Ovarian Cancer Quotes

Although a male physician could quite easily, and convincingly, assert that ovarian cancer was “silent,” if you were to really listen to women who have had ovarian cancer speak, you’d find that it wasn’t so much that the disease process was silent—but that they were. Conditions that seem to lurk unnoticed in a woman’s body go unnoticed by others because, for one thing, they are an assumed part of womanhood, and, for another, women are taught to keep those pains private. I’ve often found it curious that when a woman is suffering, her competence is questioned, but when a man is suffering, he’s humanized. It’s a gender stereotype that hurts both men and women, though it lends itself to the question of why there is a proclivity in health care, and in society, to deny female pain.

If a relative has suffered Ovarian or Breast Cancer, get the genetic screening. It saves lives.

The findings indicate that having higher levels of PTSD symptoms, such as being easily startled by ordinary noises or avoiding reminders of the traumatic experience, can be associated with increased risks of ovarian cancer even decades after women experience a traumatic event.” The more severe the trauma symptoms, the more aggressive the cancer proved to be.

There’s a macabre medical maxim that says that the good people get the worst diseases. If a person is generous of spirit and comes in with a nagging abdominal discomfort the week after she runs a marathon, we’ll discover she has stage-four ovarian cancer. The racist pedophile who drowns kittens on Sundays survives being struck by lightning and lung cancer as he chain-smokes into his nineties.

Gene patents are the point of greatest concern in the debate over ownership of human biological materials, and how that ownership might interfere with science. As of 2005—the most recent year figures were available—the U.S. government had issued patents relating to the use of about 20 percent of known human genes, including genes for Alzheimer’s, asthma, colon cancer, and, most famously, breast cancer. This means pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and universities control what research can be done on those genes, and how much resulting therapies and diagnostic tests will cost. And some enforce their patents aggressively: Myriad Genetics, which holds the patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes responsible for most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, charges $3,000 to test for the genes. Myriad has been accused of creating a monopoly, since no one else can offer the test, and researchers can’t develop cheaper tests or new therapies without getting permission from Myriad and paying steep licensing fees. Scientists who’ve gone ahead with research involving the breast-cancer genes without Myriad’s permission have found themselves on the receiving end of cease-and-desist letters and threats of litigation.

In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins won the Nobel Prize for their discovery. Franklin was not included in the prize. She had died in 1958, at the age of thirty-seven, from diffusely metastatic ovarian cancer-an illness ultimately linked to mutations in genes.

The Human Genome Project, the full sequence of the normal human genome, was completed in 2003. In its wake comes a far less publicized but vastly more complex project: fully sequencing the genomes of several human cancer cells. Once completed, this effort, called the Cancer Genome Atlas, will dwarf the Human Genome Project in its scope. The sequencing effort involves dozens of teams of researchers across the world. The initial list of cancers to be sequenced includes brain, lung, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer. The Human Genome Project will provide the normal genome, against which cancer’s abnormal genome can be juxtaposed and contrasted. The result, as Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project describes it, will be a “colossal atlas” of cancer—a compendium of every gene mutated in the most common forms of cancer: “When applied to the 50 most common types of cancer, this effort could ultimately prove to be the equivalent of more than 10,000 Human Genome Projects in terms of the sheer volume of DNA to be sequenced.

Doctors are mostly guessing at how drugs affect unborn babies and the women carrying them. This bias isn’t limited to people who have or are planning to get pregnant. Throughout the history of medicine, women have been included in far fewer medical studies, less research and fewer drug trials than men have been. This is true even during studies and drugs for things that solely or mostly affect cis women, like breast and ovarian cancer. It’s absolutely unacceptable. And yet it still continues, to this day.

Myriad Genetics, which holds the patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes responsible for most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, charges $3,000 to test for the genes. Myriad has been accused of creating a monopoly, since no one else can offer the test, and researchers can’t develop cheaper tests or new therapies without getting permission from Myriad and paying steep licensing fees. Scientists who’ve gone ahead with research involving the breast-cancer genes without Myriad’s permission have found themselves on the receiving end of cease-and-desist letters and threats of litigation. In May 2009 the American Civil Liberties Union, several breast-cancer survivors, and professional groups representing more than 150,000 scientists sued Myriad Genetics over its breast-cancer gene patents. Among other things, scientists involved in the case claim that the practice of gene patenting has inhibited their research, and they aim to stop it. The presence of so many scientists in the suit, many of them from top institutions, challenges the standard argument that ruling against biological patents would interfere with scientific progress

In 2006, the Vogelstein team revealed the first landmark sequencing effort by analyzing thirteen thousand genes in eleven breast and colon cancers. (Although the human genome contains about twenty thousand genes in total, Vogelstein’s team initially had tools to assess only thirteen thousand.) In 2008, both Vogelstein’s group and the Cancer Genome Atlas consortium extended this effort by sequencing hundreds of genes of several dozen specimens of brain tumors. As of 2009, the genomes of ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, and several forms of leukemia have been sequenced, revealing the full catalog of mutations in each tumor type. Perhaps

The salicylic acid content in plants may help explain why traditional, plant-based diets were so protective. For instance, before their diets were Westernized, animal products made up only about 5 percent of the average Japanese diet.72 During this period in the 1950s, age-adjusted death rates from colon, prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers were five to ten times lower in Japan than in the United States, while incidences of pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma were three to four times lower. This phenomenon was not unique to the Japanese. As we’ve seen throughout this book, Western rates of cancers and heart disease have been found to be dramatically lower among populations whose diets are centered around plant foods.73

As though if I could make my body fit on one of these tiny barstools, I'd be in a perfect, fulfilling relationship instead of forcing myself to get through this date, wishing I could just disappear. Of course I know that none of that is true. That I can't change my body type (and don't even want to!), that thin women are no more happy than I am, that these insecurities are seeded and tended in my brain by the weight-loss industry, which profits from our collective self-loathing to the tune of $70 billion each year-despite the fact the 97% of diets fail. (Side note: What if we put all that money towards solving actual health problems instead? Could we cure ovarian cancer, like, tomorrow?) I know all these things, but tonight, I just can't feel them

I pull into the driveway outside of my father's house and shut off the engine. I sit behind the wheel for a moment, studying the house. He'd called me last night and demanded that I come over for dinner tonight. Didn't request. He demanded. What struck me though, was that he sounded a lot more stressed out and harried than he did when he interrupted my brunch with Gabby to demand my presence at a “family”dinner. Yeah, that had been a fun night filled with my father and Ian badgering me about my job. For whatever reason, they'd felt compelled to make a concerted effort to belittle what I do –more so than they usually do anyway -- try to undermine my confidence in my ability to teach, and all but demand that I quit and come to work for my father's company. That had been annoying, and although they were more insistent than normal, it's pretty par for the course with those two. They always think they know what's best for me and have no qualms about telling me how to live my life. When he'd called me last night though, and told me to come to dinner tonight, there was something in my father's voice that had rattled me. It took me a while to put a finger on what it was I heard in his voice, but when I figured it out, it really shook me. I heard fear. Outright fear. My father isn't a man who fears much or is easily intimidated. In fact, he's usually the one doing the intimidating. But, something has him really spooked and even though we don't always see eye-to-eye or get along, hearing that fear in his voice scared me. In all my years, I've never known him to sound so downright terrified. With a sigh and a deep sense of foreboding, I climb out of my car and head to the door, trying to steel myself more with each step. Call me psychic, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a long, miserable night. “Good evening, Miss Holly,”Gloria says as she opens the door before I even have a chance to knock. “Nice to see you again.”“It's nice to see you too, Gloria,”I say and smile with genuine affection. Gloria has been with our family for as far back as I can remember. Honestly, after my mother passed away from ovarian cancer, Gloria took a large role in raising me. My father had plunged himself into his work –and had taken Ian under his wing to help groom him to take over the empire one day –leaving me to more or less fend for myself. It was like I was a secondary consideration to them. Because I'm a girl and not part of the testosterone-rich world of construction, neither my father nor Ian took much interest in me or my life. Unless they needed something from me, of course. The only time they really paid any attention to me was when they needed me to pose for family pictures for company literature.

Broadly speaking, components of processed foods and animal products, such as saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol, were found to be pro-inflammatory, while constituents of whole plant foods, such as fiber and phytonutrients, were strongly anti-inflammatory.938 No surprise, then, that the Standard American Diet rates as pro-inflammatory and has the elevated disease rates to show for it. Higher Dietary Inflammatory Index scores are linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease939 and lower kidney,940 lung,941 and liver function.942 Those eating diets rated as more inflammatory also experienced faster cellular aging.943,944 In the elderly, pro-inflammatory diets are associated with impaired memory945 and increased frailty.946 Inflammatory diets are also associated with worse mental health, including higher rates of depression, anxiety, and impaired well-being.947 Additionally, eating more pro-inflammatory foods has been tied to higher prostate cancer risk in men948,949,950 and higher risks of breast cancer,951,952 endometrial cancer,953 ovarian cancer,954 and miscarriages in women. Higher Dietary Inflammatory Index scores are also associated with more risk of esophageal,955 stomach,956 liver,957 pancreatic,958 colorectal,959 kidney,960 and bladder961 cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma.962 Overall, eating a more inflammatory diet was associated with 75 percent increased odds of having cancer and 67 percent increased risk of dying from cancer.963 Not surprisingly, those eating more anti-inflammatory diets appear to live longer lives.964,965,966,967 But how does the Dietary Inflammatory Index impact body weight? Obesity and Inflammation:

1. GROWTH HORMONES IN MEAT When you eat conventional meat, you’re probably eating hormones, antibiotics, steroids, and chemicals created by the fear and stress suffered by the animal during slaughter and in its inhumane living conditions. In 2009, two Japanese researchers published a startling study in Annals of Oncology. They pointed out that there has been a surge in hormone-dependent cancers that roughly parallels the surge of beef consumption in Japan. Over the last twenty-five years, hormone-dependent cancers such as breast, ovarian, endometrial, and prostate cancer rose fivefold in that country. More than 25 percent of the beef imported to Japan comes from the United States, where livestock growers regularly use the growth hormonal steroid estradiol. The researchers found that US beef had much higher levels of estrogen than Japanese beef because of the added hormones. This finding led them to conclude that eating a lot of estrogen-rich beef could be the reason for the rising incidence of these life-threatening cancers. Injected hormones like estrogen mimic the activity of our natural hormones and prevent those hormones from doing their jobs. This situation creates chaos. Growth hormones may alter the way in which natural hormones are produced, eliminated, or metabolized. And guess what? Hormone impersonators can trigger unnatural cell growth that may develop into cancer. The United States is one of the only industrialized countries that still allows their animals to be injected with growth hormone. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and the entire European Union have banned rBGH and rBST because of their dangerous impact on human and bovine health. US farmers fatten up their livestock by injecting them with estrogen-based hormones, which can migrate from the meat we eat to our bodies—and possibly stimulate the growth of human breast cancer, according to the Breast Cancer Fund, an organization committed to preventing breast cancer by

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” —Joshua 1:9 (NIV) Tomorrow I’m going in for one of my regular cancer tests, and today I’m fighting my “What if” fears. What if my cancer comes back? I’m nearly seven years out from being diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer when I was given a two-year life expectancy. I’ve beaten all odds. But a couple of doctors told me that “stage IV ovarian cancer always comes back.” So far, I’ve proven them wrong, but every time I make an appointment for a checkup, the “What if” fears start creeping in. What if my test is not good? “Don’t go there,” a friend advises me. But I have to go there. My way of dealing with my fears is to look the worst-case possibilities square in the face. I’ve even created my own scenario for this fear-facing exercise. I imagine my fears stuffed into an imaginary room. It’s a scary but sacred place, because I know that nothing in that room surprises God—and He invites me to “go there” because Jesus is there too. He walks alongside me as I explore each fear, imagining what my life would be like if that worst possibility became a reality. What if my cancer comes back? I picture Jesus answering, “If your cancer comes back, I will still be with you. I will still give you what you need, one day at a time. I will still love you with an everlasting love. And I will still give you a future with hope.” Soon, I know that even if my worst fears become reality, Jesus’ promises are still true. That gives me courage as I go off to my cancer test once again. Lord, Your promises sustain me. Always. —Carol Kuykendall Digging Deeper: Prv 1:33; Phil 4:19; 2 Pt 1:1–11

Having a BRCA2 mutation makes you more susceptible to melanoma, for example, so you would need to take extra precautions to protect yourself from harmful sun exposure, including wearing sunblock and sun-protective clothing when outdoors.

BRCA-1, a gene that strongly predisposes humans to breast and ovarian cancer.

But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action. . . . Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.” —ANGELINA JOLIE1

Mrs. Teague, I am sorry, but you have metastatic Ovarian Cancer." After about a minute or two, I turned back to him and looked at him and said, "No, I have two small children!

CAR-T therapy in a very small subset of cancer patients with lymphoid disease is fantastically successful, albeit causing severe short-term toxicities and many known and unknown lifelong side effects. It is clear that much work lies ahead before this strategy can be scaled up for general use. Yet the hype surrounding CAR-T is such that practically every patient questions me about why they are being deprived of the magic cure. The results are not always magical: Despite high-target, cell-specific killing in vitro and encouraging preclinical efficacies in murine tumor models, clinical responses of adoptively transferred T cells expressing α-folate receptor (FR) specific CAR in ovarian cancer were disappointing. No reduction of tumor burden was seen in the 14 patients studied. The absence of efficacy was ascribed to lack of specific trafficking of the T cells to tumor and short persistence of the transferred T cells.

Dr. Nasha’s personal cancer experience began over twenty years ago when a diagnosis of stage IV ovarian cancer veered her away from pursuing a conventional medical degree and toward the study of naturopathic medicine. To treat her own cancer she used an integrative approach fortified by a traditional whole food diet and environmental adaptations. Using “alternative medicine” is the reason Dr. Nasha not only remains a cancer thriver today, but is healthier and more vital than before her cancer diagnosis.

Miss Chao was very dedicated in her practice of the Whole Body Prayer, and I had tremendous admiration for her. The biggest challenge was to calm her overactive mind, which was wasting energy that could otherwise be healing her. This is quite typical for an overachiever/Type A personality, whose mind is like a race car. In Miss Chao’s case, her brain “motor” was extremely hot, while her lower belly was cold, which presented a problem, as the Qi that we harness in the Whole Body Prayer begins in the gut. I used a metaphor to explain the problem to her: “When we put a kettle on the stove, the fire is below, and the water is on top. Your situation is the opposite—water on the bottom, fire above.” Years of unhealthy thinking habits had caused blockages in her meridians and had “rusted” the water pipes, so her spirit energy could not circulate. Decades of stagnation like this can lead to cancer. “Tumors are not your enemy,” I told Miss Chao. “It’s your nonstop lifestyle that’s eating your soul.” It was time to slow down. She accepted it. The results were extraordinary. Within three months of practicing the Whole Body Prayer, she was pain-free and could sleep without medication. Her swelling had disappeared. Her mood was uplifted. A few months later, her captivating smile was back, along with the light in her pretty eyes. Full of energy, she’d regained twenty pounds. In November 2002, nine months after she began the ZiJiu self-healing method, she went to the hospital for scans and a thorough examination. The doctors were astonished. They’d never seen a case like this. Miss Chao was entirely cancer-free. She had defeated stage 4 ovarian cancer without drugs, radiation, or any other external interventions. She’d simply used her own body’s innate power to harness cosmic Qi and heal itself. Given Miss Chao’s notoriety, this became a big news story. The three thousand friends and colleagues she’d hosted at her own “memorial service” one year earlier didn’t know what to make of this “miracle.” “It’s no ‘miracle,’” she told them. “It’s the science of Qigong.

The celebration had to be postponed: Carol had ovarian cancer. She refused to be gloomy about it.

When Marian was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the Jordans in essence retired and closed the hall closet for good. She died on April 7, 1961. Jim lived to be 91, succumbing on a date in 1988 that seems appropriate for one of radio’s best jokers: April 1st.

10 Things You Should Always Discuss with Your Gynecologist – Motherhood Chaitanya Hospital Your gynecologist is your partner in women’s health, and open communication is key to receiving the best care. From reproductive health to general well-being, here are 10 crucial topics you should always discuss with your gynecologist. If you’re in Chandigarh, consider reaching out to the Best Female Gynecologist in Chandigarh through Motherhood Chaitanya for expert care. 1. Menstrual Irregularities Don’t dismiss irregular periods as a minor issue. They could be indicative of underlying conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), thyroid disorders, or hormonal imbalances. 2. Contraception Discuss your contraception options to find the one that best suits your needs and lifestyle. Your gynecologist can provide guidance on various birth control methods, from pills to intrauterine devices (IUDs). 3. Pregnancy Planning If you’re planning to start a family, consult your gynecologist for preconception advice. This can help you prepare your body and address any potential risks or concerns. 4. Sexual Health Openly discuss any concerns related to sexual health, including pain during intercourse, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), or changes in sexual desire. Your gynecologist can provide guidance and offer solutions. 5. Menopause and Perimenopause If you’re in your 40s or approaching menopause, discuss perimenopausal symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings, and changes in menstrual patterns. Your gynecologist can recommend treatments to manage these changes. 6. Family History Share your family’s medical history, especially if there are instances of gynecological conditions, such as ovarian or breast cancer. This information is vital for early detection and prevention. 7. Breast Health Talk to your gynecologist about breast health, including breast self-exams and recommended mammograms. Regular breast checks are essential for early detection of breast cancer. 8. Pelvic Pain Don’t ignore persistent pelvic pain. It can signal a range of issues, including endometriosis, fibroids, or ovarian cysts. Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial. 9. Urinary Issues Frequent urination, urinary incontinence, or pain during urination should be discussed. These symptoms can be linked to urinary tract infections or pelvic floor disorders. 10. Mental Health Your gynecologist is there to address your overall well-being. If you’re experiencing mood swings, anxiety, or depression, it’s important to discuss these mental health concerns. Your gynecologist can offer guidance or refer you to specialists if needed. In conclusion, your gynecologist is your go-to resource for women’s health, addressing a wide spectrum of issues. Open and honest communication is essential to ensure you receive the best care and support. If you’re in Chandigarh, consider consulting the Best Gynecologist Obstetricians in Chandigarh through Motherhood Chaitanya for expert guidance. Your health is a priority, and discussing these important topics with your gynecologist is a proactive step toward a healthier, happier you

The hardly noticeable symptoms of cancer pale in comparison to those produced by the surgeons determined to excise it.

How to distinguish the general noise of the midlife or aging body from meaningful signals that portend danger? In difficult-to-obtain books published primarily by small presses or self-published, the testimonies of women underscore the need for an early detection tool, given the vagaries of symptoms

As a monopoly, Myriad could set unreasonable prices and limit accessibility of services by denying certain types of insurance. Though genetic patents are being debated in the courts today, the profit motive continues to curtail available responses.

how does my worthless life get lived without me?

the pedagogy of pain. I am pathetically grateful to the doctors for righting the wrong they had done.

While reading, I am moved by cadences and vocabularies, values and contexts tangential to or beyond me, but somehow pertinent to how I might begin to apprehend myself and the world differently or how foreign worlds I never encountered or even imagined might catch my attention and sweep me up in their sustained asymmetries.

By way of summary, then, I ask, what does medical knowledge do to or for women dealing with ovarian cancer? Many of us manage to appreciate the preciousness of the present moment and find a spiritual pot of gold at the end of treatment not because but in spite of medical interventions, for the state of contemporary approaches to ovarian cancer is a scandal.

The words of Corinne Boyer, a Canadian woman who died of ovarian cancer a decade ago, complement the patchwork of sentiments expressed by many of the others I studied: “Is this my protest against what is happening to me? No—it is a protest about what is happening to all women. Or, more exactly, what is not happening for them. I am reconciled for myself, and anticipate the entirely spiritual life that awaits me. What I was not reconciled to—nor should anyone be—is the injustice to women in allocating such a paltry medical research budget to illnesses that are specific to women.

Remission is a word that signifies absolution. As Google will guess if you begin typing it, the term “remission of cancer” derives from and echoes “the remission of sins.

All meditations on death should be avoided, according to Reynolds Price: “Never give death a serious hearing till its ripeness forces your final attention and dignified nod.

American antipathy to discussions of mortality has recently stalled efforts to reform the health-care system. As I write, a proposal for patient-driven end-of-life consultations has been caricatured and attacked as an imposition of government-run “death panels” dedicated to euthanasia of the disabled and the elderly. Pointing to widespread opposition to any reconciliation with the inexorability of suffering and mortality, a number of commentators have claimed that Americans exhibit a national addiction to narratives of individualistic self-improvement and perseverance.

According to Philippe Ariès, “the interdiction of death in order to preserve happiness was born in the United States around the beginning of the twentieth century.

Numerous books have confirmed Ariès’s and Gawande’s point that we are death-deprived not only by medical and mortuary businesses but also by much more generalized social prohibitions against acknowledging dying or mourning.

In my absence, who would cherish Molly and Simone with my ferocity and unconditional adoration of who they are, no matter what they do or become? Who would be their biggest fan?

I respect the values that imbued my personal trajectory, I must avoid the degradations and dependencies of pointless suffering. “Death has dominion,” Ronald Dworkin explains, “because it is not only the start of nothing but the end of everything, and how we think and talk about dying—the emphasis we put on dying with ‘dignity’—shows how important it is that life ends appropriately, that death keeps faith with the way we want to have lived.

wish to experience a tranquil dying without whining about or withstanding death. “Like birth,” my treasured collaborator Sandra warns in Death’s Door, “death is surely by its nature undignified.” True, but with the help of hospice at home I wish to avoid being cut, drained, wired, monitored, intubated, and ventilated within the artificial life support systems of an ICU. “To die ‘naturally’ is to find a way to have a graceful death when the prognosis is terminal and further treatments are of questionable value. It is not a rejection of medical science, but rather an attempt to use the sophistication of modern medicine to treat—in a different, better way—those who are seriously ill or near death.” I

To an avuncular visitor who says, “I want to commend you on your attitude toward your impending situation,” I fantasize a non-Buddhist response, “At least I have a life to lose, loser.

the end of Rilke’s Duino Elegies: Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too, just once. And never again. But to have been this once, completely, even if only once: to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.

Rending me is an insight rendered by Mark Doty: “death’s deep in the structure of things, and we didn’t put it there.” The vision of dying as a disarmed surrender imbued Rilke with the conviction that “We need, in love, to practice only this: / letting each other go,” a difficult discipline because of the uniqueness of each living creature.

Through their visual and literary lines, Rilke and Kahlo seem to attain a sense of personal equanimity by entertaining the secular import of Thomas Browne’s assertion that “there is something in us, that can be without us, and will be after us.

The experts agree with them about the importance of the quality of the debulking: “there is absolutely nothing the doctor can influence, including choosing the type of chemotherapy, that affects a woman’s chance of surviving her ovarian cancer as much as the quality of her initial surgery . . . Sadly, however, only between 30 and 50 percent of the women with ovarian cancer in any given geographic region will have optimal surgery.” I

That night (as on all nights), when the lights get turned out, Don and I lie on our backs side by side with his left hand cradling my right. “I worry that this sickness is taking over your life, Bear,” I murmur in the dark now permeated by a bathroom nightlight he has just affixed. “I have no other life,” he responds while gently stroking my fingers. “I don’t know what to hope for,” I whisper. “Let’s hope for a good summer,” he says.

If there weren’t so many damned umlauts in Pema’s last name—it is a royal pain to find the damned symbol list—she might be worth consulting and quoting, for she believes that “when we encounter pain in our life we breathe into our heart with the recognition that others also feel this.” Can I learn to deepen compassion by realizing that my distress is shared, that there are many other people all over the world feeling pain worse than mine?

Pema of the many umlauts

Tonglen (the Tibetan word that means ‘to give and to receive’) consists of accepting another’s suffering and distress, making an offering in return [with] all the confidence and serenity one can muster. This simple sharing of someone else’s suffering means being with him or her, not leaving that person alone.” Breathing in the pain of another, breathing out relief and release might whittle away at my solipsism. Tonglen is believed to be “one of the great meditation jewels that offers a way to nurture the natural energy of mercy and basic goodness.

I want the quiet concentration of each everyday task to fill me with an active love of living and a passive acceptance of dying,

I wish to cultivate the mystic intensity of each moment alone or with others, to reflect on each second’s untold vibrancy. To make the moment of being stand still—that’s how Virginia Woolf frequently thought about her quests in consciousness. What I seek is “a willingness instead of willfulness, an ability to take life on life’s terms as opposed to putting up a big fight,” as Lauren Slater expresses it in Lying, her astonishing memoir about the impossibility of telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The interwoven branches of the firs droop from the weight, bendable but not brittle. I want to be just as still and somehow pliable and permanent in each moment of being alive, to ponder how transient and yet how pregnant each instant feels.

Terry Tempest Williams: “I look at Mother and I see myself,” she writes during her period of caretaking; or worse: “A person with cancer dies in increments, and a part of you slowly dies with them.

According to the doctor-historian Ann Dally, “Virchow, probably the greatest pathologist of the nineteenth century, wrote, ‘Woman is a pair of ovaries with a human being attached; whereas man is a human being furnished with a pair of testes.’ ” The French physician Achille Chereau argued that “it is only because of the ovary that woman is what she is.

One estimate in 1906 was that for every one of the 150,000 doctors in the U.S. there was one castrated woman; some of these doctors boasted that they had removed from 1500 to 2000 ovaries apiece.” Soon feminists and antivivisectionists protested against the credo “when in doubt, take them out.

my central motive consists of a fierce belief that something must be done to rectify the miserable inadequacies of current medical responses to ovarian cancer.

As imaginative (rather than medical) authors insist, current remedies do not cure the disease. Instead, they debilitate the person dealing with it until she barely recognizes her mind, spirit, or body as her own. Enduring ovarian cancer mires patients in treatments more patently hideous than the symptoms originally produced by the disease, while ovarian cancer itself endures as it has for centuries, unchecked in any significant way by the new findings of contemporary science. Surely at this point I should have been ready to relinquish the proactive advice of physicians, bow to the consequences of the incurable nature of the disease, and embrace my imminent fate.

one should refrain from attributing the cause of disease to the diseased.

Knowledge clinched or confirmed always feels like a coin falling into the right slot, a ball landing in a basket, a peg knocked into its proper hole.

The shock of a sudden death, Joan Didion attests, is “obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind.

life without the finitude of death—the inconceivable finality of one’s own death—would be intolerable.

Marie de Hennezel, a French psychologist who works with the terminally ill, believes that “the person who can say to someone else ‘I am going to die’ does not become the victim of death but, rather, the protagonist in his or her own dying.

Why I can report on a computer keyboard what I cannot bear to say aloud remains a mystery to me, but so it goes. Maybe my inability to speak propelled the obsessive reading and writing.

Diseased ovaries still represented a deviation from standard femininity, but a differently defined femininity. If nineteenth-century women were thought to develop ovarian disease because of too much libido, their twentieth-century descendants apparently had too little.

For centuries, ovarian cancer patients were effectively told that their aberrant sexuality caused a disease they deserved. Might historic prejudices against ovarian disease have contributed to the miserable state of ovarian cancer treatments today? Sometimes I think, probably not; sometimes I think, you bet. For didn’t Ovariana retard and deform scientific investigations? Didn’t it shape the mind-set of physicians who, until quite recently, were generally men? Doesn’t the disease for the most part affect a subsection of the population—older, post-menopausal women—with little cultural capital?

Yet after my diagnosis and despite my hunch about the disease’s fatality, I did undergo all the operations, therapies, and interventions specialists advised. Given my love of life and of the people in my life, it seemed wrong simply to submit to the cancer’s inevitable progress, to succumb passively and helplessly to the determinism of a preordained death. I had to embark on doing what could be done against the disease—even if, even though it would eventually terminate my existence. To treasure the gift of life and the people in my life, I wanted to take responsibility for dealing with a condition admittedly beyond my control. Like many people with cancer, I sought to cultivate acceptance while consulting and following the advice of medical specialists.

parting looms imminent as death takes dominion over that place in the body framed and famed for giving birth to life. Despite my antipathies toward current treatments, all are designed to make death delay its dominion over the center of the body.

Yet intimations of mortality whispered something else in my ear—namely, that I will love my family and friends until death departs, and since death will never depart, I will love them always and forever.

I will love you beyond my death. I will love you from another space that you will palpably feel, and feel to be me loving you.” Albeit confused, that declaration seemed to speak of the intense emotions sustained by the urgent desire to continue loving the beloved until and after death. I want to live as long as the people I love live. We will live so long as the people we love remember we love them.

Nancy Mairs, a contemporary thinker about disability and dying, wrests with “the psychological ‘undeadness’ of the dead—a consolatory consciousness of the beloved as present though elsewhere.” Such a conviction reflects faith in death as the end of personal consciousness but the beginning of a translation “into an existence no less authentic for my inability to read it.

I am dying without death; living without life.

The “peace which comes from selflessness,” Karen Armstrong explains, “is a condition that those of us who are still enmeshed in the cravings of egotism . . . cannot imagine.

Think of those mythic or fantastic creatures granted eternal life without eternal health and youth: the Cumaean Sibyl, for instance, or the Struldbruggs in the third book of Gulliver’s Travels. Immortal but decaying and dead to affection and curiosity, Swift’s Struldbruggs may be exempt from physical termination but their unending devolution into querulous, envious, and impotent senility can only horrify Gulliver and the reader with “the dreadful Prospect of never dying.” Death has departed from their world only to leave them miserably incapacitated in a never-dying but always degenerating afterlife. “What is truly horrible is not death but the irremissibility of existence” or “the facticity of being riveted to existence without an exit,” as the philosopher Simon Critchley puts it more abstractly. The

It is one thing to renounce willfulness, another to be robbed of willingness.

To pursue my career, I had always lectured myself that no momentary hesitancy or stoppage should be called a writing block. One must simply determine to go on writing, period. “Apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair”: the mantra I learned from Sandra and recited to undergraduate and graduate students assured them that personal effort and the struggle to continue expression would win out with the reward of word following word in paragraphs and pages that reflected their thought processes and clarified themselves to themselves. But what to write about not wanting, not doing, not knowing how to get through minute by minute of this dull but fearful day, even though (thankfully) there is no pain (I try to concentrate on this), just discomfort.

Unfortunately, it is the second most leading cause of death in India. Not all cancers can be categorized as chronic, Some cancers are considered very low-risk, but those that are ongoing and can be watched and treated do become classified as chronic. Cancers such as ovarian, chronic leukemias, some lymphomas, and even some cancers that have spread or come back like metastatic breast or prostate also become chronic cancers

Unfortunately, cancer is the second most leading cause of death in India. Not all cancers can be categorized as chronic, Some cancers are considered very low-risk, but those that are ongoing and can be watched and treated do become classified as chronic. Cancers such as ovarian, chronic leukemias, some lymphomas, and even some cancers that have spread or come back like metastatic breast or prostate also become chronic cancers

She was enraged with herself. But by then, she was gone, too, the death certificate saying ovarian cancer but Silas knowing it was the rage that killed her: she grew those tumors like teeth to eat herself alive.

Women should know the truth. They can take it; they are adults, not children. If a mother opts for formula rather than breastfeeding, there is good evidence that her baby will score lower on IQ tests and will have a higher risk of many illnesses including some cancers, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea and ear infections. She should know that her own risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer will be higher, as well as her daughter’s risk of breast cancer. The mother increases her own risk of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and becoming overweight by “choosing” formula feeding. There is accumulating evidence that the risk of mental illness (alcoholism, ADHD, schizophrenia) is increased by not breastfeeding. A recent study suggested that even behaviour problems in adolescents are more likely if the child was formula fed. The longer the child is breastfed, the lower the risk both for the child and the mother.

in BRCA-1 has a 50 to 80 percent chance of developing breast cancer in her lifetime (the gene also increases the risk for ovarian cancer), about three to five times the normal risk.

A Swedish study followed over 60,000 women, ages 38-76, over 13 years, and found that women who consumed four or more dairy products a day doubled their risk for ovarian cancer, compared to women who consumed less than two dairy servings daily.

Test Tumor Markers Twice a Year There are many tests available that could indicate cancer, and indicate it at a stage early enough for effective treatment. These are PSA, for the prostate, and CA-125 for ovarian cancer. If CA-125 is above 20 u/ml, see your gynecologist. For PSA, trend is important, meaning more than one measurement is needed. If PSA rises more than 0.6 ng/ml in a 12 month period or less, see a urologist. If PSA is over 3, a urologist should also be consulted.

Test Annually TSH - indicator of thyroid function Test Every Six Months PSA (men) - indicator for prostate cancer CA-125 (women) - indicator for ovarian cancer

the pet health interests of rich people may or may not line up with what society overall should give priority to in seeking medical breakthroughs. As the Times warned: “The philanthropists’ war on disease risks widening that gap, as a number of the campaigns, driven by personal adversity, target illnesses that predominantly afflict white people—like cystic fibrosis, melanoma and ovarian cancer.

After ten months of no diagnoses or incorrect diagnoses—with her tummy distended as if she were hiding a small balloon under her dress—she finally heard it: “You have stage four ovarian cancer.” Gilda grabbed my face in her hands and sobbed, “No more bad news, no more bad news. I don’t want any more bad news.