Sunday, August 29, 2010

©Brenda Coffee. All rights reserved.

Other than Minnie Mouse, I was the last one anybody expected to get breast cancer. I was the woman who did everything right: worked out at the gym five to six days a week, rarely ate fast foods, mostly chicken and vegetables, was a perfect size eight, drank in moderation, got my yearly mammograms, and more often than not, did my monthly self breast exams in the shower. It was during one of those monthly, soapy tours that I found the lump: Christmas Eve morning, 2003. With 14 people coming for Christmas Eve dinner, I tabled it in the back of my mind until the next day when I performed a slower, more detailed inspection. Both breasts were dense and usually contained several fibro cystic lumps, but my little voice said this one was different.

My 2004 New Year began with a mammogram. The doctors said everything was fine. Just one of my usual cysts that came and went. Nothing to worry about… but I did, at every opportunity. I looked for it in the shower, laying down, bending over, at the computer, through the silk robe I sometimes wore while putting on my makeup. The maddening thing about all of my searches was, more often than not, they turned into a game of hide and seek. Yep! I feel it! Oops… Now where did it go? While my pursuits couldn’t be classified as a hobby, I spent much of the next six months obsessed with trying to find “it.” All the while, my little voice told me all was not well with my breast.

In July 2004, I scheduled another mammogram. When my doctor called and said nothing’s changed, it’s fibro cystic, I told him I didn’t care what the mammograms said. I wanted it out. Three days later, my husband and my wife-in-law (James’s former wife) Joy, and I all trooped to the hospital. Joy and I even joked with the woman at the admitting desk about the surgeries from Hell you hear about on the news where the wrong leg is amputated. We laughed as I marked an “X” on my breast with a ballpoint pin to make sure the correct breast was biopsied.

The next thing I remember, James, Joy and my doctor were standing beside my bed. “It’s breast cancer,” my doctor said. I was still semi-stupefied from the anesthesia, and James and Joy stood expressionless, frozen in time like familiar figures in a wax museum. My doctor had a concerned expression as he gave me the news. “I told her it was fibro cystic,” he’d told his assistants in the operating room. Then he cut out the cyst, and there “it” was… hiding underneath. I’ve never asked Joy, but I now wonder whether her little voice told her she needed to be there for James: to help him pull himself together before they told me.

Fast-forward to September 2008, a checkup with my oncologist. “Go live your life,” he said. “I think you’re going to do great,” to which I responded, “Do you think I need one of those tests to see if I carry the breast cancer gene?” Since I had no family history of breast or ovarian cancer, his answer was no. And so I went home, and like a dog with a bone, I couldn’t leg it go. My little voice told me I needed a BRAC Analysis test, a simple blood test to determine if I carried a gene mutation that would increase my risk of developing breast cancer in the other breast.

The day I went for the test results, I asked James to come with me, because I knew the results before they told me. Sure enough. I was BRCA2 positive, which meant my odds of getting breast cancer in the other breast were something like 84%. Unlike my diagnosis of breast cancer, this news did not scare either one of us. James and I looked at each other and in unison said, “This is a no-brainer!” And so, I had the other breast removed, and thank you, God, we were able to beat breast cancer to the punch.

I believe we all have an inner voice. Some of us are more in tune with it than others, but whether you call it intuition, gut instinct, or the voice of God, it’s there if you know how to be still and listen. My voice is there as surely as I know the sun rises and sets each day. Are you in tune with your little voice? How much time do you spend in silence, each day? No radio, no TV, no iPod tethered to your ears. How do you expect to hear it if you’re not listening?

“Be still and know that I am God.”



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Sunday, August 22, 2010

©Brenda Coffee. All rights reserved.

I’ve always been inexplicably drawn to old churches in the small, hard to reach villages of Mexico. There’s something about the simplicity of these churches that projects a profound poignancy I’ve experienced nowhere else. Absent are the shiny brass offering plates, the leather songbooks full of hope, and in their place stands people resigned to life’s hardships, yet armed with a quiet strength to survive. I used to enter these churches with wonderment and awe, wanting to hear the voice of God or to find some tangible sign God had left for me.

I loved to sit in the confessionals where musty secrets and clandestine sins still hung in the air like death and broken dreams. Countless times I’ve sat on well-worn wooden seats, my fingers rubbing the same edges where centuries of hands before me had asked for atonement and waited for forgiveness. But after a while, I always got up and left. The blatant signs I was looking for weren’t there, plus I didn’t know what to pray or how to ask for them.

Sometimes I used to watch televangelists like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and wonder who’d I’d be if I let them bring God into my life. Would I speak in tongues? Would I wear my hair differently? Would I throw my arms in the air when I talked about God and Jesus, and who was God and Jesus anyway, and why did I need them in my life? Frankly, those people on television scared me. They were alien and foreign from anyone else I knew, and so I retreated further into my Godless stance, putting up walls as though giving my soul to Jesus was like surrendering to the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I now realize I was missing the point. There’s no one “type” of person who believes in God, plus He has made me a better version of myself. I now know what everyone is looking for, that inner piece or inner meaning that is lacking from our lives. I now believe we’ve been designed like an intricate lock on a special door to which only God holds the key.

I’m sad when I hear people say they don’t think God or religion is relevant to their lives. Trust me, I understand. Until 10 years ago, well before breast cancer, I felt the same way. Like a battery winding down, life inherently robs us of our power and our balance, but it’s not a mystery how to find them. We don’t have to go off by ourselves to India in search of a mystic guru. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we’ve always had the power. We just have to say, “Hello, God. I don’t know how to pray, but I want to begin a dialog with you. I need your help. I need your strength.” The rest will come if you open your heart; open your mind. Don’t be afraid of what you’ll find if you open yourself up to Him. Nothing is worse than not finding the one key that unlocks your soul. When we close ourselves off to the possibilities of God, we close ourselves off to all of the possibilities of who we can become and who we will be for eternity.

I have no doubt, there is a God, and He hears our prayers. While He may not answer all our prayers like we want Him to, He hears us. I don’t believe He micromanages our lives either, granting answers for some and nothing for others. I have an Internet friend who’s miscarried three times in the last year, and it would be so easy for her to say, “Why has God let this happen?” While this has rocked her world, I know she will find her footing with God. I also know not everyone is a believer, but regardless, I pray you think about God and the role He plays in your life.

In the Bible, the book of James, chapter 4, and verse 8 says: “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you.” Like me, in the beginning, you may feel awkward and unsure, like sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, naked and exposed. He is more than God, however. He is your Father and your creator. He has seen you at your best and your worst, and He still loves you. Talk to Him, even if you’re not sure how. He wants to hear from you.



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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Original theatrical poster by Reynold Brown.

A number of people have asked me why I started BreastCancerSisterhood.com. It began in my friend and family physician’s kitchen while I was still taking chemo. I’d already learned, the hard way, there were many things even the best cancer treatment facilities forget to tell their patients, plus there was little to no support for husbands and children. As a result, I wanted to give newly diagnosed breast cancer patients products like cuticle cream, eye drops, soft tooth brushes and skin cream that would enable them to get through chemo without the problems associated with treatment like painfully dry eyes and bleeding gums, or like my friend who died from a staph infection, not breast cancer, because she cut her cuticles during chemo. That evening in Doctor Jim Martin’s kitchen, we named my idea “Brenda’s Baskets.”

Just the thought of giving a basket of products to all the newly diagnosed women in San Antonio was overwhelming, not to mention prohibitively expensive, so I met with women who chaired successful nonprofits as well as some of the women who’d brought the Komen affiliate to San Antonio. After months of meetings I was told there were already too many nonprofits with auctions, galas, rides and runs, plus I’d be lucky if I netted 10% from such an event. I was told I’d spend all of my time begging for funding, leaving little time to accomplish my mission of empowering women and families with basic, yet often neglected life-saving information.

Discouraged, I decided to raise money and start a media company to produce online, television and print content for newly diagnosed patients, survivors, husbands/caregivers, children and teens and make them available to everyone over the Internet. I know what cancer families need: I’ve been the child of a parent who died of cancer; caregiver to a husband who died of cancer, and now, I am the cancer Survivor. In addition I am a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a business woman. More than anything, however, I felt like God had opened a door with my name on it. This was what I was supposed to do. The Breast Cancer Sisterhood was my mission.

I took my revamped business plan to a man who’d been a Wall Street corporate raider and had made several fortunes buying companies, breaking them apart and selling them off in pieces. After I’d given him my elevator pitch—he had a short attention span—he looked at me like I’d just tracked dog poop into his office and said, “What’s wrong with you people? I’m sick and tired of hearing about breast cancer. I don’t care about breast cancer! I care about prostate cancer. What are you doing about prostate cancer?” I gave him my best game face,  swallowed what I really wanted to say and replied, “I have my hands full with breast cancer, but perhaps you’d like to do something about prostate cancer.”

The next man I talked to bellowed, “Breast cancer! There’s nothing sexy about breast cancer! I know 10 other men in this town worth over $100 million each, and they wouldn’t be interested either. We like to go out on the golf course and brag about our investments to our buddies. ‘Hey! Let me tell you about this great new high tech company. I got in on the ground floor.’ None of us want to say, ‘Let me tell you about this breast cancer company I invested in.’ Besides, we already give to Komen.” Unfortunately, these guys were the norm, not the exception.

That’s when the proverbial rubber met the road: I could wait until the stars and moon aligned themselves with the battered American economy, hopefully opening up more players, or I could do the BreastCancerSisterhood.com myself, and so I did.

I’m doing what I feel I’ve been called to do, and I’m doing it in the best way I know how. I hear from many of you, and I know you’re also doing what you’ve been called to do whether that’s loving one another, raising your children, loving God, blogging about breast cancer, looking for the cure, caring for patients or finding your way out of chemo brain.

Maybe I’m in a militant mood, but I think cancer needs to be attacked by the 50 Foot-Women. Fortunately there’s lots of women out there like Nancy Brinker and all the Komen affiliates and groups like the Mamma Jamma Ride in Austin, Texas. And let’s not forget Hollywood’s movers and shakers—Laura Ziskin, Sherry Lansing, Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz—who started the awesome StandUp2Cancer to bring the best cutting edge researchers together to find a cure for all types of cancers. September 10th, check out StandUp2Cancer's second celebrity-packed, music telethon on ABC, NBC and CBS. These are truly women who are 50 feet tall!

So if you’ve got a pocket full of money, but you don’t think there’s anything sexy about breast cancer, I’m praying one of these powerful women picks you up, and like King Kong, holds you in the palm of her hand and shakes some of those reluctant dollars out of your pockets. Then tell me breast cancer’s not sexy!! I’m feeling kind of foxy just thinking about it.




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Sunday, August 08, 2010

©Brenda Coffee. All rights reserved.

This week I called my friend, Susan Pollack, only to learn she died a few days earlier. Her husband was audibly grief-stricken. Stunned, and not wanting to invade this private time, I simply told him I loved her. He said, “I loved her, too. She was everything.”

I am devastated, like everyone is who loved and knew Susan Pollack far better than I did. Susan made it easy for you to forget she was living with metastatic breast cancer, that she’d taken chemo for 14 years, repeatedly responding to new chemos when the old ones stopped working. “As long as my doctor’s not worried, I’m not worried,” she would say. The last time we spoke, she was doing well. What I didn’t tell her husband was that I feel guilty, not knowing she was so close to the end; that I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye, or that for the last two weeks my “little voice” has been telling me to call her, but I didn’t. Not until now. Not until it was too late.

Susan and I met two years ago when she volunteered for a BreastCancerSisterhood.com makeover at Lancôme’s Upper West Side boutique in New York City. From the moment we began talking, I knew she was an extraordinary woman, and from that day on, Susan Pollack and I were friends. After her makeover, Susan and I began to email, and then call one another every few months. Susan was first diagnosed with breast cancer 25 years ago, and her only goal was to see her daughter, Jane, grownup, and she did that and more.

For 12 years, Susan was cancer free, but when given the news breast cancer had returned, she persevered with grace and lived life with kindness and a smile and never once asked, “Why me?” She played bridge and sometimes volunteered at SHARE, a survivors’ resource in New York City that counsels and supports breast and ovarian cancer survivors. She gave hope and inspiration to all who knew her. Words like that are usually said at funerals, tossed about freely like excess crumbs to a flock of hungry birds, but every syllable was true about Susan Pollack. She personified the qualities that make us pleasing in God’s eyes.

Today, one of Susan’s cousins sent me an email. She wrote:

The day we filmed her makeover at Lancôme was special for all of us. When Susan saw herself in the mirror and, for the first time in 14 years, gave a nod of recognition to the woman she remembered who had hair, eyelashes, eyebrows and a cancer free sparkle in her eyes, everyone, including the cameramen, welled up with tears. Susan beamed from the inside out. Sandy Linter, the iconic and beautiful makeup artist, used to working with A-list top models, photographers and Hollywood stars, asked Susan to get up, turn around and “walk down the runway.” “You’re beautiful,” Sandy told her, and Susan was. Looking back, we should have had a limousine pick her up and whisk her through traffic, stopping along the way to show her new look to the women at SHARE, and then join them all for lunch at some chi-chi New York eatery.

Sue Pollack was a brave, gracious and precious friend. The ultimate role model for how to be a SURVIVOR. That first day we met, I asked her how she dealt with Stage IV breast cancer for so many years, dealing with lymphedema everyday, infections and hospitalizations. She responded, matter of factly, like it was no big deal. “I chose to live a life.” But it was a big deal. Could I do that? Could you? Are you?

Why didn’t I listen to my little voice? How long would a phone call have taken? It’s not like I wouldn’t have known what to say to her. Susan and I always ended each conversation with “I love you,” but somehow, that doesn’t seem enough now, but I do, you know… I love you, Susan.

To read more about Susan Pollack and “We Are Cancer Survivors, Not Cancer Victims.” To see some of Susan Pollack & Sandy Linter’s makeover videos go to “SURVIVORS” and “SELF-IMAGE” on BreastCancerSisterhood.com' HOME PAGE or visit BreastCancerSisterhood’s YouTube page.




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Monday, August 02, 2010

©Brenda Coffee  All rights reserved.

One of the biggest side effects of breast cancer treatment is fatigue. I don’t mean you’re going to be tired. I mean it’s the “I can’t even crawl across the room” kind of fatigue, which makes me wonder, who’s the goose who named it “fatigue?” I would have called it catastrophic exhaustion!

Fatigue is something that gradually develops over the course of chemo and/or radiation and is cumulative, which means the fatigue you experience early in treatment may differ from the catastrophic exhaustion you feel on the last day of treatment. Here’s hoping you’re Wonder Woman, and you can just shake those power cuffs in the air and fly through your day. If you can, please bottle it, sell it, and make a bloomin’ fortune. If not, you may need a little help.

Believe it or not, exercise helps fight fatigue, plus it’s one of the needed components for a healthy immune system. Yes, there will be days you don’t feel like doing anything and days you want to conserve your energy, but try and do a little something each day. If you don’t exercise at all during treatment, you may find it more difficult to resume normal activities when treatment is over. Exercise promotes lymphatic drainage, thereby helping your body rid itself of unwanted toxins and fluids; it relieves depression, reduces stress and rids the body of excess estrogens. IMPORTANT NOTE: For all of us whose breast cancer was estrogen positive, we need to make exercise a permanent part of our daily routine.

During treatment you may not be able to keep your normal schedule, so don’t push it. Listen to your body. There are days you may not feel like getting out of bed, and that’s okay. Sometimes it may help to conserve your energy if you’re planning to attend something important, or you might want to drop in only for a little while. Then there are other times, it won’t matter how much you’ve rested and stayed in bed, you’ll still feel like you’ve been hit by a gravel truck, and that’s normal, too.

One of those zero-energy occasions for me was Monica’s wedding, the wonderful friend who runs my husband’s office. James was walking her down the aisle, and I’d been looking forward to her wedding for months. When the big day arrived, I waited until the last possible minute to get ready, thinking I would conserve my energy all day, but I never even made it to the shower.

Usually my body didn’t give me any advance warning it was about to run out of energy. One of the few days I ventured to the grocery store during chemo, I was halfway down the first aisle when my energy ran out. I don’t mean I was just tired. My energy well was dryer than the Sahara Desert, and I was worried how I was going to get out of the store without crawling on my hands and knees (never mind paying for my things at the checkout counter) make it to the car and drive home. If this happens to you, don’t panic. Stay focused, ask for help if you need it, and know you will be fine. This, too, shall pass.

Sometimes I was so tired and out of energy, I was afraid to go to sleep for fear I wouldn’t wake-up. Seriously. If you’d told me I was about to take my last breath, I would have nodded in agreement. Each time, I’d ask James to lie down beside me and hold my hand, because I didn’t want to “go” alone. Each time, he reminded me this had happened before, and just like the other times, I was going to be fine, and he was right.

On another note, when I was 10, every afternoon the lady who lived across the street used to pay me to bring her bottles of Pepsi from the store. Her idea of exercise was pushing a rolling pin across her thighs while watching The Price is Right. I can only imagine how she’d exercise if she had breast cancer fatigue.



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Sunday, July 25, 2010

©Brenda Coffee  All rights reserved.

I’m taking a slight departure from my regular breast cancer blog, because our son is leaving for law school this week. I say “our” son, when in fact he’s my stepson, but my heart doesn’t know that. Last week I was telling someone about Kirk’s leaving, and my eyes filled with tears. My voice caught in the back of my throat, and I had to stop. Other than my relationship with God, few things make me cry and you, dear Kirk, are one of them.

I remember when I first met you: You were 10, bright-eyed, eager and excited about everything and even then, like your Father, family was everything to you. I feel like you have given me far more than I’ve given you, and I thank you. Those years of knowing what’s it’s like to host sleepovers, cheer you on at Little League games and our talks in the kitchen after school... You took me along, with your infectious grin and loving heart, to baseball games and ski slopes and just past “GO” on Park Place.

In no time you started college and then one day, came home and said you’d joined the Army. Like your Grandpa and your Father before you, who volunteered during their wars, we shouldn’t have been too surprised, but it was a scary time for all of us. Even you. Once again America was at war, and all of us were aware that more than likely, you’d find your way to Iraq, Bosnia or Afghanistan. The day you graduated from basic training was an electric moment for us, like my diagnosis of breast cancer. It was real. You were a soldier, and there was no turning back.

Your Company was a hundred strong, and we heard your voices that day before we saw you. “I don’t know, but I’ve been told. My DI’s heart is made of gold.” Your polished boots hit the pavement in unison, keeping time to a singsong cadence repeated by generations of soldiers before you. “Sound off. Sound off. One, two, three, four. Three four.”

Your Mom and Dad and I watched as the top of the American flag crested the hill in the distance. One by one, rows of nearly identical-looking soldiers came into view. Eyes forward, slim caps tilted at the same angle, trench coats buttoned and belted for warmth and freshly creased dress pants, all in the time-honored shade of Army green. The shortest led the march, while rows and rows of soldiers of ever-increasing height magically unfolded out of the cold mist.

I stood on the curb behind your Mom, my hands on her shoulders, as we searched a sea of determined faces chiseled by basic training, lack of sleep, relentless drill sergeants and hand-to-hand combat training. The Army turns pimple-faced youths into killing machines, and they were marching toward us in unison.

It had been three months since we’d seen you, and it was hard for us to control our emotions. Finally, on the outside back row, I saw your silhouette. Later you said you’d picked my shearling coat out of the crowd. The same coat I’d worn when we huddled together in the back of a darkened shuttle bus in Jackson Hole, drinking Baileys Irish Cream from the bottle. Like truant children, we scrunched down low, passing the paper bag back and forth, imagining lurid headlines like “Woman Leads 15-Year-Old Stepson Astray.” Now as you marched over the hill, I felt like I was the child, and you were the adult. My eyes filled with tears, and I whispered in your Mother’s ear, “He looks like a man.” Your eyes caught mine and for a moment, I thought you might cry, too.

Yes, you went to Bosnia and Afghanistan, serving with a multi-national Special Forces unit, but God brought you home safely. You are still bright-eyed, eager and excited about everything, and still value family, God and country. Those are the qualities I love about you, and they are the qualities that will see you through law school and all the days of your life. I love you, sweet man, and rejoice at the man you have become. I’m so proud of you.



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Sunday, July 18, 2010

©Brenda Coffee  All rights reserved.

When I was in my early twenties, I visited New York City for the first time and found myself in front of the famed Plaza Hotel, home to Eloise, the fictional 6-year-old girl who lived at The Plaza and who drove both employees and celebrated guests crazy. As I walked through the lobby, I decided to stop at the Palm Court, where “Afternoon Tea” is a daily tradition.

Seated under an enormous stained-glass ceiling, I sipped tea, dined on cucumber sandwiches and tried not to eavesdrop on Yoko Ono and her friend, while a nearby string quartet played Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. That day I learned Afternoon Tea is a great way to take time out from our busy schedules, get centered and focus on something other than ourselves. If you’ve had breast cancer and want to prevent recurrence, or prevent breast cancer in the first place, you might consider developing your own tradition of Afternoon Tea. Taking time to connect with yourself, or disconnect, is good for your immune system, plus it strengthens your mind-body connection.

For starters, let talk about what kind of tea to drink and why: Instead of the traditional, Earl Gray, it may be more beneficial to drink green tea, preferably decaffeinated, and organically certified, Chinese green tea. While several studies have shown some of the chemicals in green tea have antioxidant properties that could be a powerful weapon in our fight against breast cancer, other studies are not as conclusive. I don’t know about you, but as long as decaff green tea doesn’t do me any harm, taking time to relax, listen to music, sit back and close my eyes, or read a few chapters in a good book, is a welcome daily practice. Since many of the teas grown in China have been sprayed with unsafe levels of pesticides, organically certified teas are the only way to be sure your tea is safe to drink.

TO MAKE GREAT TEA:
Bring water—the better the water, the better the tea—to a boil in a non-reactive tea kettle. Pre-heat your ceramic or porcelain tea pot, or cup, with some of the boiling water and let stand until the vessel is warm, then pour out the water. Simultaneously, turn off the heat under the tea kettle and let the water cool for 60 seconds before pouring it over the tea. If using tea bags, add one per cup. Some people cover their tea pot or cup with a tea cozy to retain warmth. Let the tea steep for a minute or two, then taste frequently, taking care not to leave the tea bag in too long or your tea may become bitter.

Serve with lemon slices, but skip the milk, clotted cream and substitute honey for sugar. Make your favorite zucchini bread or blueberry muffins. If you don’t eat white flour, try substituting whole-wheat flour, or spelt, along with applesauce or honey for sugar.

As I write this, I’m drinking a new organic, decaff green tea from Whole Foods and thinking about Yoko Ono and her unique, sometimes wacky sense of fashion. That day at the Palm Court, she had on a gentlemen’s Victorian top hat, with a purple veil that wrapped around the crown and dipped down across one side of her face. For those of you who don’t know, or don’t remember, Yoko Ono is an artist, musician and widow of former Beatle, John Lennon. As I sit here, I’m listening to John Lennon’s iconic song, Imagine, and adding a new line of my own:

“Imagine there’s no cancer (sic). It’s easy if you try. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”

Listen to John Lennon’s voice and imagine… Play song from iLike.com




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Sunday, July 11, 2010

©Brenda Coffee. All rights reserved.

Anyone who pays moderate attention to the news knows there are certain risk factors, like family history, that skyrockets our risk of getting breast cancer and our ability to control it. We also hear about certain “controllable” risk factors; simple changes in our daily lives that could lower our risk of breast cancer or our risk of recurrence. What if one of those changes entailed giving up all dairy products? Did you know that according to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, over 70% of the world’s population is unable to digest the milk sugar, lactose, after infancy? http://bit.ly/beqodR What if Mother Nature is trying to tell us dairy is not a food we should eat? Milk’s great for baby cows, but what if it’s not good for man?

There’s a lot of information about the suspected link between milk and breast cancer. The science behind this link ranges from hideous stories of puss-filled cow udders, nutritionally perfect for only one purpose—feeding calves—to studies that say milk is the great savior of brittle bones, weak hearts and cancer cells gone wild. Notice I said the “science behind,” because whenever we read about a “study” or a “suspected link,” we need to see who conducted the study, as well as who paid for it.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a recent study done by nutritionist, Connie Weaver, head of food and nutrition at Purdue University, says “anything less than three glasses of milk a day, and you won’t get all of the nutrients you need.” http://bit.ly/b0lii0 While most of her funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, she is also supported by the National Dairy Council. On the other side of the science surrounding milk, PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says “cow’s milk is a nutritional nightmare that doesn’t belong in the human diet.” “Gross” and “bizarre” are words they use to describe the human practice of tugging at the udders of slow-moving livestock in order to benefit from the bodily fluids they secrete. Even Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health says of milk, “the benefits are unclear, and there may be some risk.”

Breast milk, whether it comes from humans or other mammals, contains all of the natural growth factors, hormones, infections, antibiotics, additional drugs, chemicals and pesticides in which mammals come in contact. Some studies say milk causes the body to produce mucus, and cancer feeds on mucus, and therefore, by eliminating dairy products, we starve cancer cells. However, according to breastcancer.org, “a dairy-free diet is not a miracle cure.”

As long as we’re talking about studies, there’s been a lot of hoo-ha about T. Colin Campbell, PhD’s book, The China Study, a massive study of the relationship between diet and disease in over 100 Chinese villages. http://bit.ly/btvUqe The Chinese don’t eat dairy, and their breast cancer rates are very low. Breast cancer is considered the “rich woman’s disease” because only rich women, who can afford to eat a western diet high in red meat and dairy, get breast cancer, but is that really a link between dairy and breast cancer? If you look further into the China Study, only three out of the 65 counties studied consumed any noteworthy amount of dairy. In addition, they weren’t eating the hormone and antibiotic-laden cows we find in most Western cows. This could mean drawing any conclusions from the China Study is a narrow and tricky path to walk.

Since the science is still out on the link between dairy and breast cancer, you must decide this issue for yourself. My oncologist says “everything in moderation, including moderation,” so an occasional dish of ice cream or a great cheese won’t kill you. Personally, I gave up dairy and use almond milk as a milk alternative. Yes, I know, I recently wrote that nobody really knows whether almonds are a good or a bad phytoestrogen food. http://bit.ly/bky79s Trying to map out the “whys” behind the “dos” and “don’ts” surrounding breast cancer is like trying to find your way out of a Harry Potter maze. What do you have in your “Goblet of Fire?” Got dairy?

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Sunday, July 04, 2010


Have you ever noticed sometimes Mother Nature plays cruel tricks on us? You and your spouse take a trip to that romantic island you’ve always wanted to visit only to discover, at the most intimate of moments, you have vaginal dryness and intercourse is painful. You are not alone. Over half of all women over 40 suffer from vaginal dryness, and more than likely, it may be due to lack of estrogen.

Many women experience loss of estrogen well before menopause, others after a hysterectomy. A drop in hormone levels also occurs if you’ve undergone treatment for estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer. I can’t think of a single side effect of low estrogen that isn’t just plain rude and frustrating, and trust me… I’ve experienced them all. The one that bothers me most, however, is vaginal dryness. Physicians call it sexual dysfunction, but simply put, it is pain during intercourse due to vaginal dryness. So what do you do? Doctors are not always comfortable discussing this subject, and perhaps you’re shy about asking. Once again, I am your trusty lab rat.

Cosmetics companies are always telling women to “moisturize.” That doesn’t apply just to our face and hands. With age and lack of hormones our vaginal tissues become thin and dry. They no longer “self moisturize,” or lubricate with arousal, and need a little help to keep intercourse from being painful. As a result of intense pain, many women look for ways to avoid sex. That isn’t good for your marriage, or your immune system. A study by endocrinologist, Dr. Winifred Cutler, at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, showed those who have sex once or twice a week showed 30% higher levels of immunoglobulin A, an antibody which is known to boost the immune system. Fortunately, there are a number of products on the market to soften and moisten vaginal tissues, but if you’ve had estrogen positive breast cancer, none of them may be the perfect solution.

While most of the following suggestions take a few weeks to see results, they are well worth the wait. Start by drinking eight large glasses of water a day followed by eating a balanced, healthy diet. Many women who eat a low-fat, high-carb diet don’t get the nutrients needed to make enough estrogen for vaginal lubrication. If, however, your breast cancer was estrogen positive, you want to avoid foods containing phytoestrogens like soy and flax.

For some women, Vitamin E oil works relatively well and for others, personal lubricants bring immediate relief. I have tried them all and Replens Long-Lasting Vaginal Moisturizer Applicators, Replens Long-Lasting Liquid and Wet Naturals Barely Bare (there are many Wet Naturals, but use only Barely Bare) work best for me. All are water-based, which means the products are not sticky and gooey, and are paraben and estrogen free, which is important for me to avoid since my breast cancer was estrogen positive. Our bodies turn parabens—methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben and butylparaben—into estrogen. Start reading labels and avoid products containing parabens. Some personal lubricants, like K-Y and Vaseline may be your tried and true favorites, but can cause unwanted friction, which can lead to more pain. Replens applicators and liquid and Wet Naturals Barely Bare may be a little harder to find than other alternatives, but you can purchase them at the RETAIL THERAPY store on BreastCancerSisterhood.com. http://www.breastcancersisterhood.com/retailtherapy.htm

For best results, insert one Replens Long-Lasing Moisturizer Applicator before sex—the earlier the better—in order to give the moisturizer a chance to soften your vaginal tissues. The instructions say the moisture lasts for up to three days, but at that, I was still having painful intercourse. A female gynecologist told me to use a Replens applicator everyday, whether I was having sex or not, to keep the tissues moisturized. Also inserting the applicator at night gives tissues the chance to absorb the moisture without trickling out and wetting your clothes like it does if you insert one in the morning.

While the right lubricant does makes a difference, intercourse may still be painful. If this is the case you might want to pour, yes, I said pour, the lubricant directly into your vagina. Do not be shy about adding more as you go along, and make sure your partner stays well lubricated as well. If you find intercourse is still painful, certain sexual positions are better than others. Experiment.

Regular sexual activity has been shown to improve vaginal atrophy by stimulating blood flow to the area. If you have vaginal dryness and haven’t had estrogen positive breast cancer, ask your doctor about low-dose vaginal estrogen tablets, the vaginal ring or the cream. Also, there has been a lot of talk in the last few years about bioidentical hormones, but that is a lengthy discussion for another day. Bottom line, since my breast cancer was estrogen positive, I don’t want to ingest, rub or look at ANY form of estrogen.



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Sunday, June 27, 2010

©Brenda Coffee. All rights reserved.

When I was 21, my late husband told me, “This is my train, and you’re welcome to ride it.  If at anytime you don’t like the destination, you’re free to get off, but overall, you won’t find a better ride anywhere.”  As I think back on his statement, I realize it was selfish, egotistical and often ignored what was in my best interest.  If I’d been the tour director, instead of the passenger, we would have traveled a different route.  Although I was offered a choice of stops along the way, the decision to stay on board, or get off, was always mine. 

 

Much of the time we traveled the world in search of places where no one spoke English, you couldn’t get a cheeseburger, and a room for the night was a hammock with a skinned squirrel overhead that dripped blood onto our foreheads.  He was a natural born teacher, and I was his Eliza Doolittle, encouraged to become a mixture of Barbarella, Margaret Thatcher and Sally Ride.  In many ways, that journey has served me well, plus I’ve realized he was right, and wrong, about a great many things.

 

Recently I was interviewed by a young reporter, and one of her questions was what advice would I give to my 21-year-old self?  Thinking about that young woman, who was often a passenger on someone else’s train, my answers were “don’t be afraid to say no,” “listen to your little voice,” “don’t be afraid to try something new,” and “what are you waiting for?”  I believe those are sage words of wisdom, regardless of our age, but particularly if we hear a clock ticking somewhere in the back of our mind. 

 

Everyone’s clock is driven by different things: money, ego, God, age, love, sex, health, and ultimately, death.  What if, when we’re nearing the end of our lives, we realize we’ve spent our time worrying about the wrong things and missed all that was right about our lives?  What if we’ve spent our time worrying about when, and if, breast cancer will return?  Isn’t that focusing on dying instead of living, and if that is true, then we’re not really living.  We’re simply marking time like a prisoner in a cell; only our cell is a self-imposed prison.  The question then becomes, how do we get off the train we’re on and change destinations, or change our way of thinking and acting so it becomes an acceptable destination?  Better yet, what happens to us, to those who love us, if we don’t do anything but stay on the same train that's already departed?

 

One thing I’ve learned from life is we should all be conductors of our own train.  While our decision to stay, or get off, should also be determined by what’s in the best interest of those around us, and not just ourselves, we should still “listen to our little voice,” “don’t be afraid to try new things, and don’t be afraid to say no.”  That brings us to the only other piece of advice I would give my younger self.  “What are you waiting for?”

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