A Few Common Myths About Breast Cancer

A Few Common Myths About Breast Cancer
By Michael Russell

Myth: If you detect a painful lump in your breast, there is no need for concern, as it is not cancerous.

Pain is very rarely the only indication of breast cancer. However only 10 percent of breast cancers are linked with pain. If an individual complains of pain in the breast and a self-examination test and a mammogram do not show any abnormality the likelihood of breast cancer is minimal.

Myth: Radiation therapy is a painful process.

A few patients experience a slight tingling or warming sensation in the particular area that is being treated but there is no pain. Prolonged radiation therapy may cause the breast to have a burning sensation, to become dry, to become sore and itchy.

Myth: One in every eight women will get breast cancer.

These statistics are based over an individual's lifetime up to an age of eighty five or ninety five and not on a per year estimate. If you take into account at any given point one woman in every eight women, it does not mean that she will have breast cancer. What it means is that if all women were to live up to an age of 85 years, one woman out of eight would get the disease during her life. Studies have shown that this rate is quickly rising, as thirty years ago it was one woman in every twenty women.

Myth: Women with small breasts will not get cancer.

Breast size is not a significant risk factor for breast cancer. A woman having smaller breasts will have smaller amount of breast tissue, but this does not mean that she will not be able to develop the disease.

Myth: If you are diagnosed with breast cancer and you have a positive outlook on life it will prolong your life.

There is no such evidence to prove that having a positive outlook on life will increase your chances of survival if you are having breast cancer. Of course thinking positive will help you and your family members to cope better with the situation, but then again feeling sad or depressed from time to time is only natural in the light of things.

Myth: Mastectomy or removal of the breast that is affected ensures the elimination of breast cancer forever.

Mastectomy does not in any way ensure that the cancer will not recur. Sometimes even though mastectomy has been performed, the chances are there that the cancer may have spread to other parts of the body and to the lymph nodes. Some individuals who have undergone mastectomy also undergo removal of the lymph nodes in the underarm as a precautionary method.

Myth: The chances are you will not get breast cancer if it doesn't run in your family.

This is not the case, every woman is at risk. Studies have shown that 80 percent of women who end up with breast cancer have never had a family history of it. The ageing process is the single biggest risk factor of breast cancer. Women with a family history of breast cancer, the chances that you might get the disease may be a little elevated or may be a lot elevated or sometimes not at all.

Michael RussellYour Independent guide to Breast Cancer

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A Failed War Bad Strategy for Smart Cancer

A Failed War - Bad Strategy for Smart Cancer
By Chris Teo, Ph.D.

A friend sent me a newspaper cutting from Indonesia written by Bondan Winarno in memory of his dear friend Ken Sudarto, entitled Mimpi Tak-Mungkin (A Crashed Dream). The author related the story of Kens battle against cancer. Ken was the founder of an all-Indonesian advertising company after having been inspired by Joe Darions The Impossible Dream. In short, he was a successful businessman who built this empire from scratch after having dreamt a dream.

To dream the impossible dream,

To fight the unbeatable foe,

To bear with the unbearable sorrow,

To run where the brave dare not go.

Kens battle against the unbeatable foe started shortly after Chinese New Year 2004, when he suddenly fell ill. The doctors in his country did not know what had gone wrong with him. Ken and his wife went to Singapore and after two weeks of intensive investigations, Ken was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma. It was said that this cancer was rather unique, since it only attacked his backbone leaving other organs intact. Ken underwent chemotherapy in Singapore and within six months he was said to have conquered his cancer. Cancer-free, Ken returned to his country feeling satisfied and grateful.

However, the victory was short-lived! Two months later Ken suffered a relapse and he needed his oncologist again. The next option for Ken was to undergo bone marrow transplant (BMT). He was made to understand that BMT is the state-of-the-art procedure the most modern of medical technology against cancer! Elated, Ken agreed and underwent a high-dose chemotherapy in preparation of his BMT. Unfortunately, the BMT did not cure him. Ken suffered a second relapse. The author said that Ken had to sell his first house to pay for his medical treatment in Singapore. A second BMT was recommended and Ken again agreed to it.

In early September 2004, the author had an opportunity to visit Ken in Singapore where he was still undergoing medical treatment. Ken invited the author to the Top of the M, a revolving restaurant in a famous hotel. At that time Ken was fitted with a state-of-the art chemo-pump which he carried around with him, Ken proudly told his friend: This is the mother of chemotherapy that he was wearing! While dining, Ken expressed his vision that one day, in the years to come, he would like to publish a bulletin giving information about how patients can fight this cancer war. Now that he had himself gone through this fight and had learnt a lot. Ken figured out that it would be of great help to others if he shared his experience. In this way, others too could follow his path.

Two days after this great and wonderful dinner at the posh restaurant, Ken had to be admitted to the CCU (critical care unit). Ken died soon afterwards.

Comments: The song above was only half sung. There are many more meaning lines to the lyrics.

To right the unrightable wrong

This is my quest, No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To fight for the right without question or pause

To be willing to pass into hell for a heavenly cause

And the world will be better for this.

Ken went into battle against cancer seemingly to right the unrightable wrong, to fight the unbeatable foe. I dare suggest that he had been misled. To me, the metaphor used in this adventure was and is wrong. Take a pause and ask these questions: In any war, be it Vietnam or Iraq, who or where is the winner? Who died? What are being destroyed? What is the net result? Cancer that dwelled in Kens body is not a foe. Cancer is a process that tells us that something had gone wrong in our body over the years, possibly due to a constant, long-term abuse again, I say, it is never a foe. To right that unrightable wrong is not to fight with highly poisonous drugs or to use the killing technology of war. These are too destructive. At the end of it all, patients die because of the treatment rather than the cancer. This is not only true in the case of Ken, but also many numerous other cases which I know or have come across.

Randall Fitzegerald (in: The hundred-year lie) wrote: Effective natural-health solutions DO exist. But unfortunately for many people who grew up by and dependent on technology and the laboratory drugs of Western medicine, breaking free of that paradigm, requires a leap of faith. This is especially true with the many so called educated or rich. To them only science and technology have the answers to all human ills. In the book, Hope or Hype the obsession with medical advances and the high cost of false promises, Professors Richard Devo and Donald Patrick, of the University of Washington, USA, wrote: We develop our own blind trust in a medical establishment that preys on our deepest fear, all the while purporting to ride to our rescue with miracle cure. The combination of industry greed, media hype, political expediency and our own techno-consumption mindset is leading more and more often to a reliance on costly treatments that are marginally effective at best and sometimes downright dangerous.

Guy B. Faguet, medical doctor and researcher of 28 years and author of more than 140 peer-reviewed articles, wrote (in: The War on Cancer: An Anatomy of Failure A Blueprint for the Future): The objective analysis of cancer chemotherapy outcomes over the last three decades reveals that, despite vast human and financial expenditure, the cell-killing paradigm has failed to achieve its objective and the conquest of cancer remains a distant and elusive goal. The bullet of this war is inefficacious and highly toxic and its model is based on flawed premises with an unattainable goal. Cytotoxic chemotherapy in its present form will neither eradicate cancer nor alleviate suffering. Recurrent announcements of breakthrough in the War on Cancer is designed to impress the public but little progress has been made in the treatment of cancer since 1971.

Three doctors in Australia Graeme Morgan, associate Professor and radiotherapist at the Royal North Shore Hospital; Robyn Ward, senior specialist in Medical Oncology and Associate Professor of Medicine at St Vincents Hospital; and Michael Barton, Research Director Associate Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, wrote this in the Journal of Clinical Oncology: The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA. Chemotherapy has been OVER SOLD and the responses of the treatment have been EXAGGERATED.

Clifton Leaf, CEO of Fortune Magazine, suffered from Hodgkins Disease but fortunately survived the ordeal. In an article, The War on Cancer: changing the way we think about cancer (March 2004), he pointed out that the mass media all too often come out with reports of medical breakthroughs Avastin, Erbitux, Gleevec... these are touted as wonder drugs that fight cancer. The question is: are we truly winning the cancer war? Leaf said: We're not. We are far from winning the war against cancer.

A respected magazine in Germany, Der Spiegel of 4 October 2004, had this article: Giftkur ohne Nutzen (The Useless Poisonous Cures). This article said: Increasingly sophisticated and expensive cellular poisons are being given to seriously ill patients patients do not actually live a day longer.

Let not the death of Ken be yet another meaningless death. Let this message lives on and let us hope that many others who are in a similar situation can learn a lesson from the above episode, if at all they have eyes to see, ears to hear and brain to think. Cancer is better handled by a natural, holistic way of healing, not through waging a war! Is this not what righting the unrightable wrong is all about? The whole world needs to know this lesson.

For more information about complementary cancer therapy visit: http://www.cacare.com, http://www.NaturalHealingForYou.com, http://www.BookOnCancer.com

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