While politicians fiddle and patients get burned, Americans’ best bet for affordable, quality medical care right now is in Bangkok. [...]
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March 3, 2010
Posted by Muhammad Cohen in: Business, Business Management, Cancer, Congress, Current Events, Economic Crisis, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Interview, Medical, Wellness, World Issues
 Leave a comment December 16, 2009
One day while sitting at my desk having a pitty party. I had just hung the phone up after talking to my son. He had been on yet another interview and didn’t get the job. When I heard the sadness in his voice, saying well mom back to the drawing board. Those words pierce a whole in my heart. My son lost his job in June. He has been applying on many different web sites and other places. He hasn’t been blessed with another job. He decided to go back to school to finish his degree which is a great move. I will continue to encourage him and always tell him to trust and put God first. When God is ready to bless him with another job, He will in His time. My is 6 ft 1, 25 five years old and he is in good health. I see, talk , text and hug him everyday. He also has a beautiful 6 years old daughter. She brings me happiness just looking at her. That same day while sitting at my desk about 2 or 3 hour later a middle age man and a young woman sat at my desk. The man wanted info on his son’s account. After checking things out on the computer I found out that he was not on his son’s account, therefore I told him there was nothing I could do for him. Then he pasted me a stack of papers, after looking through them, I discovered that the stack of papers papers were an approved POA. As I glanced through the papers and looking up at both of them I could see the hurt and tears in thier eyes. The spirit in me told me I had to say something to them. Obeying, I asked the father if the son was okay, with tears in his eyes, he said no. He told me that his son only had a few days or months to live. “My son has brain cancer.” for a moment I was choked for words and didn’t know what to say. I remembered asking him if he was okay, he told me yes. Continue reading Don’t forget to count your Blessings December 12, 2009
The male caregiver today has a plethora of information available to help him be successful in caring for his loved one. The Internet has literally hundreds of sights devoted to breast cancer and many of them have message boards or sections that discuss the role of the caregiver. There are three sites that I check daily. First, a national organization called Men Against Breast Cancer (www.menagainstbreastcancer.org). It is set up specifically to provide information to male caregivers. Secondly, Breast Cancer Support (http://bcsupport.org/) is an excellent source of information and they provide a chat room for one to post messages. Finally, one of the best is The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (http://www.komen.org) celebrating their twenty-fifth year of providing advice to patients, survivors and family members. Men Bleed Too by Thomas Brown ( http://www.thomasbrownbooks.com/ ) December 7, 2009
This is a true must tell story. I’m a born again Christian filled with the Holy Spirit. My husband and I planned a trip home for Christmas in 2008. It had been over twenty years since we had spent Christmas in my home town. I was truly excited because my sisters, brothers and the grandchildren would gather at my mother’s house. I lost my father in 1984 to cancer. There are eight children, around eighteen grandchildren, and fourteen great grandchildren. My mother is a blessed woman. She married her second husband at age 73. Through that marriage came three more step children and one more step grand child. About a month before our planned trip home we received some bad news. I found out that my mother had breast cancer. It was devastating news. I didn’t let it get me down because I knew who was in control. Most of all, my mother knew too. I began to do what I knew best and that was to pray. In my spirit I knew my mother was healed by Christ’s stripe just like He said. My mother’s concern was for her children not to be worried about her. What a strong woman. Things began to move of fast. Within two weeks, my mother had a mastectomy. And things went great. Although I wasn’t able to be there with her, I wasn’t worried and counted it a blessing that all of my sisters and brothers lived in the same town. I remembered talking to my mother on the phone after the surgery. She told me that immediately after she began to sing “God Has Smile on me.” She knew that she was already healed. My mother’s recovery was going good praise God. She was waiting for her wound to heal so she could continue further treatment. Continue reading Saved on Death’s Bed December 4, 2009
I don’t know if you know Authonomy. If you are a writer you should. It is an excellent place for showcasing whole or part books in the same way that SWI is a superb place for blogging. The trick with Authonomy (which is HarperCollins) is to load at least 10,000 words of your book onto [...] November 17, 2009
Posted by Minnette Coleman in: Cancer, Family, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Medical, Wellness, Women's Perspective
3 comments The insurance companies are trying to screw us again. By us I mean women. Well mostly women. Some men get breast cancer too. Like Richard Roundtree, the one time Ebony model who was the original “Shaft” in the movies. And like the man who was in the room next to me last year having a mammogram when I had mine. He looked about 35. I was 57. Would he be dead now if the insurance companies had their way with a new study that recommends a change in testing for possible breast cancer? Continue reading The Distrubing New Study on Breast Cancer October 3, 2009
Bob Ellal from this site has just written a book called ‘By These Things Men Live’ which is about his quadruple battle with cancer. That anybody should survive this recurrent battle at all is extraordinary. That s/he should do so and be a great raconteur into the bargain is even more amazing. Bob has got there and he has got beyond there. Bob has completed his excellent book and is now trying to sell it. As the wise guy said “Anybody can write a book, but it takes a genius to sell it,” and part of the sales process will be for Bob to have a nice plump website full of thoughts about cancer. These are mine. Please post some of your own so that Bob can add them to his website too. * * * I have known a lot of people to die of cancer. I am talking personally here. Not about celebrities or friends of friends I have never met, but people I have spoken to or who are related to me. Despite the statistics which supposedly show an ever-increasing success rate, that is not my personal experience. I watch films on DVD and I see hospitals positively gloating in bright, shiny, intelligent, irrefutable medical and surgical gizmos. They are not my experience of the real world either. Product placement is great, but it hasn’t reached any UK hospital near me. Continue reading Cancer – the great wake-up call September 14, 2009
Jonah 3:1-3 NLT “Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: Get up and go to the great city of Ninevah, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you. This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command…” What an incredibly encouraging portion of scripture this is! Jonah ignored the Lord’s command the first time. How many times do we hear deep within our spirits that we should (or shouldn’t!) do a certain thing and just ignore or overlook it? Many times we find out later exactly why we got that warning and must pay the consequences for neglecting to pay attention. Haven’t we all experienced that awful feeling that we’ve blown it big time. We were warned – we just didn’t listen. It’s too late now. But God. September 13, 2009
Posted by Tim Roux in: Book Review, Books, Cancer, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Medical
Leave a comment Bob Ellal’s ‘By These Things Men Live’ comes with a sucker punch in the final chapter (no, he doesn’t snuff it) but I shall declare my conclusion immediately. It is exquisite. It plays towards one of my prejudices and against another. The one it plays towards is my preference for novellas. You probably know the reply of the writer who was asked why his book had come in at seven hundred pages – “Because I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.” Bob did have time and it shows. He obviously even had time to really screw it up, but he didn’t – he polished it to a diamond instead, a blood diamond. The prejudice he has confounded is my expectation of what a chemo-and-tell autobiography might play like. I was expecting a lot of trauma, a lot of drama, tears, emotions tumbling off the shelf, and long, lingering, mawkish thank yous to anyone and everyone he had ever met amid his endeavours to overcome his fate. While I would have been whole-heartedly sympathetic to anybody who had to go through that lot, this would have been a book I could have put down, and would have put down, easily. Continue reading Review of SWI’s own Bob Ellal’s ‘By These Things Men Live’ September 6, 2009
Posted by Tina Rae Collins in: Attitude, Cancer, Creative Writing, Family, General Topics, Healthcare, Inspiration & Motivation, Lifestyle, Marriage, Mental Health, Motivation, Poetry, Relationships, Self-Help, Spirituality, Wellness, Women's Perspective
Leave a comment When time stands still All you can do is ponder, And wonder how you got to where you are. Could you have foreseen it? Could you have prevented it? Will you look back in sorrow Or consider it a blessing? You find no answers But only long for the day When time resumes. September 4, 2009
Posted by dacipha in: Accountability, African-American, Attitude, Cancer, Diet, General Topics, Habit Change, Health & Fitness, Medical, Opinion, Uncategorized, Weight loss, Wellness
Leave a comment You must have heard the song, “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way!” I can clearly hear Julie Andrews sing this as ‘Mary Poppins’. But I want to tell you about something else that might not go down so delightful but it will act as a medicine going down! Do you know that a teaspoon of Apple Cider Vinegar can help you live a longer life? In the age of plastic surgery this may be difficult to grasp. How can something so insignificant have an awesome effect on your life? Well give me the chance to explain. I was told a story by my fiancée that changed my entire belief about apple cider vinegar forever! One day my fiancée went to see his Ophthalmologist to purchase another pair of glasses. After his eye examination, the eye doctor asked him a question. He asked, “How old do you think I am?” My significant other replied, “You must be around 65.” The Ophthalmologist responded, “No, I am 80 years old. The secret is to have a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar once a day.” My husband came home and told me the news immediately. He did his research and concluded that we should purchase some right away! Continue reading Just a Spoon full of……..Apple Cider Vinegar September 1, 2009
Posted by Antonio de la Vega in: Cancer, Education, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Latino & Hispanic, Lifestyle, Medical, Mexico, Native American, Nature/Wildlife, Nutrition, Religion, Self-Help, Sex, Social Aspects, Social Classes, Social Issues, Sociology
Leave a comment Recientemente la Universidad Autónoma de México (U.N.A.M.) presentó el resultado de un esfuerzo monumental, consistente en la construcción de una enciclopedia multimedia especializada en la medicina tradicional mexicana. [...] June 29, 2009
Seeds are dormant until they are planted and given the proper environment in which to grow and flourish. You can keep an envelope of seeds for years and they’ll never change into anything else. Once you take those seeds and plant them into nutrient rich soil, water them regularly and let them get daily sunlight, the potential that was always resident within that seed is released and enabled to grow and flourish. It works in much the same way in our bodies. [...] May 20, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Biography & Memoir, Cancer, Creative Writing, General Topics, Inspiration & Motivation, The Writer's Corner
Leave a comment Burying the Dead By Alan Caruba
I attended the funeral of a boyhood friend today. It lasted fifteen minutes and included a minister who did not know him and two nephews in their twenties that remembered him best as a good card player. They recalled no memorable advice because, as one put it, he didn’t speak much. He died after ten years of struggling with the cancer that finally killed him; about half of the time his nephews knew him. They mostly recalled his quiet courage and lack of complaint. He had to be in his early seventies. After our school years he went off to college and became an accountant with a large corporation. He married and we exchanged the usual birthday and Christmas cards as well as the occasional email. Barely capable of anything one would call a conversation he passed through and out of this world hardly making a ripple. There were approximately twenty people for the service. His family members came entirely from his wife’s side. Both his parents had died when he was a young man and there were no siblings and no children. Continue reading Burying the Dead March 30, 2009
Posted by Minnette Coleman in: Cancer, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Lifestyle, Wellness, Women's Perspective
Leave a comment It has been 7 years since the found something. The dreaded call came while I was at work, the call that no woman wants to receive the day after a mammogram. The picture showed something in my breast and I should have it checked out. A needle biopsy, the doctor said. She was an enthusiastic young women who insisted that it wouldn’t hurt much and more importantly it wouldn’t take much time. While I was concerned with cancer, being breastless and possibly dying at the top of my list of what was important at that moment was making time to go take care of this and if necessary making time to be sick. Women are not taught to take care of their health. Our beauty rituals – manicures, hair salons, makeup counters, gyms and diet gurus-are all about the plummage we need to attract a mate. The so called pampering of ourselves with ‘spa days’ is a recent attempt to modify old behavior. For a woman to relax is something we once assume was only allowed in the confines of the wealthy. Our mothers and grandmothers were overweight, sometimes toothless, sometimes visibly unhealthy because they were taught to sacrifice efforts on the upkeep of beauty after the courtship and maritial rituals in order to take care of the families. Even though many of us know the old adage “A man marries a woman and hopes she stays the same, and a woman marries a man and hopes that he will change” we are really not encouraged or expected to take care of ourselves, especially our health. Continue reading A History of Women- Caring for Yourself March 25, 2009
Tom Brown is a consistent contributor to our SWI site who writes about his wife’s battle with cancer and related topics. We felt our viewers might be interested in clicking on the link below to view Tom’s interview with Reader Views. http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewBrownMenBleedToo.html At the bottom of this article (link above) click on “Read interview [...] February 17, 2009
WHO’s Number 1? [...] February 12, 2009
“The tumor is malignant.” Those were the four words spoken by Doctor Don Colacchio in 1992 that changed my life forever. The tumor that he referenced was in the right breast of my wife, Barbara Brown. She had inflammatory breast cancer; one of the most rare and fastest spreading types. After initial consultation with [...] |
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Sun, Summer and Color
In the early summer of 1970 while still a freshman in college, I participated in a racial/cultural experiment of my own making. Our dorm had the highest roof on campus and therefore a safe haven for young women who wanted to sunbathe in the underwear. It was before the advent of cute and colorful bras and panties so everyone sported underwear in immaculate cotton white. Black lingerie was for sluts and seduction, not always in that order. The problem was the rood was not that big and every girl on campus wanted to come there leaving little space for the residents of our dorm. One pesky group in particular came onto the roof in droves taking over the place as if their own.
I had never sunbathed in my life or seen the need to. I was black and had been raised to walk in the sun without sunscreen, using an umbrella to shade me from the heat only on the hottest of days. But my sister freshmen and I decided that there was one way to get rid of those unwanted on our roof. I would start sunbathing with them and we would see what happened.
Less than ten minutes after I stripped to my lily white undies the crowd started to thin out. When I pulled back the platinum band of the diamond wristwatch my grandfather had given me four years earlier and said: “Oh look. I’m browner already,” and a pale white friend said “You are so lucky” more girls left. They never returned and I never cared. I did this more for my dorm than myself, but I after doing it I understood race and color much better. I wasn’t supposed to have diamonds and I wasn’t supposed to sit in the sun. Continue reading Sun, Summer and Color