My two cents’ worth are included on this blog, third response down.
What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?
Monthly Archives: November 2016
Trumping Donald by Creating Beauty
I’m going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life.
Elfie Dewolfe, 1859?–1950
A friend who was upset about the recent U.S. presidential election read to me the above quote by an American actress and interior decorator. She now is taking this message even more closely to heart.
Others are deeply upset by the election of Donald Trump. One friend cried, feeling that her entire life’s work on behalf of women suddenly was stripped away.
A blog reader identified this response as a “time of stress for women.” She wrote, “I had hoped that you would speak yet again for those Hidden Voices.” She was referring to my first traditionally published book about women from the Christian Bible who had been silenced for millennia and only now are being heard with the respect they are due.
“Just know that we value your voice, which can console and comfort in facing the unknown future (culturally, socially, politically, in terms of faith, family, etc.),” she added.
Among the unknowns are how peace and justice issues in our nation could be affected. One response has become the creation of a Women’s March on Washington scheduled for Inauguration Day, Saturday, January 21, 2017, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lincoln Memorial, 2 Lincoln Memorial Circle, NW, Washington, D.C. As of today, according to the national Facebook page, 96,000 people are “going.”
Look on the internet and you can find many protests against the election of Donald Trump. If you feel so inclined, these might be a way for you to make your voice heard.
Another outcome that is feared is the loss of medical insurance currently made possible for many through the Affordable Care Act, especially among those with pre-existing conditions—like cancer patients.
I know I would have passed away long ago if I had not had the conventional medical care I needed.
Naturally, this is extremely frightening for some.
Yet we always have options. If there’s anything I learned in psychotherapy, it is that I don’t have to play victim anymore. I have choices I can make. Even author Viktor Frankyl (1905 to 1997), father of logotherapy, had choices while interred in totally controlled Nazi German death camps. And he survived.
I recall a family member who, just a few years ago, did not have medical insurance for surgical removal of large kidney stones. So he got on the phone and called one provider after another, obtaining their price points and then asking the next ones if they could do better.
He got major surgery done for about $5,100, a whopping 83% savings, using the phone and the free-enterprise system.
One cancer patient chose to have her surgery done in India. It cost less to fly over and even do a little vacationing there than having the surgery done in the United States. She was happy with her results.
It’s so easy to experience resignation and take on a co-dependent victim stance. To get out of these moods, I have a practice of stopping the mental stories and instead paying attention to these energy-in-motion (e-motion) sensations of hurt, fear, and powerlessness as physical experiences in my body. When processed in a healthy way, I then rise up into textures such as peace, no-thing, and/or gratitude. My body lets go of the stress and I can make better decisions. This powerful healing process is explained in the “Mapping the Emotions” section of Thriver Soup, pp. 183-235.
Once I complete the map, I am able to do as Elfie Dewolfe says and “make everything around me beautiful.”
Thriver Soup Ingredient
How can you make your life more beautiful right here, right now? I focus on making the world a better place through my blog, speaking, and writing. I’d love to hear what you are doing to make the world a more beautiful place so these ideas can be shared with others.
Surgical Management of Uterine Smooth-muscle Tumors
Surgical management of uterine smooth-muscle tumors was addressed briefly Oct. 8 at the National Leiomyosarcoma Foundation patient symposium in St. Louis, Mo. This was one of several cancer treatment topics that I am reporting about during the coming weeks.
Matthew Anderson, associate professor and director of research (gynecology) at Baylor University, said “Uterine leiomyosarcoma is a unique disease.” As many as 80 percent of women are impacted by a uterine smooth muscle tumor. About 200,000 hysterectomies are performed every year, which costs $3 to $5 billion.
“The only way to know if it’s malignant is to surgically remove it,” he said, because there are no diagnostic markers and no blood tests that can be used to determine malignancy.
Leiomyomas can arise in unusual locations. If they are morcellated, they can create other problems down the road. These myomas tend to respond to hormonal therapy.
They generally don’t tend to respond to chemotherapy or radiation.
About 70 percent of uterine LMS are discovered as isolated uterine masses. Recurrence rates are 40 to 70 percent.
With surgical debulking, doctors can increase progression-free survival from 6.8 months to 14.2 months.
Resection of pulmonary metastases can improve disease-free survival by as long as 24 months. This can include extensive resections while preserving good functional lung status.
Surgery by itself is not the answer. Unseen cells can come back. Ultimately patients have to rely on chemotherapy.
On April 17, 2014, the US FDA issued a safety communication regarding the use of power morcellation for performing hysterectomies or myomectomies. This led manufacturers to withdraw the devices and hospitals generally are not using this method.
Impact: 99 percent of the time, the uterine tumor is not cancer. Yet demand from patients for minimally invasive hysterectomies continues.
There is one case of ULMS in every 1,960 cases.
Short-term, the risk of ULMS should be discussed thoroughly with each patient.
The long-term goal is to develop a diagnostic test that can be used to determine malignancy.
Beyond Immunotherapy: Metabolic Treatment for Cancer a Possible Future Option
Cancer metabolism was addressed briefly Oct. 8 at the National Leiomyosarcoma Foundation patient symposium in St. Louis, Mo. This was one of several cancer treatment topics that I am reporting about during the coming weeks.
Dr. Brian Van Tine, sarcoma program director at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis, spoke on “Understanding Your Cancer’s Metabolism.”
Some cancer therapies currently in use involve attempts to change metabolism through diet to alter the course of cancer.
Van Tine, however, said, “There is little you can do with your diet to alter the course of your tumor outcome. Metabolism is tricky. It’s like a wonderfully orchestrated watch.”
If you try to put a halt in the system, the body will try to go another way to accomplish the same task, he said.
When cancer cells are born, they have a different metabolism from the rest of the body. The purpose of cancer is to grow. In the metabolic process, nine out of ten cancer patients don’t have a urea cycle (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27982/ ) and don’t express ASS1 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/445) in their tumors.
These two conditions make Leiomyosarcoma patients prime candidates for a metabolic-based therapy. Dr. Van Tine is studying possible future treatments for cancer / sarcoma patients using metabolic therapy. Click here for an explanation of his research.