At this point I have had all kinds of tests, biopsies, and scans. You name it, and I have had it. So, when they told me I needed to have a needle biopsy of my collar bone, my first thought was “bring it”. Until I remembered that it was broken due to a tumor, which then turned my thoughts into oh my #$#%!# !!!!
I have had a needle biopsy before,...

Going to the doctor has never been my jam. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen my primary care doctor. Thankfully, I have always been a healthy person and other than the occasional checkup or yearly “lady visit” (which I have always felt should somehow involve an open bar) my relationship with my doctor was uneventful at best.

Recently things have changed.

The last two times I...

My Aunt is one of the bravest women I know. She and I share many things, such as a birthday, our stubbornness, and unfortunately metastatic breast cancer. She tells me every day, “If I could take this from you I would.” I have watched her fight her cancer with strength, grace, and a sense of humor. She was given 3 months to...

In honor of breast cancer awareness month and all women who have been touched by breast cancer, I decided to interview my colleague and dear friend Alyssa Millman on everyday breast health awareness and what women can do to be proactive in their own...

First Do No Harm

Siege, Webster's definition:  the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.

There's not a more apt description of metastasis to be found in any textbook of medicine.  A state of siege is so apropos of what the breast cancer patient faces;...

Ever since the 1970's, when lumptectomy was shown to be as effective as mastectomy for treating early-stage breast cancer, surgeons have been stumped by one of the most vexing problems in oncology: how wide should the margins be around the tumor to insure adequate removal of the cancer so that the risk of local recurrence or, worse, distant metastatic spread can be driven down as low as possible?

Early on, the conventional...

I knew it was important to get good grades in medical school; that is, I knew it was important to know the material.  And I knew I had to master diagnostic skills, too, like learning to distinguish different heart murmurs or identify degrees of burn to the skin.  But what I was most interested in learning was not the knowledge of medicine, per se, but how to use that knowledge in...

Many believe that stress increases a woman's risk for breast cancer, but in the past this theory has been hard to prove.  But just recently scientists in Canada have discovered an important clue for how stress can cause and promote breast cancer.

The part of our nervous system involved in the "fight or flight" response to stress is called the sympathetic nervous system and its nerves release chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, such...