Category Archives: Cancer

You’ve Been Patented

Increasingly Cloudy

Monday morning, while sorting through email from my neighborhood listserv (parents’ desperately seeking: pine cones, carpool partners and reliable sheet rockers) I heard this story on NPR. The ACLU won a lawsuit against the US Patent office, overturning the patents on BRCA 1 and 2, the breast cancer genes.

Wha-haa?

BRCA 1 and 2 are the genes associated with hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer. They’re tumor-suppressors and if a person has a mutation, if these genes are not working properly, that person has a greater chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

I was tested for these gene mutations shortly after I was diagnosed. Most of the young women I met during treatment also had the test done, not because we wanted to know about our risks, (duh, too late) but because we wanted to find out if our sisters, mothers, and daughters were at greater risk. My test was negative.

Patent holders, like Myriad Genetics who owned the patent on BRCA 1 and 2, held exclusive rights to these genes. They owned the usage and the chemical composition. Anyone who used the gene without permission for testing, studying, commercial or non commercial purposes was committing patent infringement.

That meant, first, that only one organization had the right to study this gene and how its mutation may contribute to tumor growth. Secondly, if you could manage to take the BRCA 1 and 2 genes out of your body, you would be committing patent infringement.

Seriously, are you screwing with me right now? Is this an April fool’s joke? Someone owned my genes (that’s MINE, give it back, I don’t like to share).

The ACLU sued the US Patent office claiming that genes are “products of nature,” something that can be discovered but not patented. They won the case which will invalidate Myriad Genetics patents and call about 4,000 other gene patents into question.

This is great news. The patents needed to go. But I‘m horrified they ever existed.

When Josie is really focused on something, she sticks her belly out and breathes, loudly, through her mouth, usually while turning something over in her hands. That’s how I’ve felt all week since I heard this news. There’s a lot of mouth breathing going on over here right now.

One thought that will not go away is this: now that the patents and financial incentives are gone who will fund gene research?

Hey Everyone, Let’s Panic!

By now you must all know about BPA, right? If not (are you trapped under something heavy?), Bisphenol A is a chemical that, among other things, makes hard plastic bottles shatterproof and is found in the lining of most cans and food packaging.

On Monday, Washington State voted to ban BPA in products for children under the age of 3. Similar restrictions are in place in Chicago, Minnesota, Connecticut and Suffolk County in New York. In Congress, a bill has been filed that would block BPA from all food and drink packaging. Those wise Canadians banned BPA in baby bottles in 2008.

90% of us have this stuff in our bodies and recent studies have found a presence in the majority of newborn babies. In the last 50 years, dozens of studies have linked BPA to health problems, including abnormal growths and tumors in animals. Some studies say BPA alters healthy breast cells, turning them into abnormal cancer cells. Other studies say BPA contributes to tumor growth by mimicking estrogen in the body.

My cancer was hormone positive. That means there were teeny-tiny receptor sites on the outside of my cancer cells that estrogen would bind to. The abundance of estrogen (naturally occurring and from BPA and other toxins) in my system may have accelerated my tumor’s growth.

This is how my war, not just against cancer, but against estrogen began. Chemo drugs shut down my ovaries. After treatment, I started receiving injections to stay post-menopausal but the drug didn’t always work as planned, and I popped in and out of medically-induced menopause multiple times.

Let me take a moment to acknowledge how wrong it is for a person to go from post-menopausal to pre-menopausal. It’s like changing the rotation of the earth and moving from winter back to fall. You can imagine the mood swings. Picture me with my hands clutching my mother’s collar screaming at her to clean my fridge. Right this minute. I sounded like my two year old (I guess some relationships never change). Just do it LADY. 

I also started avoiding BPA by drinking from glass and stainless steel containers. If I hadn’t had all that fake estrogen in my system, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten cancer at 31 or, if I had, maybe it wouldn’t have been hormone positive.  

Let me be clear: I’m not saying I believe BPA definitively caused my cancer. I don’t believe any one thing causes cancer. I am saying there is a good chance BPA played a part in its development.   

But enough about me, back to the topic at hand. Perhaps you’re asking yourself why Washington state is banning BPA, isn’t this the FDA’s job? In past years the FDA has maintained that BPA is completely safe based largely on the findings of two industry-funded studies. In January the FDA reversed their position and they have expressed concern about the effects of BPA.

Then this from the Washington Post: 

FDA officials also said they were hamstrung from dealing quickly with BPA by an outdated regulatory framework.

Awesome. And then this:

One administration official privy to the talks said the FDA is in a quandary. “They have new evidence that makes them worried, but they don’t have enough proof to justify pulling the stuff, so what do you do?” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You want to warn people, but you don’t want to create panic.”

Sure, let them eat poison but, for god sake, don’t freak anybody out.

The Trouble With Ham

Paul likes ham. I mean, he really likes it. Every day he has at least one ham sandwich. He’s been making the same lunch for about fifteen years – a cookie, a carrot, a baggie of pretzels, and ham on sourdough with mustard on both pieces of bread and cheddar cheese. Every now and then, if he really wants to stir things up, he adds a piece of roast chicken or turkey. But there is always ham. You can be sure of that.

He’s a utilitarian eater and in general, I’m in favor of his lunch-making ham-eating habits. After all, it has got to be better (for the bank account if nothing else) than eating out every day.

But the other day I was in bed, listening to some morning disc jockey talk about a study that followed 120,000 men for 6.3 years and identified a significantly higher risk of stomach cancer for men who ate more than two servings of processed meats per week.

Uh-oh. I walked straight from our room to the computer in the kitchen and Googled the study. Nothing. Paul stood at the counter, making his death sandwich. I reminded him how good a tuna sandwich could be. He slapped a slice of cheddar into his mouth and looked at me suspiciously.

Later, when I was dressed and sitting at my desk, I resumed the search. I still couldn’t find anything about this study but I did find a bevy of other ham-related information. I’m guessing the evil of processed meats has something to do with nitrates but I’m not sure what. Here’s what I learned. 

Sodium nitrate is added to meats in the curing process to delay the development of bacteria, rancidity, odors and, to bring out the meats flavor and color. The American Cancer Society states that “Nitrates and nitrites are substances commonly found in cured meats. They can be converted by certain bacteria, such as H. pylori, into compounds that have been found to cause stomach cancer in animals.” (link to study)   

I guess there’s some common sense to be applied here. Too much of any one thing can be bad. A ham sandwich every day for fifteen years can’t be right. Even too much broccoli can be bad (makes me gassy, sorry, TMI, anyhoo…).  

One study of 175,000 men conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) found that over nine years, 20 percent of men with the highest intakes of processed meat were 12 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer. When the researchers broke the men’s diet information down further they found that white processed meats, like poultry cold cuts, were not linked to a higher risk of prostate cancer. (link to study)

This is the point where I officially become not okay with the ham-sandwich-every-day program. I’ll sing the praises of tuna salad (I know, mercury) or almond butter and apple butter mixed with miso paste. Or, if that’s too weird for him, which it is, why not just a plain PB&J? It’s not just for kids. I’ll offer to buy his favorite jam. Notice, I offer to go to the store but that’s all.

Another study of 200,000 men and women conducted by biochemist Ute Nothlings found that those who consumed the greatest amount of processed meats had a 67 percent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer than those with the lowest consumption. A diet rich in pork and red meat also increased pancreatic cancer risk by about 50 percent. The American Meat Institute claims that this study has not been peer-reviewed. (link to study)

By now it’s clear that Paul’s long-standing ham-eating habit must be broken.

When I told one of my HMN friends about all this she said, “Well, the good news is that he’s clearly a creature of habit. You can be sure he’ll never leave you – at least not alive anyway.” There’s always that.

Maybe I’ll even start making his damn sandwich.

An Area of Expertise

Clear and Cold

It’s almost Christmas and my friend, D, posts a Facebook status update that involves the words “needle aspiration.” He doesn’t use the word biopsy but I know immediately what he means. I send him an email. The doctors think he has metastatic thyroid cancer or lymphoma. One doctor in particular is sure of it. It’s Friday. He won’t get the results until Tuesday (enjoy those holiday parties!). He’s having a hard time not thinking every little ache or pain is cancer. Every twinge could the quickening of a tumor.

This. This cancer hypochondria is something I am very familiar with. Would it be too much to say I’m an expert in the field? At the very least, I consider it an area of expertise.

I did the same thing. Did? I mean, do. I do the same thing. That tickle in my ribcage. Is it a tickle or pain? If I’m asking this question then I know that it isn’t a tumor. A recurrence would bring persistent pain that would not go away. I know this.

While I was in treatment for a type of breast cancer that shows on the skin, I convinced myself I could see the cells spreading from my left breast to my right. I insisted on seeing my doctor. She told me they were stretch marks. I didn’t believe her.

Sometimes it’s even less tangible. Sometimes it’s a feeling in my bones or in my blood or at the core of my body that reminds me how I felt just before I was diagnosed. Sometimes I just have this sense, this intuition that I’m hovering on the edge of blackness. Then, well, I usually get my shit together, get some sleep, eat something healthy, get some exercise and hope it all goes away. Sometimes this works.

There is no cure for this cancer hypochondria. I wish I had better news for him or a solution, but the best I can come up with is this: I’m doing everything I can. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. One of my friends has these same words written on a note and taped to her mirror. I’ve adopted them as my own. I repeat them to myself. I write them on scraps of paper. I carry them in my pocket. For me they mean that I’ve had the strongest treatment and I take care of myself. Worrying will do no good. There is nothing else I can change because I’m doing everything I can.  

My sister told me just before my wedding to expect one major thing to go wrong. She told me to count on it. That way, when the catastrophe came I would be prepared. I would be able to look at it and see it for what it was.

Perhaps we should apply this to cancer scares. Perhaps we should prepare ourselves. Think of how many people are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime (I won’t share the statistics because they’re too depressing) then think of how many others have biopsies that prove to be benign. I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that almost every person will have a biopsy in their lifetime.

Maybe we should expect it. Maybe we should count on it. Maybe we should start telling ourselves now, that we are doing everything we can and that we hope that is good enough, because that’s all we’ve got.