Moving Beyond a Cancer Diagnosis

Probably one of the most feared diagnoses for women is that of breast cancer. It violates ones feminity, as well as threatens your life. It is a formidable opponent. However, with work, breast cancer does not need to be the focus of your life.

So how does one move past this diagnosis? Well, it is not easy. In the beginning, you must ensure that you are receiving the utmost of care - preferably at a major hospital that deals specifically with breast cancer. In my case, I was lucky to be referred to Mass General, where dedicated teams of doctors reviewed your case and helped to recommend treatment. My team included a radiologist, surgeon and oncologist. You want to go where the doctors only specialize in breast cancer...believe it or not, it is a full time specialty for the best in the medical practice. Studies have shown that these major metropolitan hospitals have a higher survival rate - as it is what they do day after day.

Once you have gone through all of the recommended treatments, you need to take stock of your life. Make sure that you focus on what is important to you. There are some of us that will have good outcomes and some which will have challenging circumstances. Making the most of every day is critical - as we never know what the future will bring. Nothing will be gained by obsessing about what if's - focus on the present.

After several years out from diagnosis and treatment, one begins to let go of the terror that this disease brings about. You find that days pass without a thought of breast cancer - your goal at this stage. In making the most out of your life and focusing your attention away from this disease, you will find more satisfaction and happiness. None of us has a guarantee in this life, but it would be a shame not to make the most of the time we have here. Live healthy and happy.

Personal Renewal for Mastectomy Patients

Swim With Confident Again In Your Mastectomy Swimwear

While the past is gone forever, the painful experience of undergone a mastectomy can be a source of courage and determination to keep on growing into the future and to continuously lay the ground work with confident knowing that you have the power to consistently grow to achieve happiness and confident.

If you are willing to go the extra mile, your success will be inevitable, something deeper, wiser and more powerful than your previous sense of yourself. More importantly you can be a great model, to inspire and encourage others who have been through the same experience.

Yes! Surely, you can build your confident and self-esteem by not consuming too much time living in the past which often can cripple your future growth. Under such circumstances, you have to work on getting yourself back into the active life style, to feel worthy of happiness, to be physically fit and having extra ordinary health.

Now, starting your active life style by spending some time with friends at the beach or going for a swim at your local swimming pool can be very exciting and fun. If you like the idea of going on for a vacation to a nice beautiful beach, then go out there and enjoy your live. As you go along, you'll experience a sense of personal renewal that opens new possibilities. The beauty of your new adventure will get you more and more exhilarated.

If beach or swimming pools are your choice for personal renewal into and active life style, it's time for you to look for mastectomy swimwear that make you looks beautiful, feel confident and relax. Your first task is to look at yourself physically and developing a fashionable style that look great and attractive.

Mastectomy swimwear comes in all the same styles and designs as traditional swimwear. The only difference is that your special needs are handled either by selecting a suit that accommodates your existing prosthesis, or you can opt for specially-designed swimwear that includes high-tech filler material that rounds out the cup with a natural appearance.

You can buy special bras that replicate the balance and symmetry that you had before your procedure, and now you can select swimwear that does the same thing. Prostheses won't get damage by chlorinated water or salt water, but for the durability of your breast prosthesis, proper care and cleaning after a swim will keep it stay in shape.

When looking for your mastectomy swimsuit, make sure your mastectomy swimsuit provide the support you need, a high neckline with more coverage around the under arm will help hold the prosthesis securely when you are in an active physical movement. A fashionable mastectomy swimwear can make you look and feel beautiful, confident, and comfortable and no one can tell whether you are wearing breast prosthesis. Bright color with a beautiful print can be more attractive and alluring.

You can find mastectomy swimsuit which feature the tummy tamer, hip minimize to give you the best silhouettes. For your daily activities, exercise and physical activities most store advice mastectomy patients to wear light weight prosthesis which is lighter then the traditional silicone form. You'll be sure to feel relax with total confident, with out worrying about the prosthesis getting out of position or restricting your activities.

Christopher Ayu is the webmaster and author of [http://www.swim-wear-in-style.com]. You can find this article posted on his site at [http://www.swim-wear-in-style.com/Mastectomy-swim-wear.html].

Your Mammogram Is Abnormal - What Now?

It's 10am on a Tuesday morning. You are getting ready for a meeting with your team when a phone call comes in for you...from your health care provider. It seems your routine annual mammogram has found a small spot that needs further evaluation. Now what?

No doubt about it, an abnormal mammogram is a scary thing. The first thing you should remember is that 80 percent of these lumps turn out to be benign, meaning they are not cancerous. However, it's prudent for your health care provider to arrange for you to have a biopsy done to insure that your spot does indeed fall into that 80%.

What's a biopsy? A biopsy is a procedure that allows for tissue to be removed and tested for cancer. In many cases, the produced for taking tissue results in little to no pain and there is minimal to no scarring involved.

There are for main types of breast biopsies that are done.

Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy (FNAB) - This is the least invasive form of biopsy. The FNAB uses a tiny needle that is inserted directly into the lump. The content of the lump is then pulled back into the needle and syringe and the whole thing is withdrawn. In many cases, done properly, these procedures are painless, leave no scarring, and can be done in your providers office. Best of all, results can be ready in a few days.

Core Needle Biopsy (CNB) - The needle involved is a bit larger, with a bit of discomfort. The needle is again guided into the lump and the sample is obtained just like the FNAB. Again, the results are available in just a few days - often in 48 hours.

Image-Guided Breast Biopsy - In this type of biopsy, instead of guiding the needle by "feel" (feeling the lump to guide the needle), the needle is guided into the lump using ultrasound. This is often called a Stereotatic needle biopsy. In this case, the procedure is often performed by a radiologist or surgeon where equipment is available.

Surgical Biopsy - While often not used just to diagnosis breast cancer alone, they are performed when the decision is made by you and your surgeon to remove either part (incisional biopsy) or the entire (excisional biopsy) lump. This can be performed on an out-patient basis.

Undergoing any type of procedure on our breasts can be scary, especially when we are faced wit possibly receive a diagnosis of breast cancer. However, having an understanding of what is going on, what to expect, and why something is being done can alleviate some of that fear and help you become an active partner in your quest for further information.

Breast Cancer and Pregnancy

Although it is rare for breast cancer to strike younger women, the fact remains that all women are at risk. And for those of childbearing age, the first sign and symptoms of breast cancer leading to a diagnosis can not only be upsetting and unexpected, but complicated as well.

Developing breast cancer at a younger age--in a woman's 40s, 30s, even 20s--will mean making important and difficult decisions about one's life and future perhaps much sooner than originally expected.

One concern is developing breast cancer during pregnancy, which although rare, can still occur. In this case, the treatment chosen will not only affect the patient and her body, but the growing baby inside her as well. It will depend on what stage of pregnancy she is in (first, second or third trimester) and what stage her cancer is in--such as whether or not it's advanced.

Most pregnant women can have treatment for their breast cancer without affecting the baby. But some might be advised by their obstetrician or health-care practitioner--or even decide themselves--to terminate the pregnancy, more so if the pregnancy is in its earlier stages, in order to receive certain treatments that would be too risky otherwise. But it is essential to remember that it is a woman's own decision--it is not medically necessary to terminate a pregnancy if the expectant mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. All it does is limit treatment options. Breast cancer itself will not affect the fetus--only certain tests and treatments will.

Generally speaking, tamoxifen, chemotherapy, radiation, and other drug-related therapies are avoided if the woman is pregnant because of their associated risks with birth defects. Tamoxifen, especially, is considered very unsafe because it is a hormonal therapy and is never recommended if the woman is pregnant or planning on conceiving.

Surgery--either a lumpectomy or mastectomy--is the most common and preferred method of treatment for breast cancer in pregnant women.

Another concern is whether or not breast cancer survivors can or should go on to have children after treatment and recovery. It's a very controversial issue with firm advocates on both sides of the debate.

There are two main questions here, for both the medical and health community and breast cancer survivors wanting their own children: 1) Do certain breast cancer treatments affect fertility?; and 2) Is it actually considered safe to conceive and carry a baby to term following breast cancer and breast cancer treatments?

As far as fertility goes, there is no definite answer here. For chemotherapy, it depends on the age and what specific drug was used--some affect fertility more than others. And taking tamoxifen after chemotherapy to prevent recurrence is not recommended if the woman desires to become pregnant right away. Although tamoxifen is sometimes used as a fertility treatment, there is evidence to suggest that it damages developing embryos, and therefore is not considered safe to use.

Many doctors caution these women to wait several years to ensure receiving the best breast cancer treatment possible and to go past the point of the biggest threat of breast cancer recurrence. But some women decide to go ahead and have babies anyway, since it's so important to them.

An informed woman has a distinct advantage over her fears. Arm yourself about Breast Cancer [http://www.8008135.info] and be ready to fight and beat any possible diagnosis.

Breast Cancer Information Is Important

Breast cancer usually happens when certain cells located in the breast start to grow out of control, taking over nearby tissue and spreading throughout the body. Large collections of this infected tissue are called "tumors". Some tumors are not even considered to be cancer because they cannot spread throughout the body or threaten a person's life. These types of tumors are called "benign tumors".

The types of tumors that do spread throughout the body and invade the tissues around the breast are considered to be cancer and have been given the name "malignant tumors". It is said that any type of tissue in the breast can form some type of cancer, but it mostly comes from either ducts or glands.

It can take months or even years for a tumor to get big enough for someone to actually feel it in their breast, so they are encouraged to be screened for tumors by a mammogram. Mammograms are designed to detect any type of disease before a person even begins to feel it.

Breast cancer is the most common "malignancy" that affects women in America and throughout Europe. Every single woman is at risk of getting breast cancer and almost 200,000 cases of were said to be diagnosed in the United States in 2001. It is the second highest cause, behind lung cancer, of cancer deaths among women in North America.

The types of risk factors for breast cancer are divided into two types, those you can't change and those you can change. The factors associated with increasing your risk of breast cancer that your can't change include: just being a woman, getting older, or having some type of family history or a relative with breast cancer. Other risk factors are having your menopause late, having children past the age of thirty, or contracting a genetic mutation that would somehow increase your risk.

Certain types of risk factors that you can change are:

- not taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which means that long term uses of estrogens for menopause symptoms does in fact slightly increase your risk.

- stopping the use of birth control pills, because it is noted that ten years following the cessation of The Pill, a woman's risk of breast cancer reverts to what it would have been if she had not used this form of birth control.

However, neither of these risks are as significant as the ones that are associated with your gender, age, and family history.

All the factors are based on probabilities, and that means that a person without any of those mentioned is still subject to developing breast cancer and the best way to be sure is to get the proper screening and detection for breast cancer development.

There are preventative measures that can be taken, up to a point. It is noted that a drug called Tamoxifen is not used widely as a prevention, but it has been proved to be helpful in some cases. There is also a limited amount of data that suggests that Vitamin A may be useful in the prevention of breast cancer, but further research is needed to prove this.

The most important step for a woman to prevent breast cancer is to schedule regular checkups, screenings and mammograms, learn how to perform her own exams, and also to acquire all the information she can about the subject.