Category: Health – Happiness

Today

TODAY’s Jill Martin gives in-depth look at life during chemo after breast cancer diagnosis

Maura Hohman – October 4, 2023

After being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer earlier this year, TODAY contributor Jill Martin Brooks is getting honest and real about her chemotherapy journey.

She joined TODAY on Oct. 4 after several sessions of “the red devil,” one of the most aggressive types of chemo. The plan is to have eight chemotherapy sessions in total. Jill’s already undergone a double mastectomy and had 17 lymph nodes removed, and she will also undergo a hysterectomy, partially due to her history with fibroids, as well as to reduce her ovarian cancer risk.

“Cancer is the most insidious disease and thing I’ve ever encountered (and) I think I’m a tough cookie,” Jill, 47, told TODAY. “It’s strange because I look like myself. (But) I can look in the mirror, I see the difference, I see that I’ve lost some hair and I see that I don’t have the same sparkle that I like to wake up with.”

Still, continuing to work has been a bright spot for her, even if she doesn’t have the same energy she’s used to, and she’s been able to keep most of her hair and survive chemo with no vomiting. Physical therapy post-mastectomy has helped her feel more in control of her body, as well.

“You picture getting chemotherapy (as) you’re in the bathroom, hurled over,” she explained, adding that that hasn’t been her experience thanks to recent treatment advancements. She also shared that she has a chemo port, which allows her to receive the drug without a needle stick.

Chemo has become a part of her new routine after she appears on TODAY for Steals & Deals every other Wednesday.

“Chemo is cumulative. It gets worse every time. … Every time I sleep for one extra day, so the week after chemo is like, there’s no plans. I’ll be in bed, and I give myself the grace of that,” she explained. “Then, the week after that leading up to the next treatment, you feel OK. So, I schedule Steals & Deals and coming into the studio on days that I have chemotherapy because that’s the day I’m the healthiest.”

“I take off the makeup, and I take off the clothes and then I go from lights, camera, action to like the most devastating thing,” she added.

For some people, each chemotherapy session can be as short as two hours, but Jill’s are taking closer to 12 because she’s undergoing a process called cold-capping to keep her hair. The idea is that the intense cold narrows the blood vessels in the scalp, reducing the amount of the chemo drug that gets into the follicles, preventing as many hairs from falling out, according to BreastCancer.org.

“At the beginning, I (was) like, I’ll just shave my head. And for some people, that is their journey and that’s soothing for them,” Jill recalled. “I’m not a big makeup person. (My hair) has always been something that makes me feel like myself.”

“You want keep as much normality as you can in the abnormal,” she added. She estimated she still has about 70% of her hair.

Another treatment advancement Jill is quick to praise is the steroids she receives to minimize her nausea: “The steroids make you elevated and crazier as my husband would jokingly say, but there are ways … to counteract the things that you typically stereotype chemo to be.”

Showing the reality of life with treatment was important to Jill in order to help others.

“You think I want to be on camera right now with no makeup, my hair in braids because I’m not allowed to brush it, I’m not allowed to color it, I’m not allowed to wash it in the shower?” she said. “I’d rather be dolled up … but this is real and this is life.”

Jill’s family, especially her parents, husband, brother and sister-in-law, have played a huge role in her maintaining her strength during this period, she said.

“I’ve been choosing to fight and it sucks,” she laughed. “It’s a full-time job and I’m trying really hard. It’s so hard watching my parents and my friends watch me. … I think to myself, ‘Thank goodness it’s me because if I had to watch that, no way.'”

The silver lining of the experience is that Jill has been able to slow down a little bit. “I will take time off and I will rest and I will heal and I will work out and I will continue physical therapy, which has been really big part of my journey and I will continue to advocate for women and men to not be afraid of getting (genetic testing), not being afraid of getting treatment because of what it will bring and showcasing … what it is like to live through chemotherapy,” she said.

“You’re living it with me in real time. This part of the story right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a happy ending this minute.”

Some public figures may prefer to undergo such intense medical treatments in private, but Jill is hopeful that sharing what she’s going through can save lives.

“I’ve been with the show for 15 years and I’ve shared the happy, I’ve shared the sad, and now, I’m sharing the scary,” she said. “I feel … I was given this to be able to help and save other people. I truly believe that deep down.”

When Jill first shared her diagnosis, she urged TODAY viewers to talk to their health care providers about genetic testing for cancer risk. She found out she had a mutation to one of her BRCA genes — which dramatically increases risk of breast and other cancers — shortly before receiving her diagnosis. She’d been planning to get a preventive mastectomy until she found out she actually had cancer.

During her Oct. 4 visit to TODAY, that message was unchanged.

“If I had known, this could have been prevented, and so I could have taken steps. That’s one main message I want to make sure I get out,” she said.

Daytona Beach News – Journal

Patients battling breast cancer deserve full access to their prescribed treatments

By Jeri Francoeur, Daytona Beach News-Journal – October 4, 2023

I am a two-time breast cancer survivor, and have made it my life’s mission to ensure cancer patients have the resources they need to navigate health insurance and other access barriers. I have been involved in advocacy for all patients since I first started working in the medical field.

My personal breast cancer advocacy story began 20 years ago. My best friend was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and was given a 7% chance of surviving. I watched her struggle to find affordable treatment options while time ran out. She lost her battle. I was devastated, and I knew I would never let another woman go through what my friend went through.

Six months later, I felt a change in my breast tissue. As a physician’s assistant who taught women how to perform self-breast exams, I had a pretty good idea something was off. After my mammogram showed no abnormalities, I begged my healthcare provider to run more tests. A biopsy showed I had noninvasive ductal carcinoma in situ, which is stage zero breast cancer. I was lucky to have a medical background and knew how to advocate for myself through my diagnosis – especially when I was diagnosed again in 2020.

I know the importance of early detection and treatment for breast cancer patients. In the last 10 years, breast cancer treatment development has been incredible. Innovative medicines that offer more effective treatment and fewer side effects are now on the market. Breast cancer patients are now living longer thanks to remarkable research.

Some insurance plans, unfortunately, prevent patients from accessing these innovative and effective treatments. This is the current situation regarding CDK4/6 inhibitors. CDK4/6 inhibitors treat patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and are rapidly transforming patient outcomes. All three CDK4/6 inhibitors on the market have gained FDA approval, yet they are not all accessible to patients because of insurance barriers.

One of the ways insurance companies can attempt to block access to new and effective treatments like these is by mandating doctors and patients submit to step therapy. Also known as “fail first,” step therapy requires patients to first prove that older, less expensive, or insurer-preferred alternative medications don’t work before coverage is approved for the medicine prescribed for them.

Breast cancer is a serious, life-threatening condition. Implementing step therapy protocols that require patients to try any medicine other than what the doctor prescribed takes away a patient’s valuable time. It allows breast cancer to progress and causes side effects that diminish patients’ quality of life. Breast cancer patients suffer when they cannot get the treatments their medical team prescribes.

No one should stand in the way of patients and their healthcare providers. Healthcare providers have years of education, clinical experience, specialized training, and, most importantly, know their patients. They are the most qualified to create a personalized treatment plan that fits their patient’s needs and tolerance levels.

Breast cancer patients deserve the highest level of care. New and innovative treatment options can help change the breast cancer landscape as we know it. It’s time insurance companies do what’s right and provide equal coverage for treatments that are proven to save lives.

Jeri Francoeur is a two-time breast cancer survivor, patient advocate, and founding member of the Florida Cancer Support Network. She resides in Ormond Beach. 

WAGA Fox – Local Articles

How to weigh the benefits, risks of radiation therapy for breast cancer

Beth Galvin – October 3, 2023

https://s.yimg.com/rx/ev/builds/1.0.8/pframe.html

Atlanta – Treating cancer means deciding whether to go with chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, or all or a combination of the above.

“It is very dependent on your particular cancer, and one thing I think the patients should just understand is that no cancer is the same,” says radiation oncologist Dr. Courtney Pollard with Peachtree Radiation Oncology Services, which contracts with Piedmont Healthcare.

Dr. Pollard says the cancer community is always looking for ways to do more with less.

“We’re always trying to make sure that we’re not over-treating folks, whether that be with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy,” Pollard says. “But, all 3 should be looked at as potentially areas where we can ‘de-escalate’. And we’re always trying to fine tune, to make sure we get a less treatment for the best outcomes.”

That is because the same treatment tools that are most effective at treating many cancers — chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy — can cause short term and long term negative side effects.

Chemotherapy can trigger pain, fatigue, nausea, anemia, weight changes and other side effects.

In patients with breast cancer or cancers in their chest, radiation therapy can target and destroy malignant cells, but it can also damage healthy heart tissue and blood vessels.

In some patients, that damage can raise the risk of heart disease down the road.

“But, I think it’s a little bit of a misnomer to say that radiation is either falling out favor with patients, or there’s a certain group of doctors that are advising against radiation, because radiation is still a necessary arm in many, many cancers,” Dr. Pollard says.

Breast cancer patients with early stage, lower risk cancers are typically offered breast-sparing surgery followed by radiation therapy and then 5 years of endocrine therapy, taking a daily pill to try to lower their risk of a recurrence.

But, in the LUMINA Study, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers found women age 55 and older with low risk luminal A breast cancer were able to safely skip radiation therapy after breast surgery, taking the hormone-blocking pill alone, with a low risk of recurrence at the 5-year-mark.

“Now, that’s a great result,” Dr. Pollard says. “It shows that we can de-escalate therapy for a certain type of low risk patient. Now, there’s many, many different types of breast cancer, and we have to be very careful with saying that this is going to be applicable to the wide population of breast cancer patients. But, that very specific subset, it looks like it might be beneficial.”

In their summary in the NEJM article, the study authors write, “Our study showed that women 55 years of age or older with T1N0, grade 1 or 2, luminal A breast cancer had a very low risk of local recurrence at 5 years after breast-conserving surgery when treated with endocrine therapy alone. The prospective and controlled nature of this study supports our conclusion that such patients are candidates for omission of radiotherapy.”

Dr. Pollard says the study, which followed nearly 500 women at 26 Canadian cancer centers, had some limitations.

“It’s a single-arm study,” he says. “So, they only looked at patients that received one sort of therapy. It was not a comparison trial.”

Navigating your cancer treatment options can be challenging.

If you’re newly diagnosed, Dr. Pollard says, find a cancer center that takes a multidisciplinary approach to deciding how to treat you.

Most academic and larger cancer centers have moved to a team approach to treating patients, he says, holding tumor boards that meet regularly to discuss each patient’s options.

“What that means is that patient who has a specific cancer is being evaluated by a doctor that prescribes chemotherapy, a surgeon that can remove their tumor, and a radiation oncologist who can radiate the tumor if it’s necessary,” Pollard explains. “Also, part of the discussion is many other folks: pathologists, diagnostic radiologists, geneticists, therapists. It’s a conglomerate to make a unified best decision for a patient.”

Yahoo! Life

Do I need to worry about sleeping with my phone next to my bed?

Kaitlin Reilly – October 4, 2023

We know that there can be impacts on your mental health if you scroll through your phone too much during the day. But could where you lay your phone to rest at night affect your health too?

There’s certainly chatter about how cellphones affect our health in general, especially when it comes to the potentially harmful effects of radiation. A July 2023 study published in the journal Cancersfound a positive if weak correlation between death from brain cancer and mobile phone usage. Shabbir Syed Abdul, co-author of the study, told VeryWell Health that “it is crucial to recognize that definitive conclusions cannot be made at this point.”

Should we be worried about radiation when sleeping by a phone?

Dr. Neha Narula, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, agrees that radiation isn’t something you should worry about when it comes to your phone, even if you are sleeping with your phone next to your bed — and head.

“At this time, there’s actually no evidence that supports that the radiation that is emitted from smartphones or tablets affects our health long-term,” Narula tells Yahoo Life, pointing out that the type of radiation emitted from cellphones and tablets is different from, say, the kind we see from X-rays, which we know can cause DNA damage.

“The radiation that comes off of cellphones is what we call ‘nonionizing,’” she says. “This type of radiation, which we see emitted from microwaves and smartphones and things like that, we have no concrete evidence at this time that shows that there are long-term effects or harmful effects on our health.” Of course, we have no concrete evidence that it is not harmful, either, as highlighted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer having classified it as a “possible human carcinogen.”

How using your phone affects sleep

While Narula says that there’s “not too much to be worried about in terms of radiation coming from a phone that’s next to you,” she adds that sleeping next to your phone can have a different kind of impact on your health. For one thing, you’re far more likely to use your phone close to bedtime if it’s right next to where you sleep, and “there has been so much evidence that shows people who do use their phones right before bed or in bed are more likely to have insufficient or poor quality sleep compared to those that kind of put their phones away an hour or two before bed.”

“Phones require a lot of manual control and an active mind to use them,” she says. “That provokes the sense of wakefulness and alertness, which is not ideal for when you are trying to wind down. Stimulation that comes from having a phone next to you, even if you use it for five minutes, you’re still in that active state of arousal, which can impact sleep.”

How light can can have an impact on sleep

Outside of the interaction with one’s phone, the light it emits can be a big problem. Light helps us maintain our circadian rhythm, which is our sleep-wake cycle. Humans, in general, have a 24-hour circadian rhythm, and the natural light coming from the sun helps stimulate feelings of alertness and arousal, which allows us to stay awake during the day. When evening comes, and the light goes down, so does our level of alertness. But smartphones, as well as TVs and tablets, emit light — and our brain can’t distinguish between it and the sun. That interferes with our melatonin production, which is the hormone that makes us feel tired.

“Melatonin levels are generally lower in people who use their phones during bedtime, which can impact our sleep quality, as well as our REM sleep, which is the stage of sleep that we dream — the state of sleep that helps us with emotions and processing memories,” Narula says. “A reduction in REM sleep can interfere with our alertness levels and increase stress in general, which can lead to physical and mental health issues.”

Not everyone needs to give up the phone by their bed

Dr. Rafael Pelayo, professor of sleep medicine at Stanford University and author of How to Sleep: The New Science-Based Solutions for Sleeping Through the Night, says that whether or not you should sleep with your phone next to your bed depends on your relationship with your phone. People with chronic insomnia, for example, may find that sleeping next to their phone increases hypervigilance during bedtime, meaning that they are all too aware of the things that will keep them awake — leading them to get less sleep overall. But the impact of having a phone near your bed can fluctuate with the circumstances of your life.

“If somebody were to tell you, ‘Hey, I may or may not call you at 3 a.m. to pick me up at the airport,’ you’re not going to sleep well that night because at any moment you may expect that phone call, even if it never comes. If the phone enhances that hyper-vigilance in you, then it’s going to disturb your sleep,” he says. “On the other hand, let’s say you live alone, and you worry somebody’s going to break in. Having a phone nearby may provide you a feeling of security. So it’s not the phone, per se, but what it represents to you.”