Quote of the Day: “If you do not find peace in yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” Paula A. Bendry
So I have been running this week. I went Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and I would run as far as I could go and then walk and then start up again. I love being with my friends out in the early morning dark and being able to run. Going down stairs became difficult on Friday due to strained muscles but on Saturday, Joe and I went out walking in this very early and big snowstorm that we had.
In early blogs, I wrote about these Cooper’s Hawks that we had in our backyard in the summer of 2010. We had a male and female and then young hawks but they disappeared the day Taylor left on his mission- August 18. So when I was driving home the other day, I saw a huge hawk sitting on a light post on Wasatch Blvd. I got a picture of it and thought it was probably a red tailed hawk but as Maggie and I researched on the internet, we discovered it was a Cooper’s Hawk. So, who knows, maybe it was one of ours!
I watched the Dr. Oz show on breast cancer this week and I found the following information helpful. He listed risk factors for breast cancer and all relate to exposure to estrogen. Here is the test: 1) Start menstruation before age 12 2) Obese 3) First child after 30 4) Bottle fed children rather than breast fed 5) Went into menopause after 55 6) Received hormone treatment. Some think that women are more at risk today since women are having less children- you don’t produce as much estrogen when you’re pregnant and breast-feeding- and women are having children later in life. My sister, Lynne’s breast cancer was estrogen positive meaning that was made the tumor grow. They give women with estrogen positive breast cancer a drug that suppresses estrogen production for 5 years after chemo and radiation.
I only have 1 risk factor related to estrogen. I started my period 4 months before my 12th birthday but as is common with the BRCA 1 gene, my tumor was not fueled by estrogen and is called triple-negative. Here’s the scoop on triple-negative: “Triple negative breast cancer is estrogen-negative, progesterone-negative and HER2-negative. Approximately 10 to 20 percent of all breast cancers are triple negative. People who are younger, African American, Hispanic, or who carry the BRCA1 gene mutation, which is a genetic marker that indicates high risk for developing breast cancer, are more likely to have triple negative breast cancer.
Triple negative breast cancer does not respond to hormonal therapy or other therapies that target HER-2. It is very understandable to feel concerned about treating this kind of cancer effectively to prevent it from returning. Researchers are currently investigating new medications and therapies to help treat this type of cancer.”
In the Dr. Oz show, they also talked about the denseness of the breast tissue. They said that if you have dense breasts, it’s difficult to see some parts of the breast on a mammogram. I have dense tissue and that’s most likely why my tumor didn’t show up on the mammogram. It will however show up on an MRI. Knowing what I know now, I would insist on an MRI. So next time you get a mammogram, ask about the denseness of your tissue.
I am so grateful that so much research is being done for breast cancer and I love that this might prevent other women from ever having breast cancer.
November 5th Snowstorm
Cooper’s Hawk on light above Wasatch Blvd.
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