Claire Guest was walking her dogs when Daisy, a fox red Labrador, nudged her breast insistently and stared up into her face with her big brown eyes. Sensing something was wrong, Claire visited her GP and soon found out she had a very deep – and difficult to diagnose – form of breast cancer. Daisy had saved her life, simply by smelling her cancer. With her scientific background and deep love of dogs, Claire intuited that Daisy and her canine pals could save many more lives, and set up the charity Medical Detection Dogs. Though faced with many challenges, Claire and her dogs have proven to be a remarkable asset to cancer detection, and have changed the lives of many seriously ill people and their families. This is the story of how our relationship with dogs can unleash life-saving talents, changing not only the medical world, but our own lives too.
Part of the bestselling What Your Doctor May Not Tell You series, an informative, detailed guide to breast cancer, including treatment and prevention. Each year, over 40,000 women in the U.S. die from breast cancer. With statistics rising, conventional methods of treatment are simply not working, and in some cases may even be harmful. Now, Drs. Lee and Zava explain the potentially life-saving facts, such as: likely sources for the increase in breast cancer, including environment, excessive estrogen, progesterone imbalance, diet, and the dangers associated with traditional hormone replacement methods. Readers will learn strategies for lowering their risk and preventing this devastating disease through a revolutionary hormone balance program.
Offers guidelines for implementing a diet and exercise program during and after breast cancer treatment, based on the author's battle with the disease while training for a figure competition.
A definitive and approachable guide to life during, and after, breast cancer The biggest risk factor for breast cancer is simply being a woman. Madhulika Sikka's A Breast Cancer Alphabet offers a new way to live with and plan past the hardest diagnosis that most women will ever receive: a personal, practical, and deeply informative look at the road from diagnosis to treatment and beyond. What Madhulika Sikka didn't foresee when initially diagnosed, and what this book brings to life so vividly, are the unexpected and minute challenges that make navigating the world of breast cancer all the trickier. A Breast Cancer Alphabet is an inspired reaction to what started as a personal predicament. This A-Z guide to living with breast cancer goes where so many fear to tread: sex (S is for Sex - really?), sentimentality (J is for Journey - it's a cliché we need to dispense with), hair (H is for Hair - yes, you can make a federal case of it) and work (Q is for Quitting - there'll be days when you feel like it). She draws an easy-to-follow, and quite memorable, map of her travels from breast cancer neophyte to seasoned veteran. As a prominent news executive, Madhulika had access to the most cutting edge data on the disease's reach and impact. At the same time, she craved the community of frank talk and personal insight that we rely on in life's toughest moments. This wonderfully inventive book navigates the world of science and story, bringing readers into Madhulika's mind and experience in a way that demystifies breast cancer and offers new hope for those living with it.
Two years after she underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy, Barbara Bradfield's aggressive breast cancer had recurred and spread to her lungs. The outlook was grim. Then she took part in Genentech's clinical trials for a new drug. Five years later she remains cancer-free. Her-2 is the biography of Herceptin, the drug that provoked dramatic responses in Barbara Bradfield and other women in the trials and that offers promise for hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, Herceptin has no disabling side effects. It works by inactivating Her-2/neu--a protein that makes cancer cells grow especially quickly-- produced by a gene found in 25 to 30 percent of all breast tumors. Herceptin caused some patients' cancers to disappear completely; in others, it slowed the progression of the disease and gave the women months or years they wouldn't otherwise have had. Herceptin is the first treatment targeted at a gene defect that gives rise to cancer. It marks the beginning of a new era of treatment for all kinds of cancers. Robert Bazell presents a riveting account of how Herceptin was born. Her-2 is a story of dramatic discoveries and strong personalities, showing the combination of scientific investigation, money, politics, ego, corporate decisions, patient activism, and luck involved in moving this groundbreaking drug from the lab to a patient's bedside. Bazell's deft portraits introduce us to the remarkable people instrumental in Herceptin's history, including Dr. Dennis Slamon, the driven UCLA oncologist who played the primary role in developing the treatment; Lily Tartikoff, wife of television executive Brandon Tartikoff, who tapped into Hollywood money and glamour to help fund Slamon's research; and Marti Nelson, who inspired the activists who lobbied for a "compassionate use" program that would allow women outside the clinical trials to have access to the limited supplies of Herceptin prior to FDA approval of the drug. And throughout there are the stories of the heroic women with advanced breast cancer who volunteered for the trials, risking what time they had left on an unproven treatment. Meticulously researched, written with clarity and compassion, Her-2 is masterly reporting on cutting-edge science.
An exploration of dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance for your health and well-being • 2018 Nautilus Silver Award • Shares stories--confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives • Explores medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own medical research • Includes an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation techniques Your dreams can provide inner guidance filled with life-saving information. Since ancient Egypt and Greece, people have relied on the art of dreaming to diagnose illness and get answers to personal life challenges. Now, dreams are making a grand reappearance in the medical arena as recent scientific research and medical pathology reports validate the diagnostic abilities of precognitive dreams. Are we stepping back into the future as modern medical tests show dreams can be early warning signs of cancer and other diseases? Showcasing the important role of dreams and their power to detect and heal illness, Dr. Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos share amazing research and true stories of physical and emotional healings triggered by dreams. The authors explore medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own research on dreams that come true and can be medically validated. They share detailed stories--all confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives, including Kathleen’s own story as a three-time breast cancer survivor whose dreams diagnosed her cancer even when it was missed by her doctors. Alongside these stories of survival and faith, the authors also include an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation, allowing the reader to develop trust in their dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance.
"Providing comprehensive, current, and reliable information on breast cancer, this book, written by an experienced oncologist, a surgeon, and a breast cancer survivor, informs and inspires readers, wherever they are in the breast cancer experience. Patient stories, essays from medical specialists, and illustrations add clarity and insight"--
The outlook for women with breast cancer has improved in recent years. Due to the combination of improved treatments and the benefits of mammography screening, breast cancer mortality has decreased steadily since 1989. Yet breast cancer remains a major problem, second only to lung cancer as a leading cause of death from cancer for women. To date, no means to prevent breast cancer has been discovered and experience has shown that treatments are most effective when a cancer is detected early, before it has spread to other tissues. These two facts suggest that the most effective way to continue reducing the death toll from breast cancer is improved early detection and diagnosis. Building on the 2001 report Mammography and Beyond, this new book not only examines ways to improve implementation and use of new and current breast cancer detection technologies but also evaluates the need to develop tools that identify women who would benefit most from early detection screening. Saving Women's Lives: Strategies for Improving Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis encourages more research that integrates the development, validation, and analysis of the types of technologies in clinical practice that promote improved risk identification techniques. In this way, methods and technologies that improve detection and diagnosis can be more effectively developed and implemented.
This book is the result of my desire to share what I learned from the experience of surviving breast cancer that metastasized to the bone. The changes I made in my life as the result of this illness have led to a happier, healthier and more productive life in so many ways. I have attained an inner peace that I never had before. I made lifestyle changes such as diet, but more importantly I learned how to deal with stress and my spiritual life continues to grow. I can truly say that cancer enriched my life. Over the years, I have counseled with many patients as they struggle with this dreaded disease. My hope is that by putting my thoughts in book form it will be helpful to a wider audience. All of us need help on our journey through life. It can be one of anger, bitterness, despair and self-pity or it can be a life of joy, forgiveness, of reaching out to others with love, and gratitude for our blessings.
Presents over forty true short stories by breast cancer survivors, showing the emotional and spiritual strengthening they underwent during their physical struggles.