What color is your bra?

By the end of this week women, and some men, were posting just a color in their status update ... white, beige, black, blue ... none. What did it mean? It didn't take long to figure out it was the bra color of the woman posting.

It's unknown who started this "campaign" but the end result was that for at least a day, people on Facebook were talking about breast cancer.

The world awoke Friday to discover that Davi’s bra is black. Janet’s is blue with bows. Kim’s is pink. And Susan’s is a “decadent beige.”

The colors were, at first at least, somewhat mystifyingly posted on thousands upon thousands of Facebook pages as their status updates, without any context. Just colors. “White .. for today anyway!” wrote Kerri.

By midday, the color craze had gone viral on the Internet and around the globe, as had the word that the colors were really bra colors. Almost immediately, cyber-arguments erupted about what it all meant. The blogosphere went wild. Was so openly and willingly posting something as intimate as one’s bra color an attempt to raise breast cancer awareness? Or was it all just another Facebook ‘send your friend a snowball’ or ‘take your celebrity boyfriend quiz’ silly game? A meme?

Whatever it is, its impact was immediate and dramatic: As bra colors went flying around the net, something strange happened at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. After two years of intensive efforts to boost its profile through social networking, hiring two full-time people to do solely that, within two hours Friday morning, their fan base on Facebook exploded from 135 to 700.

But it can't stop there. We must commit everyday to doing all we can to stop breast cancer, and all the other forms of cancer that have killed so many people we love.

The first thing you can do is take preventative measures. Have that mammogram, lower the fat content in your diet, stop smoking. Don't do it as a New Years Resolution that will be broken almost as quickly as it took to utter the words. Make a commitment.

Urge friends and family to do the same.

I'm sure there's more we can do ... post your ideas below.

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network: Take Action Now!

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network advocates are on the Hill today urging members of Congress to support the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act (H.R. 745). Pancreatic cancer is the most deadly cancer and the five year survival rate has remained below 5% for the last 30 years.

Advocates are also asking Congress to commit to doubling the budget of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) over the next five years by increasing its funding to $6 billion in FY 2010.

Randy Pausch put the disease on people's radar screen as we all watched his courageous battle. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and actor Patrick Swayze are battling the disease, but the person who comes to mind for me is my good friend Jan Welch.

A year ago today we lost Jan to this terrible disease. Please take a moment today to call. Call-in information is available here. Take action now.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: An Amazing Woman

The first time I represented Americans United it was as part of a panel on taxpayer funded school vouchers that included then-Florida State Legislator Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She was impressive then, and she continues to be today. She is a strong feminist, supports separation of church and state, and is a great mentor. One thing I love about her is that when she is getting ready to run for a new office, she finds a woman to replace her in the seat she is vacating. She keeps women in the pipeline.

She is not one to back down from a fight, so it comes as no surprise to me that she would deal with a personal health challenge with the same intensity. For the past year Wasserman Schultz has battled breast cancer. On Monday she will introduce legislation that calls for a national education campaign targeting women between 15 and 39.

When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz steps to the lectern at the Capitol on Monday to push for greater awareness of breast cancer risks in younger women, she'll be speaking from experience.

The Broward County Democrat and mother of three told The Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer for the past year and is going public with her story in the hope of alerting young women to its prevalence. She'll introduce legislation Monday that calls for a national education campaign targeting women between 15 and 39.

'I wanted to be able to not just stand up and say, `I'm a breast cancer survivor.' . . . I wanted to find a gap and try to fill it,'' said Wasserman Schultz, 42.

In the past year, she underwent seven major surgeries, including a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, while balancing motherhood, Congress and her roles as a chief fundraiser for House Democrats and a political surrogate, first for Hillary Clinton and then for Barack Obama.

"I had a lot going on last year," she said with a laugh, sitting in the living room of the Capitol Hill town house she shares with two other members of Congress when she's in Washington. "I'm a very focused, methodical person, and I wasn't going to let this beat me. I wasn't going to let it interfere with my life."

And she didn't. She was very visible in the 2008 presidential campaign, and hearing this makes her involvement even more impressive.

Breast cancer in younger women can be particularly aggressive, but it can be more difficult to detect because of breast density. And physicians, Wasserman Schultz said, can be slow to recognize the threat to younger women.

"Young women go skipping along through their life, thinking they're invincible, not worrying about breast cancer because they think of it as an older woman's disease," Wasserman Schultz said, noting that the focus is often on a woman's first mammogram, typically at 40.

The death rate from breast cancer has declined for older women, but remains stable for younger women because they are often diagnosed at a later stage, she said.

"It just pains me to know that younger women, because they don't know and because they're blown off by physicians many times, and because they squeeze their eyes shut and hope that it's nothing, that their death rate is much higher," she said. [...]


Wasserman Schultz discovered a breast lump through a self-exam, two months after her first mammogram at 40. Although the cancer was detected at an early stage, she also learned that as an Ashkenazi Jew of Eastern European descent, she was at greater risk of carrying a gene mutation that makes Ashkenazi Jews predisposed to breast cancer and recurrance. She tested positive for this BRCA2 gene mutation, prompting her to have both breasts removed.

She was also at higher risk of ovarian cancer and had her ovaries removed -- the day after Election Day. Her final surgery was in December.

Because the cancer was caught so early, she didn't need chemotherapy or radiation but will take the cancer drug tamoxifen for five years.

She said she decided to keep her cancer private, concerned mostly that her young children (then 8-year-old twins and a 4-year-old daughter) would worry, particularly with a mother who was also constantly on the go. They knew she was undergoing surgery, but she didn't tell them the cause.

'I knew from my doctors that if I went through their recommended course of treatment that I would get through it and I'd be fine, that I could come out the other side and confidently tell my children, `Mommy's fine,' '' she said.

She scheduled her treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., during congressional recesses so she wouldn't miss votes in Congress.

I told you she is tough!

I'm so glad her cancer was diagnosed and treated early -- we NEED Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Congress. The work she does there benefits us all.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized for Cancer

The Washington Post reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery today for pancreatic cancer. It appears the cancer was diagnosed early, which is encouraging. Pancreatic cancer, however, is one of the more aggressive forms of cancer.

Justice Ginsburg is a tireless advocate for many social justice issues I care deeply about. Please join me in extending best wishes to Justice Ginsburg.

Study Suggests Some Cancers May Go Away

But who has the nerve to wait it out to see?

If you have ever lost someone to cancer, both my parents died from it, you know that it's a horrible way to die. Hearing the word "cancer" strikes fear in everyone, and I would think anyone who heard that word would want to do all they could to rid themselves of it as quickly as possible.

There are, however, some cancer researchers who are having a change of heart.

Cancer researchers have known for years that it was possible in rare cases for some cancers to go away on their own. There were occasional instances of melanomas and kidney cancers that just vanished. And neuroblastoma, a very rare childhood tumor, can go away without treatment.

But these were mostly seen as oddities — an unusual pediatric cancer that might not bear on common cancers of adults, a smattering of case reports of spontaneous cures. And since almost every cancer that is detected is treated, it seemed impossible even to ask what would happen if cancers were left alone.

Now, though, researchers say they have found a situation in Norway that has let them ask that question about breast cancer. And their new study, to be published Tuesday in The Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that even invasive cancers may sometimes go away without treatment and in larger numbers than anyone ever believed.

At the moment, the finding has no practical applications because no one knows whether a detected cancer will disappear or continue to spread or kill.

And some experts remain unconvinced.

“Their simplification of a complicated issue is both overreaching and alarming,” said Robert A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at the American Cancer Society.

There is certainly a lot to take in with this report, and I'd be curious to know what others think.

Donald A. Berry, chairman of the department of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said the study increased his worries about screenings that find cancers earlier and earlier. Unless there is some understanding of the natural history of the cancers that are found — which are dangerous and which are not — the result can easily be more treatment of cancers that would not cause harm if left untreated, he said.

“There may be some benefit to very early detection, but the costs will be huge — and I don’t mean monetary costs,” Dr. Berry said. “It’s possible that we all have cells that are cancerous and that grow a bit before being dumped by the body. ‘Hell bent for leather’ early detection research will lead to finding some of them. What will be the consequence? Prophylactic removal of organs in the masses? It’s really scary.”

But Dr. Laura Esserman, professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, sees a real opportunity to figure out why some cancers go away.

“I am a breast cancer surgeon; I run a breast cancer program,” she said. “I treat women every day, and I promise you it’s a problem. Every time you tell a person they have cancer, their whole life runs before their eyes.

“What if I could say, ‘It’s not a real cancer, it will go away, don’t worry about it,’ ” she added. “That’s such a different message. Imagine how you would feel.”

So what do you think?

Kudos to Christina Applegate

Click image to play video
Christina Applegate, at 36, has dealt pro-actively with her breast cancer. Applegate's mother fought breast cancer, and Applegate tested positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene that made her a likely candidate for the disease. For that reason she has been tested every year since age 30. Cancer was detected a month ago in one of her breasts, but Applegate opted to have both her breasts removed in an operation known as a prophylactic double mastectomy.

Now cancer free, she credits the MRI screening with saving her life.

"My decision, after looking at all the treatment plans that were possibilities for me, the only one that seemed the most logical and the one that was going to work for me was to have a bilateral mastectomy," Applegate said. [...]

"I didn't want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything. I just wanted to kind of get rid of this whole thing for me. This was the choice that I made and it was a tough one."

Though she will be undergoing breast reconstruction surgery over the next eight months, Applegate said the emotional toll has been heavy.

"Sometimes, you know, I cry. And sometimes I scream. And I get really angry. And I get really upset, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes. And I think that it's all part of the healing," she said.

But Applegate is healthy and calm now, due to both her unflappible sense of humor -- "I'm going to have the best boobs in the nursing home"...

Working to turn a negative into a positive, Applegate is now raising much needed funding to give other high risk women the opportunity to have BRCA testing and life-saving MRI screening. The testing and MRI screening -- which is capable of seeing cells, can detect cancerous cells before a tumor forms -- is a costly procedure that is often not covered by insurance.

Applegate appeared on Good Morning American, speaking with Robin Roberts who is herself a cancer survivor. Click the image above to view the video on the GMA web site.

Kudos to Christina Applegate for her courage in coming forward so soon after her surgery to dispel the misinformation circulating around her very difficult, and personal decision. Best wishes on a speedy recovery.
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In Memoriam - Randy Pausch

The Associated Press reports:

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.

Pausch died at his home in Chesapeake, Va., said Jeffrey Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer who co-wrote Pausch's book. Pausch and his family had moved there last fall to be closer to his wife's relatives.

Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

"The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful," Pausch wrote on his Web site. "But rest assured; I'm hardly unique."

The book "The Last Lecture" leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists after its publication in April and remains there this week. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.

Pausch said he dictated the book to Zaslow by cell phone, and Zaslow recalled Friday that he was "strong and funny" during their collaboration.

"It was the most fun 53 days of my life because it was like a performance," Zaslow told The Associated Press. "It was like getting 53 extra lectures." He recalled that Pausch became emotional when they worked on the last chapter, though, because that to him was the "end of the lecture, the book, his life."

At Carnegie Mellon, Pausch was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, and was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research. On campus, he became known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.

The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called "The Last Lecture," where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to "Journeys" before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.

"I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it," he said.

I first became aware of Pausch when a close friend, Jan Welsh, was so courageously battling pancreatic cancer. Much like Pausch, Jan chose to fully live her life until the very end. I only hope I can have that same courage when needed.

I miss my friend Jan, as I'm sure the Pausch family will miss their beloved husband, father, brother and son. He touched a lot of people, and reminded many of us what is truly important in life.

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Early warnings for the silent killer?

Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer because so often, by the time a woman knows she has it, it's too late to save her life. But now, experts are telling women there might be early warning signs that could lead to earlier detection.

The Associated Press reports:

For the first time, cancer experts are advising women of certain symptoms that might alert them to ovarian cancer, a medically infamous "silent killer" that is hard to spot early and is one of the deadliest tumors.

Suddenly experiencing weeks of bloating, the need to urinate frequently, eating changes and abdominal or pelvic pain -- either one of these or a combination -- could be a tip-off to early ovarian cancer, according to several groups of cancer experts.

The American Cancer Society and other organizations released a consensus statement Wednesday listing the symptoms. Historically, doctors have believed there are no early signs of ovarian cancer, which is expected to kill about 15,000 American women this year.

"There's been this myth about ovarian cancer being silent and people saying there's nothing you can do about it. Well, that's simply not true anymore," said Dr. Barbara Goff, a University of Washington cancer specialist.

There is no early screening test, and women are encouraged to have regular exams. A statement released today by the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation and the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists lists these possible symptoms:

_Bloating.
_Pelvic or abdominal pain.
_Difficulty eating or feeling full quickly.
_Frequent or urgent urination.

A woman who experiences any of these symptoms, or combination of symptoms, for at least three weeks should see her doctor.

For a more complete symptom list click here.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading killer of women. It accounts for about 6 percent of female cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Lung cancer is No. 1, accounting for more than a quarter of all female cancer deaths. Cancers of the breast, colon and rectum, and pancreas rank two through four.

Obviously, survival rates are much higher the earlier the cancer is detected. According to the cancer society, only one in five ovarian cancers are detected early.

If you, or someone you love, has cancer there is a place to go for support. Gilda's Club, named in honor of comedian Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live fame, offers a special place where the focus is on living with cancer. And where men, women and children with any kind of cancer and their family members and friends can plan and build life-changing emotional and social support.