Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Whose Rules?

Cancer happens to other people. Right? It doesn't happen to you. Or me. Or the young. Or the good.

Hogwash.

Cancer does happen to you. And me. And the old. And the young. And the good. And the bad. It crosses socio-economic, racial, religious, and political lines. Cancer does not discriminate.

And this past month, I learned of three pre-menopausal women diagnosed with breast cancer. Two of them under the age of 38.

So guess what? Cancer doesn't follow our rules. Cancer plays by its own rules. It's aggressive and lethal.

Our tactic should be equally as aggressive. What are you doing to help in the war against cancer?


Susan Komen Foundation
Retinoblastoma International
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
American Cancer Society
Important Breast Cancer legislation(Lifetime Channel)
Sharsheret (Linking Young Jewish Women in the Fight Against Breast Cancer)
Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization
The Breast Cancer Site

Each link will take you to a site that provides patient services, medical information, and ways that you can help. A Google search will yield even more cancer resources. These are just a few of the cancer sites I visit on a regular basis.

Baruch Ata Adonai rofeh hacholim.
Blessed are You, O God, Healer of the sick.

2 comments:

PepGiraffe said...

In the push against breast cancer, people seem to forget: Heart Disease is the number one killer of American women. To be more specific, 1 of every three women (that's about 33%) die of heart disease. 1 of every thirty women (about 3%) die of breast cancer.

More troubling is the fact that although women know the risk factors of breast cancer and how to do self breast exams (though it's debatable how helpful that is), most don't realize that symptoms of a heart attack for women are different than those for a man.

Rebecca Einstein Schorr said...

This is all true. And you will be happy to know that I addressed this exact issue in my Feb 2nd entry!! I even list some of the "asymptomatic" symptoms experienced by women.