hot apple cider…everyone brings a favorite holiday dish….reminisce about simpler times when we had time to really “visit” with family and not “rush” thru the holidays.  Make this holiday season just like old times.  When was the last time you and your family enjoyed a “Charlie Brown Christmas” TOGETHER!  Live within your means….I hear Santa is on a budget this year too!   So have a “Happy and Reflective” Holiday Season.  Celebrate the true meaning of YOUR Holiday.

Be thankful for your loved ones and let’s hope and pray for a “Prosperous New Year” for our country.

Nutrients that are essential to children with cancer include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals. Protein The body uses protein to promote growth, repair tissue, and maintain the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, skin, blood cells, and immune system. Children with cancer who do not get enough protein may be slow to recover from illness and especially vulnerable to infection. After a child undergoes surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatments, he or she will need extra protein to heal tissues and to help prevent infection. Protein is essential for a child’s proper growth and development. During illness, a child’s protein needs typically increase. In fact, a child undergoing cancer therapy may require as much as 50% more protein than a child of the same age who is not receiving cancer treatment. Carbohydrates and Fats Carbohydrates and fats provide the body with the calories it needs to fuel activities. A child’s calorie needs depend on his or her age, size, and level of physical activity. Infants, children, and adolescents need extra calories to promote proper growth and development. Children being treated for cancer need even more calories for tissue healing and energy. In fact, a child undergoing treatment for cancer may need 20% more calories than his or her counterpart who is not receiving cancer treatment. Vitamins and Minerals Vitamins and minerals play many key roles in the body. For example, many of these nutrients help ensure proper growth and development and enable the body to use the calories it gets from food. Children who eat a balanced diet usually get enough vitamins and minerals, however it may be hard for a child undergoing cancer treatment to eat a balanced diet. Common treatment side effects, like nausea and vomiting, can interfere with eating well. If your child has persistent eating problems, ask your doctor, nurse, or dietitian for help. Sometimes your doctor will recommend taking a daily multivitamin while your child undergoes treatment. Water Water and fluids are vital to a child’s health. If your child does not take in enough fluids or loses fluids from vomiting or diarrhea, he or she may become dehydrated. Test your child for dehydration by lightly pinching the skin over the breast bone. If the skin does not return to normal and remains raised, your child may be dehydrated. Other symptoms include dryness in the lining of the mouth, darker color of the urine, listlessness, and dizziness. If you suspect your child is dehydrated, promptly notify your doctor. Ask your doctor, nurse, or dietitian how much fluid your child needs each day to keep from becoming dehydrated.

As most of you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Not only does this month give us an opportunity to educate more women on the importance of vigilant breast health, but it reminds those women who have been diagnosed of their journey fighting this dreaded disease.

As my family was winding down our day the other day, I managed to sneak away while my wonderful husband shuffled the kids to bed.  I wanted to take a few minutes to myself to reflect on my past two years as a “Breast Cancer Survivor”.  As I counted my blessings and gave thanks once again for my wonderful circle of family, friends and doctors, I realized even after two years, I haven’t done enough to educate women on the importance of breast health.  I should stop every woman I see and ask her if she does her self exams or when her last mammogram was.

So I’m starting with you and I am going to ask you to help educate the women in your life.  My challenge to you is talk to at least one woman every day for the month of October or 31 total all in one day.  Make a phone call.  Or make it easy….send an email to 31 of your female contacts!  Piece of cake!

I continue to hear of more and more women who are finding tumors on their own and not depending solely on an annual mammogram that may or may not detect anything.  So please ladies, do your MONTHLY self exams.  Once you start doing these routinely, trust me, you will get to know every bump and lump in there and you will be more confident in knowing what you are looking for.  If you feel something that is firm or harder than the rest of your breast tissue, make an appointment right away for a mammogram and an ultrasound.   You are the only one who can take charge of your breast health.

I am also sending you a link to what I think is a brilliant idea by a company called Design her gals.com.  It is a virtual walk to raise money for breast cancer and it only costs $5.00.  Have your kids help design their own virtual kid or help you with yours.  It’s a blast and an amazing web site.  Go to www.galtogalwalk.org.

A big “Thank you” to all of you!

IN GOOD HEALTH,

Kelly Henderson
Breast Cancer Survivor

kelly@iwearitwell.com
www.iwearitwell.com
(W)239-275-0900
(M)239-707-3883

“If I can give anyone advise, it would be to reach out to others. The ones that have cancer so they can know their pathway is familiar territory to many willing to offer support and encouragement, and the ones that don’t have cancer that they may understand the world we’ve been shoved into.”

I am a slightly out of the ordinary rebel at most things but fit a few cancer survivor stereotypes.  My first bout with cancer was cervical in 1990.  I was diagnosed, had a hysterectomy and went on with my life barely giving any thought to what had happened except for the freedom of not having to take “the pill” or go through the ugly monthly “ritual”.  Having never known anyone with cancer, to my knowledge anyway, I didn’t know what questions I should ask or that I should even ask any.

Sometime in 2004, with my marriage barely a joke, I started to look at myself pretty critically in the mirror and questioning where I was in life.  Was I actually contemplating being alone?  Divorcing my husband of 15 years?  I still looked pretty good for a woman of 56, could even still go braless.

I did notice that my right breast seemed to begin looking a little less firm than my left breast but I passed it off as normal aging only slightly regretting that both breasts didn’t follow the same pattern at the same time.  Then the morning of January, 5th 2005, I woke with my left breast feeling painful, hot and the upper half hard.  Darn, another gland infection.  I hadn’t gone through that since I was pregnant in 1968, but I remembered it was the same breast, same location.  I started hot packing it and calling my doctor.

“Oh, I’m sorry but Dr. J retired the 31st of December”.  What?  I have a problem and no doctor?  He’s been my doctor for over 20 years and I didn’t know he was retiring?  Just a week ago?  How can this be?  But it was.  So here I am with a problem, no doctor and no insurance.  I called about a dozen doctors from the phone book knowing I had to see one.  The ones I reached would not take a new patient with no insurance and the rest didn’t bother to call me back.  Finally I called Dr. J’s office back and begged for an appointment with the first doctor I could see.

Dr. S had an opening just a week and a half away so I took it and waited.  A moment after looking at my breast the new doctor ordered a mammogram and ultrasound and that appointment was another 2 weeks away.  I was already learning the anxiety of waiting that would rule the rest of my life.

Fast forward, I had the mammogram, ultra sound, a meeting with a surgeon, the biopsy and then came the day I had to return for the results of the test.

Dr. V’s nurse put me in a very small conference room, only a table and a couple of chairs.  I didn’t wait long and Dr. V came into the room with his boyish smile and greeted me.  He had a folder in his hand that had my results and I’m not sure how the rest of the conversation went because I was in shock.  I started to shake.  Not the way one does when their body is reacting to cold but almost a vibration.  I couldn’t think, react, could hardly speak, couldn’t even cry.  I barely remember him telling me that I would need surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and did anyone come with me to drive me home.  I gathered myself as well as I could, said I was fine and went home.

Six weeks later I had surgery.  Dr. V removed my pretty left breast that was nice and full because of a 6 cm cancerous tumor.  Along with that he took out 18 lymph nodes, all tested positive for cancer so it was spreading.

I had surgery on the 22nd of March.  In May I started chemotherapy and around the end of November I started radiation, finishing on the 13th of January 2006.  My hair had started to grow back but was barely fuzz.  I didn’t like any of the lovely wigs I had and wore hats.  I liked hats.  Always wished I dared wear them more often.  Now, they were my signature.  Cute, simple, inexpensive little newsboy type hats.  I had them in three or four styles and several colors.  Being self employed I had to work whatever I could, all through treatments but with the help of Medicaid I could at least get treatments.

So here I am, it’s the end of summer, 2008.  My marriage is still intact, the hair grew back, the cancer is in remission and I look back at the entire experience as just that, an experience.  One that still leaves me with fear every morning.  One that makes it difficult to walk at times because of the effects of chemotherapy; makes it uncomfortable to look in the mirror when I’m undressed; one that I’m conscious of every mealtime and every time I walk into a store to look for clothes.  Is that neckline too low?  Will my “chemoport” show?  Will my breast prosthesis creep out of my bra and show?  Will I ever find my waistline again???

And then I take a deep breath, remember that I’m still alive, still love life, still look forward to every day.  Cancer, through the Internet, brought me new friends that have one thing in common, cancer, and the fact that we’ve made it so far.  Friends were lost along the way.  New friends, some still in shock from their new diagnosis of cancer are seeking answers to questions the rest of us have dealt with and experienced.  There it is again, experience.  A small word that is so important when one is frightened out of their wits and threatened with their very lives.  A well placed answer to a frightfully asked question; a word of encouragement as simple as “I’m still here”; a suggestion for someone facing a new round of treatments; all so very important.

My husband says I changed while going through chemotherapy treatments.  I used to not say much.  I had a difficult time talking to people I didn’t know.  Now, he says, he can barely shut me up at times.  My soapbox is always handy and pops out when I’m least expecting it!

If I can give anyone advise, it would be to reach out to others.  The ones that have cancer so they can know their pathway is familiar territory to many willing to offer support and encouragement and the ones that don’t have cancer that they may understand the world we’ve been shoved into.  It doesn’t matter if they’re a different religion, color, financial status, age, size, bearing, upbringing, they are sisters and brothers in a club that no ordinary person would want to get into.  It’s exclusive and expensive.  It’s frightful and demeaning.  It’s disfiguring and disheartening.  But our club pulls it’s strength from each and every one of us.  Individually we are fighters, together we are a symphony!  And keep the music playing!

Laura Strebel

landslidjr@aol.com

No-lump breast cancer is invasive and highly aggressive form of cancer.  Good news, though it is rare.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer does not produce a lump so it can go unnoticed; in fact, it can pass simply as inflammation of the breast, which the doctor may initially prescribe antibiotics for.  However, unlike ordinary breast infection that also causes swelling of the breast, Inflammatory Breast Cancer will not respond favorably to antibiotics.  It is a form of breast cancer that spreads rapidly; unless detected earlier, survival is very slim.

Suzanne G. Beaver of Camarillo, 47, dismissed her engorged breasts as pre-menstrual syndrome and just got busier at work hoping that her condition would improve.  Three weeks later, she was told she had inflammatory breast cancer.

Dr. Tim Moynihan, a cancer specialist at the Mayo Clinic, cited in one of his published articles the typical danger signs of inflammatory breast cancer:

1. The breast can become engorged and tender.
2. Inflammatory Breast Cancer causes the breast to appear red, enlarged and feel warm
   to the touch.
3. There is an absence of a lump, but the entire breast would swell.

Mastitis is a breast disease that causes inflammation of the breast and is often accompanied by fever.  At the onset, inflammatory breast cancer has the symptoms similar to mastitis that it can be easily considered as such, but unlike mastitis that responds quickly to medication, inflammatory breast cancer is very rarely accompanied by fever and antibiotic treatment may not help.

How bad can it get?

The course of treatment between the common type of breast cancer and the inflammatory type differs.  For one, chemotherapy may be started right away among patients suffering from inflammatory breast cancer, prior to removing the diseased breast.  This is to allow the skin of the breast to heal first before the operation.  With inflammatory type of breast cancer, the skin surrounding the breast can become red and swollen; this makes it difficult for doctors to operate on the breast.

Mastectomy does not guarantee cancer will not recur among women suffering from the inflammatory type.  This is primarily the reason why there is a need to put the patient on radiation therapy even if mastectomy has already been performed on the breast.  Incidence of recurrence can be high due to the condition of the skin on the breast region.

At the first sign of a rash or inflammation on the local region of the breast, you should take a closer look.  The problem may not be as simple as you think!

Sometimes, it is better to worry a bit (without becoming paranoid), than be sorry about it.

Here is a fantastic article posted from www.cancer.gov. We’ve included the link to the full article below.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is funding numerous research projects to improve conventional mammography (an x-ray technique to visualize the internal structure of the breast) and develop other imaging technologies to detect, diagnose, and characterize breast .

High-quality mammography is the most effective technology presently available for breast cancer screening. Efforts to improve mammography focus on refining the technology and improving how it is administered and x-ray films are interpreted. NCI is funding research to reduce the already low radiation dosage of mammography; enhance mammogram image quality; develop statistical techniques for computer-assisted interpretation of images; enable long-distance, electronic image transmission technology (telemammography/teleradiology) for clinical consultations; and improve image-guided techniques to assist with breast biopsies. (A breast biopsy is the removal of cells or tissues to look at under a microscope to check for signs of disease). NCI also supports research on technologies that do not use x-rays, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, and breast-specific positron emission tomography (PET) to detect breast cancer. The following information describes the latest imaging techniques that are in use or being studied.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY

Mammography and self exams have saved so many lives and it can save even more, provided women perform their monthly self exams and schedule their annual mammograms.  For most women, however, getting a mammogram is as scary as getting their teeth fixed.  They would rather wait until the symptoms are too hard to ignore before they decide to make an appointment.  This is understandable considering the fact that breast cancer is not as simple as getting a cavity filled.

Most women are unsure what to look for when doing a self-examination, so they opt to not do it at all and wait for their annual visit to their gynecologist, putting their complete blind faith in his or her decision.  Self exams may not be as conclusive as a mammogram or ultrasound, but it can give most women a head start on a course of action to take.

Do you know what to look for?

It pays to know the early signs of breast cancer or what to look for.  Clinical studies have shown that early detection has a tremendous impact on survival rate among women diagnosed with the disease.

Two leading health agencies in the US, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, have outlined a number of warning signs that one can look for upon performing a breast self-exam:

1.)    A noticeable change in how the breast looks; its size and shape.
2.)    A thickening of underlying tissue or the presence of a lump in areas surrounding the breast or in the underarms.
3.)    Feeling of discomfort, like a warm sensation around the breast region.
4.)    A rash on the breast, especially on the nipple.
5.)    A sunken nipple or nipple turned inward.
6.)    Pain on the nipple or tenderness when touched.
7.)    Change in the size and shape of the nipple.
8.)    Watery discharge or blood coming out of the nipple.
9.)    Swelling or dimpling of the skin; irritation or redness.

Pain is not a conclusive gauge that there is breast cancer; in fact, pain is more likely a symptom of a breast disease that is benign rather than malignant. Do not take any chances though, it is best to consult your doctor when there is recurring pain or if pain accompanies any of the warning signs.

Kelly Henderson discovered a lump on her breast through self-examination, so did Joyce Schmidt of Dallas, Texas.  Both have survived Breast Cancer and are now leading normal lives because they discovered the disease during its early stage.

Why wait for your doctor to say “it is too late”!  Your life is not someone else’s responsibility – it’s your own.  So take the first step today in making sure you do not become another victim of breast cancer.  A breast self-exam can make it happen.

It’s your choice.

Photo credits:

http://www.iwearitwell.com (Kelly)
http://www.inmagine.com (young girls)