Love

Happy Photo Friday and welcome to the Weekend!  I’ve completed another HcG test so now we’ll start the 2-3 week wait for results.  Thankfully that’s it for medical news.

But this week the Former Boyfriend and I celebrated our 21^st wedding anniversary.  We began at Open Sky Day Spa and finished the evening at one of my all time favorite restaurants http://www.trattoria-roma.com .  We had an amazing time and meal.  It was the perfect capper to a wonderful day.  I’m so grateful for my life my time with Johnny is so good, and so precious.  I don’t recall a sweeter anniversary celebration.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote “I love you not for whom you are, but who I am when I am by your side.”  Every day of my life with Johnny is the most precious gift.  I am grateful for so many things, including being here to celebrate.

And now for the rarely told story of Charlotte Haley and the little “Peach Ribbons.”  Charlotte was the creator of the first “breast cancer ribbon.” The documentary film Pink Ribbons, Inc. is her story in which she tells the overlooked tale of the first breast cancer awareness ribbon, which was not pink in color but peach.  In 1991, Charlotte began hand-making peach breast cancer ribbons in her dining room. To each packet of five ribbons she attached a postcard that read: “The National Cancer Institute’s annual budget is 1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention.  Help us wake up legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.”  Her ribbons were a call to action: a demand for prevention of this disease and greater accountability.

Charlotte was strictly grassroots, handing the cards out at the local supermarket and writing to prominent women, everyone from former First Ladies to Dear Abby.  Her message spread by word of mouth.  By the time Self Magazine called asking if they could use her ribbons in their second annual “Breast Cancer Awareness” issue, Charlotte had distributed thousands and thousands of her peach colored ribbons for breast cancer prevention.

Alas, a marketing executive, Alexandra Penney, and Evelyn Lauder, of the Estee Lauder Company saw the financial potential of a ribbon branded to breast cancer.  The only problem-Charlotte told Self and Estee that she wouldn’t work with them-they were too corporate and commercial for her.  Lawyers quickly counseled that if the companies changed the color from peach to pink, permission to use Haley’s idea wasn’t necessary.

Charlotte died last year at the age of 91 at her home in California.  I’m sorry I didn’t know of her work while she was alive.  But I will make a point to honor her dedication and selfless action.  The world needs more Charlottes. 

 

It's all a crock

Greetings and Welcome to October my favorite month. Except it's been hijacked by the Breast Cancer Awareness Month mantra. Every year more and more companies jump on the cancer bandwagon with their pink ribbon products.

Always Remember:

1) A pink ribbon on a product does not mean money is going to cancer research or to patients with cancer.  Companies are making a fortune out of fear, distortion and the social media craze.

2) “Save the Tatas” and other such promotions are nothing but demeaning insults to the patients and families actually going through cancer treatment.

3) As I’ve said before, if you really want to help someone with breast cancer here are a few ideas: be there emotionally and talk with them, or help financially. Or if you’re close by help with household chores or give them a ride to treatment.  This is true of cancer or any other serious disease.

Moving on, I had an appointment with Dr. Kanodia this week.  My blood work looks good and has improved since my last appointment, but I’m still not in the optimal range so we’ve adjusted my supplements and I had another blood draw for some new tests.  I go back in six weeks to see if these changes move my numbers closer to the optimal range.

Enjoy the weekend. I’ll see some of you in Cleveland on Sunday.  We love ya, thanks for all the support.

Really neat place in the Upper Peninsula

 

Gotta keep moving

Greetings and Happy Photo Friday!  I have an appointment with Dr. Kanodia next week.  We’ll have a lot of test results to go over and I’m sure a lot of tweaking to my routine and supplementation.

For a lot of us in Central Ohio it was a sad week.  Johnny and I said good bye to a long time friend and radio guy, Greg Jordan.  He was a warm and funny guy who was loved by a lot of folks.  Apologies to the PC folks out there, but I have no other way of saying it…cancer sucks.

I did come across this article from Reuters.  So thanks to all of you who exercise with me or just text to keep me accountable.  It means everything, as always we love you all. (And a few more vacation pics at the bottom)

(Reuters Health) - For people diagnosed with cancer, the risk of cancer death falls as physical activity rises, according to a new analysis of more than 70 existing studies.
Researchers found the same holds true for everyone – supporting the current World Health Organization recommendation of moderate physical activity to combat the risk of chronic disease, they write in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The WHO recommends two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week for some health benefit and five hours of moderate exercise per week for additional benefit. Half as much time per week of vigorous physical activity, like running, may confer the same benefits.  There are no specific recommendations for physical activity levels to combat cancer risk, although more activity has been tied to lower risk of death from breast, colorectal and prostate cancers, the authors note.
Doctors could start to incorporate physical activity into cancer treatments, Liu told Reuters Health by email.The researchers included 71 studies of physical activity and cancer death risk in the general population or among cancer survivors.
When they pooled these results, people in the general population who got at least two and half hours of moderate activity like brisk walking, per week, were 13 percent less likely to die from cancer than those with the lowest activity levels.
They also looked at data in terms of MET-hours, a measure of the relative amounts of energy expended in given activities and time spent doing them. Resting represents 1 MET, while a 4-MET activity like brisk walking uses four times as much energy, according to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Doing a 4-MET activity for 30 minutes equals 2 MET-hours.  Cancer survivors who completed at least 15 MET hours per week of physical activity were 27 percent less likely to die from cancer.
Exercise after cancer diagnosis reduced cancer death risk more than prediagnosis exercise, the study team notes. Exercise may change the body’s response to cancer, and those who exercise more may live healthier lifestyles in other ways as well, Liu said.  But many of the high-quality studies included in this analysis accounted for other healthy-lifestyle factors that may have played a role, Liu noted.
“Physical activity, mostly before diagnosis, and breast cancer mortality has been studied for decades, but only in the last 10 years or so have we been studying physical activity after diagnosis,” said Patrick T. Bradshaw of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not part of the new study.
“Other cancers (e.g. colorectal, ovarian) have been studied much less than breast cancer, but some researchers there have also found a reduction in mortality associated with increasing physical activity levels,” Bradshaw told Reuters Health by email.
So far, most studies have not been able to address which types of physical activity are most beneficial, he said.  Leisure time physical activity or recreational physical activity, but not occupational activity, is protective against cancer according to most research, Liu said.  “The take-home message here is encouraging - exercise may be beneficial even if started after diagnosis,” Bradshaw said.
“Based on huge evidence of the inverse association between physical activity and cancer mortality, there is no doubt that cancer patients should be physically active,” Liu said. “We suggest that cancer patients to consult their doctors about a personalized physical activity plan, including exercise time, exercise frequency, exercise mode and so on, which may help to promote the survival of patients without bringing too much physical burden.”

At Pictured Rock

 

 

 

not a big criminal element here

Lake Michigan from the top of Sleeping Bear Dunes