Lymphedema Treatment Act

Got an email that Breast Cancer Action's free webinar on the Lymphedema Treatment Act is this Wednesday.  I think you just go to their website tonight and sign on.

I can't sit still for webinars, but will try to forward notes on free ones...

I wish you health.

PREDIABETES-- PEOPLE ASK HOW I ESCAPED

Yesterday morning I was checking out of the oncologist's office.  Someone at the desk asked me how I was.  Just felt like telling them what I'd told the doctor:  I am no longer in danger of diabetes.  One of them asked, "What did you do?."  Told her I had lost weight.

So of course one asked, "How did you do it?"  So I told them some things about my food, like:

1. Almost no sugar, including no more than one or less Lara Bars, (My former basic food group.)
  No processed sugar.  (But also not much fruit sugar like Lara bars.) Not much of any kind of sugar. Read every label.  Read it again.  If it has sugar, the sugar must be near the end.

2. Breakfast:Forgot to tell them I cook real, plain oats every day and add half a cup of frozen blueberries.  Of course, I only add 2/3 of a teaspoon of sugar to the oats, but why scare them?

3. More Grains: Carefully (usually) Actually, I think I eat all day, but I lost 5 pounds in six months between onco visits.  Because of just what my former primary doc said: No processed sugar and NO
processed flour (so nothing white. No more beloved Croissants.) Multi grain bagels and Ten-Grain sandwich bread, best dipped in olive oil as restaurants do, or with my favorite roasted red pepper hummus.

4. Protein.  I buy a nice salmon portion three times a month.  Scrambled eggs, Little tuna packs, Avocado has protein, Beef 3 times a month.  Cheese (trying not to gorge on it.)  I get a hot whole chicken at the favorite market, and take off most of the skin (it sometimes has sugar in the spices.) Put that in recipes or eat hot one day, in salad the next.  Gotta get back into using slightly spicy greens.

5.  Spinach salad, leaf lettuce, tiny cut carrots, peas and more peas.  And I like Italian green beans.

6.  Eating out:  Thank goodness Starbucks has a multi-grain bagel.  It may have some white flower hidden, but the grains keep things healthy. Also, favorite Greek restaurant puts gyros meat on a salad. Going to bring home some tzatziki from the market. I could eat both every day.  Probably.

7.  I do drink coffee.  Comforts me in place of sweets.  Also, I have GERD, so I don't eat a lot of tomato, lemon, or Texas spices.

Then I told them about my two seasons with the outpatient PT nearby, and how they improved my balance so I can go down stairs without panic...

Short version:  When I cut sugar drastically, I got

THE CALL WE ALL WANT:

You are no longer in danger of diabetes.  

PS  I am already 5 pounds thinner than my goal, and I don't try to lose more weight.  The object of my eating is to keep eating well, and stay OFF that prediabetic list.  

I am still in danger of cancer recurrence if I don't keep up my exercise.

I wish you health.  

"Should Patients Record Doctors’ Visits?"

"Should Patients Record Doctors’ Visits?" Interesting @wsj #oped from UCSF's @Gurpreet2015 http://bit.ly/1Vtnn41 

Clapping so loudly for this doctor's blog makes it hard to type.  Please read his blog for Wall Street Journal.  A great idea for patients with limited English.

In fact, I don't see why in some cases, the hospital or practice couldn't provide the phone or send the proceedings to the pt's phone as printed message.  What do you think?  Do you record Dr. visits ever? (I know you would never do that without permission.)  Except with certain ... doctors.

My only reservation might be that two of my doctors are really "my doctor who talks to me like a friend," and I don't want to disrupt that conversation/connection.

I wish you health.

Time without advancing cancer for any who can afford the price of a very good used car every month

•  

  Breast cancer drug increases survival  Dr. Greg Wilson on Twitter

  By James GallagherHealth editor, BBC News website in Chicago
  
  

    palbociclib   PALOMA-2:  

The article is easy to read, and worth a read in spite of the pie-in-sky prices making the drug  unreachable for most.

• 
  

BC: $ for lymphedema treatment

Act: The Lymphedema Treatment Act

Breast Cancer Action San Francisco will be having a webinar on this act.  I haven't had a chance to contact them about whether anyone can get the webinar or (my favorite thing) a recording of it to consult later.

I wish you health.

Call Toll Free1.877.2.STOPBC

• [F] 415.243.3996

[E] info@bcaction.org

CANCER - Making your own immunity? And a big clinical trial note

If you're not on Twitter, or missed it today, Sloan-Kettering had a simplified slide show you might enjoy:

"Not sure what Car T cell therapy is?  Watch and learn ..."

Just takes a coffee-break minute to watch.  If you find it too simplified, leave it on screen for somebody ...

This is not the first time I've heard of taking substances out of our bodies and putting them back in. We can inject a patient's own plasma-rich platelets for healing and for pain.
.
But Car T therapy is more than that.   Good visuals.

If you're not on Twitter, I also did find this by Googling

for more, see Sloan Kettering  "Karen's Story."

and PS:  MSK, in a press release/public info page said:

• "We’re currently running nearly 100 immunotherapy-focused clinical trials."

https://www.mskcc.org/event/car-t-cell

I wish you health.