#Young Previvor
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Visit Tumblr Blog
Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.
Last Seen Tumblr Blogs
Fun Fact
Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1B in 2013.
Text
Holidays 10.2
Holidays
Audiophile Day
Batik Day (Indonesia)
Bonn Phchum Ben Day (Cambodia)
Book It (a.k.a. National Young Reader's Day)
Erntedank (Thanksgiving; Germany)
Family Day (France)
Gandhi Jayanti (India)
Go For a Stroll After Dinner Night
Granddadâs Day (Belgium)
Grandparents Day (Italy)
Guardian Angel Day
International Chhole Bhature Day
International Day of Non-Violence (UN)
Name Your Car Day
National Batik Day (Indonesia)
National Body Language Day
National Bowhunting Day
National Brow Day
National Concussion Awareness Day (Canada)
National Custodial Worker Day
National Disabled Authorâs Day
National G.O.E. Day (Grows. Overcome. Empower.)
National Grandparents Day (Italy)
National Healthcare Entrepreneurs Day
National Manufacturing Day
National Michelle Day
National Produce Misting Day
National Report Long Term Acute Care Hospital Fraud Day
National Research Maniacs Food Day
Old Manâs Day (Hertfordshire, UK)
Oschophoria
Peanuts Day (The Cartoon)
Phileas Fogg's Wager Day
Potato Day (French Republic)
Stan Lee Day
Semana MorazĂĄnica (Honduras)
Teachers and Instructors Day (Uzbekistan)
Torba Day (Vanuatu)
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Day
Winter Walk+Roll to School Day
World Cerebral Palsy Day
World Farm Animals Day (a.k.a. World Day for Farmed Animals)
World MRSA Day
World No Alcohol Day
World Previvor Day
World Stmach Day
Wrongful Conviction Day
Food & Drink Celebrations
International Chole Bhature Day
National Fried Scallops Day
National Non-Alcoholic Beer Day
National Smarties Day
Tofu Day (Japan)
Independence & Related Days
Guinea (from France, 1958)
Imperium Aquilae (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]
Italy (Rome & Provinces Formally Made Part of Italy; 1870)
Republika (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]
New Yearâs Days
Jewish New Year (begins at Sundown 29 Elul)
1st Wednesday in October
Balloons Around the World Day [1st Wednesday]
California Clean Air Day (California) [1st Wednesday]
Canadian Beer Day (Canada) [Wednesday before 2nd Monday]
Childrenâs Day (Chile) [1st Wednesday]
Energy Efficiency Day [1st Wednesday]
Hump Day [Every Wednesday]
International Walk to School Day [1st Wednesday]
National Coffee with a Cop Day [1st Wednesday]
National Kale Day [1st Wednesday]
National Pumpkin Seed Day [1st Wednesday]
Random Acts of Poetry Day [1st Wednesday]
Semana MorazĂĄnica begins (Honduras) [1st Wednesday]
Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Walk Maryland Day (Maryland) [1st Wednesday]
Walk to School Day [1st Wednesday]
Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wheat Beer Wednesday [1st Wednesday of Each Month]
Wilderness Wednesday [1st Wednesday of Each Month]
World Financial Planning Day [1st Wednesday]
Weekly Holidays beginning October 2 (1st Week of October)
Bathukamma (Flower Festival; Hinduism) [thru 10.10]
Mehregan (Mithra Festival; Zoroastrian) [thru 10.8]
Nottingham Goose Fair Week (UK) [1st Wednesday thru Sunday]
Festivals Beginning October 2, 2024
Albino Skunk Musical Festival (Greer, South Carolina) [thru 10.5]
Busan International Film Festival (Busan, South Korea) [thru 10.11]
New Holland Farmers Fair (New Holland, Pennsylvania) [thru 10.5]
Schubertiade Vorarlberg (Hohenems, Austria) [thru 10.6]
Texas Rice Festival (Winnie, Texas) [thru 10.5]
Trailing of the Sheep Festival (Ketchum & Hailey, Idaho) [thru 10.6]
WOMAD (Cape Town, South Africa) [thru 10.6]
Feast Days
Alex Raymond (Artology)
Annie Leibovitz (Artology)
Arthur Edward Waite Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)
Buttering-Up Quarter-Finals (Shamanism)
The Cisco Kid (Radio Series; 1942)
Dashain Festival (Nepal)
Denha I of Tikrit (Syriac Orthodox Church)
Eleutherius (Christian; Martyr)
Feast of the Guardian Angels (Christian)
Frank Malina (Artology)
Gerdaâs Blot (Pagan)
Graham Greene (Writerism)
Guiding Spiritsâ Day (Everyday Wicca)
Joe Sacco (Artology)
Mahtma Gandhi (Humanism)
Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (Christian)
Leodegarius (a.k.a. Leger; Christian; Saint)
Mehregan (Persian Festival of Autumn; Iran)
Noodle Day (Pastafarian)
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, by Frederick Delius (Tone Poem; 1913)
One-Footed Animal Day (Celtic Book of Days)
Oschophoria (Fall festival to Dionysius; Ancient Greece)
Pancake (Muppetism)
Redd Foxx Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Sacchini (Positivist; Saint)
Thomas, Bishop of Hereford (Christian; Saint)
Wallace Stevens (Writerism)
Hebrew Calendar Holidays [Begins at Sundown Day Before]
Rosh Hashanah (begins at Sundown; Judaism) [29 Elul-2 TIshrei]
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Sensho (ć
ć Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]
Premieres
Antz (Animated Film; 1998)
Atom Mother Heart, by Pink Floyd (Album; 1970)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein (Biography; 1933)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Film; 1957)
Burning Sands or The Hot Foot (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 59; 1960)
The Burns and Allen Show (Radio Series; 1934)
By Word of Mouse (WB LT Cartoon; 1954)
Cheese Burglar (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1953)
The Curse of Anubis (Animated TV Show;Jonny Quest #3; 1964)
DC Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis (WB Animated Film; 2018)
Death in the Desert or A Place in the Sun (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 60; 1960)
The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac (Novel; 1958)
Enter the Saint, by Leslie Charteris (Short Stories; 1930) [Saint #2]
Farmer Al Falfaâs Birthday Party (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)
Fast and Moose or The Quick and the Dead (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 166; 1962)
Flying Home, recorded by Glenn Miller (Song; 1937)
Football: Now and Then (Disney Cartoon; 1953)
Freedom, by Neil Young (Album; 1989)
Ghost in the Machine, by the Police (Album; 1981)
Glengarry Glen Ross (Film; 1992)
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Book; 2006)
Hell and Back (Animated Film; 2015)
Homeland (TV Series; 2011)
The Invention of Lying (Film; 2009)
Kid A, by Radiohead (Album; 2000)
Kiko Foils the Fox (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)
The Kinks, by The Kinks (Album; 1964)
Lazy Jay Ranch, Part 1 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 165; 1962)
Little Beaux Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)
The Martian (Film; 2015)
Mean Streets (Film; 1973)
The Mighty Ducks (Film; 1992)
The Mole Men, Parts 1 & 2 (Underdog Cartoon, S2, Eps. 5 & 6 1965)
Neapolitan Mouse (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1954)
Of Mice and Men (Film; 1992)
Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz (Comic Strip; 1950)
Popeye, the Ace of Space (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1953)
Regatta de Blanc, by the Police (Album; 1979)
Scrubs (TV Series; 2001)
Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1967)
Soul Train (TV Series; 1971)
Splash Mountain (Disney Attraction; 1992)
The Steadfast Tin Soldier, by Hans Christian Andersen (Short Story; 1838)
The Third Man, by Graham Greene (Novel; 1949)
Tom & Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale (WB Animated Film; 2007)
The Twilight Zone (TV Series; 1959)
Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson (Novella; 1953)
Toonerville Picnic (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1936)
Weed Smokerâs Dream (l.k.a. Why Donât You Do Right), recorded by Harlem Hamfats (Song; 1936)
Westworld (TV Series; 2016)
(Whatâs the Story) Morning Glory?, by Oasis (Album; 1995)
Whip It (Film; 2009)
Zombieland (Film; 2009)
Todayâs Name Days
Gideon (Austria)
AnÄelka, AnÄelko, Teofil (Croatia)
Oliver, OlĂvie (Czech Republic)
Ditlev (Denmark)
Leela, Leeli, Leelo (Estonia)
Valio (Finland)
LĂ©ger, Ruth (France)
Bianca, Gideon, Jacqueline, Schutzengelfest (Germany)
Kyprianos (Greece)
Petra (Hungary)
Angelo (Italy)
Ilma, Reinhards, Skaidris (Latvia)
Eidvilas, Gervydas, GetautÄ, Modestas (Lithuania)
Liv, Live (Norway)
Dionizy, Leodegar, Stanimir, Teofil, Trofim (Poland)
Ciprian (Romania)
Levoslav (Slovakia)
Ăngeles (Spain)
Love, Ludvig (Sweden)
Cyprian, Justina (Ukraine)
Ackerley, Ackley, Adair, Forest, Forester, Forrest, Foster, Elwood (USA)
Today is AlsoâŠ
Day of Year: Day 276 of 2024; 90 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 3 of Week 40 of 2024
Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 4 of 28]
Chinese: Month 8 (Guy-You), Day 30 (Ji-Hai)
Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]
Hebrew: 29 Elul 5784
Islamic: 28 Rabi I 1446
J Cal: 6 Orange; Sixthday [6 of 30]
Julian: 19 September 2024
Moon: 0%: New Moon
Positivist: 24 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Lully / Gluck]
Runic Half Month: Gyfu (Gift) [Day 11 of 15]
Season: Autumn or Fall (Day 11 of 90)
Week: Last Week of September/1st Week of October
Zodiac: Libra (Day 10 of 30)
1 note
·
View note
Text
Holidays 10.2
Holidays
Audiophile Day
Batik Day (Indonesia)
Bonn Phchum Ben Day (Cambodia)
Book It (a.k.a. National Young Reader's Day)
Erntedank (Thanksgiving; Germany)
Family Day (France)
Gandhi Jayanti (India)
Go For a Stroll After Dinner Night
Granddadâs Day (Belgium)
Grandparents Day (Italy)
Guardian Angel Day
International Chhole Bhature Day
International Day of Non-Violence (UN)
Name Your Car Day
National Batik Day (Indonesia)
National Body Language Day
National Bowhunting Day
National Brow Day
National Concussion Awareness Day (Canada)
National Custodial Worker Day
National Disabled Authorâs Day
National G.O.E. Day (Grows. Overcome. Empower.)
National Grandparents Day (Italy)
National Healthcare Entrepreneurs Day
National Manufacturing Day
National Michelle Day
National Produce Misting Day
National Report Long Term Acute Care Hospital Fraud Day
National Research Maniacs Food Day
Old Manâs Day (Hertfordshire, UK)
Oschophoria
Peanuts Day (The Cartoon)
Phileas Fogg's Wager Day
Potato Day (French Republic)
Stan Lee Day
Semana MorazĂĄnica (Honduras)
Teachers and Instructors Day (Uzbekistan)
Torba Day (Vanuatu)
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Day
Winter Walk+Roll to School Day
World Cerebral Palsy Day
World Farm Animals Day (a.k.a. World Day for Farmed Animals)
World MRSA Day
World No Alcohol Day
World Previvor Day
World Stmach Day
Wrongful Conviction Day
Food & Drink Celebrations
International Chole Bhature Day
National Fried Scallops Day
National Non-Alcoholic Beer Day
National Smarties Day
Tofu Day (Japan)
Independence & Related Days
Guinea (from France, 1958)
Imperium Aquilae (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]
Italy (Rome & Provinces Formally Made Part of Italy; 1870)
Republika (Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]
New Yearâs Days
Jewish New Year (begins at Sundown 29 Elul)
1st Wednesday in October
Balloons Around the World Day [1st Wednesday]
California Clean Air Day (California) [1st Wednesday]
Canadian Beer Day (Canada) [Wednesday before 2nd Monday]
Childrenâs Day (Chile) [1st Wednesday]
Energy Efficiency Day [1st Wednesday]
Hump Day [Every Wednesday]
International Walk to School Day [1st Wednesday]
National Coffee with a Cop Day [1st Wednesday]
National Kale Day [1st Wednesday]
National Pumpkin Seed Day [1st Wednesday]
Random Acts of Poetry Day [1st Wednesday]
Semana MorazĂĄnica begins (Honduras) [1st Wednesday]
Wacky Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Walk Maryland Day (Maryland) [1st Wednesday]
Walk to School Day [1st Wednesday]
Website Wednesday [Every Wednesday]
Wheat Beer Wednesday [1st Wednesday of Each Month]
Wilderness Wednesday [1st Wednesday of Each Month]
World Financial Planning Day [1st Wednesday]
Weekly Holidays beginning October 2 (1st Week of October)
Bathukamma (Flower Festival; Hinduism) [thru 10.10]
Mehregan (Mithra Festival; Zoroastrian) [thru 10.8]
Nottingham Goose Fair Week (UK) [1st Wednesday thru Sunday]
Festivals Beginning October 2, 2024
Albino Skunk Musical Festival (Greer, South Carolina) [thru 10.5]
Busan International Film Festival (Busan, South Korea) [thru 10.11]
New Holland Farmers Fair (New Holland, Pennsylvania) [thru 10.5]
Schubertiade Vorarlberg (Hohenems, Austria) [thru 10.6]
Texas Rice Festival (Winnie, Texas) [thru 10.5]
Trailing of the Sheep Festival (Ketchum & Hailey, Idaho) [thru 10.6]
WOMAD (Cape Town, South Africa) [thru 10.6]
Feast Days
Alex Raymond (Artology)
Annie Leibovitz (Artology)
Arthur Edward Waite Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)
Buttering-Up Quarter-Finals (Shamanism)
The Cisco Kid (Radio Series; 1942)
Dashain Festival (Nepal)
Denha I of Tikrit (Syriac Orthodox Church)
Eleutherius (Christian; Martyr)
Feast of the Guardian Angels (Christian)
Frank Malina (Artology)
Gerdaâs Blot (Pagan)
Graham Greene (Writerism)
Guiding Spiritsâ Day (Everyday Wicca)
Joe Sacco (Artology)
Mahtma Gandhi (Humanism)
Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (Christian)
Leodegarius (a.k.a. Leger; Christian; Saint)
Mehregan (Persian Festival of Autumn; Iran)
Noodle Day (Pastafarian)
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, by Frederick Delius (Tone Poem; 1913)
One-Footed Animal Day (Celtic Book of Days)
Oschophoria (Fall festival to Dionysius; Ancient Greece)
Pancake (Muppetism)
Redd Foxx Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Sacchini (Positivist; Saint)
Thomas, Bishop of Hereford (Christian; Saint)
Wallace Stevens (Writerism)
Hebrew Calendar Holidays [Begins at Sundown Day Before]
Rosh Hashanah (begins at Sundown; Judaism) [29 Elul-2 TIshrei]
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Sensho (ć
ć Japan) [Good luck in the morning, bad luck in the afternoon.]
Premieres
Antz (Animated Film; 1998)
Atom Mother Heart, by Pink Floyd (Album; 1970)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein (Biography; 1933)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Film; 1957)
Burning Sands or The Hot Foot (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 59; 1960)
The Burns and Allen Show (Radio Series; 1934)
By Word of Mouse (WB LT Cartoon; 1954)
Cheese Burglar (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1953)
The Curse of Anubis (Animated TV Show;Jonny Quest #3; 1964)
DC Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis (WB Animated Film; 2018)
Death in the Desert or A Place in the Sun (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 60; 1960)
The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac (Novel; 1958)
Enter the Saint, by Leslie Charteris (Short Stories; 1930) [Saint #2]
Farmer Al Falfaâs Birthday Party (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1932)
Fast and Moose or The Quick and the Dead (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 166; 1962)
Flying Home, recorded by Glenn Miller (Song; 1937)
Football: Now and Then (Disney Cartoon; 1953)
Freedom, by Neil Young (Album; 1989)
Ghost in the Machine, by the Police (Album; 1981)
Glengarry Glen Ross (Film; 1992)
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Book; 2006)
Hell and Back (Animated Film; 2015)
Homeland (TV Series; 2011)
The Invention of Lying (Film; 2009)
Kid A, by Radiohead (Album; 2000)
Kiko Foils the Fox (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1936)
The Kinks, by The Kinks (Album; 1964)
Lazy Jay Ranch, Part 1 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 165; 1962)
Little Beaux Pink (Pink Panther Cartoon; 1968)
The Martian (Film; 2015)
Mean Streets (Film; 1973)
The Mighty Ducks (Film; 1992)
The Mole Men, Parts 1 & 2 (Underdog Cartoon, S2, Eps. 5 & 6 1965)
Neapolitan Mouse (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1954)
Of Mice and Men (Film; 1992)
Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz (Comic Strip; 1950)
Popeye, the Ace of Space (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1953)
Regatta de Blanc, by the Police (Album; 1979)
Scrubs (TV Series; 2001)
Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1967)
Soul Train (TV Series; 1971)
Splash Mountain (Disney Attraction; 1992)
The Steadfast Tin Soldier, by Hans Christian Andersen (Short Story; 1838)
The Third Man, by Graham Greene (Novel; 1949)
Tom & Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale (WB Animated Film; 2007)
The Twilight Zone (TV Series; 1959)
Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson (Novella; 1953)
Toonerville Picnic (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1936)
Weed Smokerâs Dream (l.k.a. Why Donât You Do Right), recorded by Harlem Hamfats (Song; 1936)
Westworld (TV Series; 2016)
(Whatâs the Story) Morning Glory?, by Oasis (Album; 1995)
Whip It (Film; 2009)
Zombieland (Film; 2009)
Todayâs Name Days
Gideon (Austria)
AnÄelka, AnÄelko, Teofil (Croatia)
Oliver, OlĂvie (Czech Republic)
Ditlev (Denmark)
Leela, Leeli, Leelo (Estonia)
Valio (Finland)
LĂ©ger, Ruth (France)
Bianca, Gideon, Jacqueline, Schutzengelfest (Germany)
Kyprianos (Greece)
Petra (Hungary)
Angelo (Italy)
Ilma, Reinhards, Skaidris (Latvia)
Eidvilas, Gervydas, GetautÄ, Modestas (Lithuania)
Liv, Live (Norway)
Dionizy, Leodegar, Stanimir, Teofil, Trofim (Poland)
Ciprian (Romania)
Levoslav (Slovakia)
Ăngeles (Spain)
Love, Ludvig (Sweden)
Cyprian, Justina (Ukraine)
Ackerley, Ackley, Adair, Forest, Forester, Forrest, Foster, Elwood (USA)
Today is AlsoâŠ
Day of Year: Day 276 of 2024; 90 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 3 of Week 40 of 2024
Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 4 of 28]
Chinese: Month 8 (Guy-You), Day 30 (Ji-Hai)
Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]
Hebrew: 29 Elul 5784
Islamic: 28 Rabi I 1446
J Cal: 6 Orange; Sixthday [6 of 30]
Julian: 19 September 2024
Moon: 0%: New Moon
Positivist: 24 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Lully / Gluck]
Runic Half Month: Gyfu (Gift) [Day 11 of 15]
Season: Autumn or Fall (Day 11 of 90)
Week: Last Week of September/1st Week of October
Zodiac: Libra (Day 10 of 30)
1 note
·
View note
Text
Will We All Soon Live in Cancerland?
In the summer of 2005, I met a woman, Laura M., whose life had been upended by cancer. She wasnât sick: What haunted her was anxiety about cancer in her future.
Three years earlier, Laura had been diagnosed with a primary tumor in her breast that was small and localized. She had surgery, radiation and chemotherapyâthe standard protocolâand then came to see me, an oncologist, to help manage her future care. I suggested doing nothing: She had likely been cured.
But in the wake of her treatment, she became obsessed by the possibility of a relapse. She scoured her family history and discovered a distant aunt who had died of breast cancer at age seventy. Her own mother had died at a young age from a car accident, but Laura became convinced that had her mother lived, she would have been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Lauraâs visits to the clinic were shadowed by a sense of doom. She often brought sheaves of printouts from the internet, detailing âoccult metastasesâ in patients who, like her, were thought to be at low risk. She repeatedly asked me to confirm that she had been given the most aggressive possible chemotherapy. We checked her for genetic susceptibilities but found none. Nonetheless, she asked if she and her daughter could undergo âthe most intensive form of cancer surveillanceâ to detect early abnormalities.
In recent weeks, panic over the latest turn in a contagion has been spreading like, well, a contagion. Yet even in todayâs pandemic world, cancer holds a special place in the anxious imagination. Its advance is often stealthy, its prognosis potentially frightening and its treatments damaging and life-altering. Once its shadow falls on us, we fear it will never go awayâthat there will always be another relapse and a return to harsh therapies that subsume our lives.
Cancer is appropriately perceived as a disease of risk: genetic or heritable risks, lifestyle risks and the unknown risks of chance. Modern medical science has begun to quantify these hazards for patients even before they get cancer. The new modes of detection improve or expand on the old screening methods, of which colonoscopies and pap smears, followed at a distance by mammography, are among the only few that have really led to significant drops in mortality. (Cancer prevention is another matter: Campaigns against smoking and a vaccine for Human Papilloma Virus have both been remarkably effective).
âThe borders of Cancerland are changing and, with them, how Americans collectively conceive of illness and health.
The hope is for the new, more powerful means of pre-screening and early detection to identify a wider array of cancers at stages when tumors can be surgically removed and cured, even avoiding chemotherapy in some cases.
But the state of the art in cancer surveillance and detection also risks unleashing a pervasive anxietyâa state of âfeeling under siege from the future,â as one patient describes it. A strange new term, âprevivor,â has emerged to designate a person who has not yet experienced an illness she is predisposed to have. For Laura M., survivorship of one breast cancer turned overnight, it seemed, to previvorship of another.
The borders of âCancerlandââa term the oncologist David Scadden coined with the title of his 2018 memoirâbegin to feel all-encompassing. In the past, entry was reserved for those with a diagnosis of cancer. Today everyone, in one way or another, slowly becomes a citizen.
Two kinds of technology are radically altering the landscape of cancer risk and screening. The first involves genetic surveillanceâthe attempt to quantify an individualâs inherited predisposition for cancer. The second is physiological surveillance, which seeks to detect chemical markers of incipient cancers in blood. These techniques hold out the hope of making minimally invasive, life-saving therapies available to people who might not otherwise have known of their cancers until much later.
But they are not yet as precise as we might hope, and they come at a cost: By pulling increasing numbers of people into the domain of surveillance and screening, they encourage people without current cancer, but with the prospect of future cancer, to become citizens or permanent residents of Cancerland. Settling into this domain can be life-distorting: As the shadow of future illness dilates and magnifies, so too do the shadows of anxiety and dread.
For decades, perhaps centuries, we have known of families in which some form of cancer (usually breast or pancreatic) manifests in multiple people across generations. Until recently, our capacity to identify the culprit genesâor, more actionably, to identify the members of the family who carried the heightened riskâwas limited to inherited single-gene mutations. These included mutations in such genes as BRCA1, BRCA2 and MLH1 that, if inherited from parents, increase the likelihood of breast, colon and other cancers severalfold.
But many human traits do not track with single-gene mutations. Height, for example, is highly heritableâwe know that tall parents tend to produce tall children, and shorter parents bear shorter childrenâbut early attempts to pin this trait down to single-gene variations or mutations revealed only a smattering of candidates. Geneticists described the conundrum as the âmissing heritabilityâ of height. We could infer from the pattern of inheritance that height-determining genes must exist in the human genome, but their precise identity and number remained unknown.
By similar logic, the inherited risk of cancer might be carried by mutations or variations in not one but multiple genes, which act together to increase risk. Todayâs computational technology can help with this problem. Algorithms can scan millions of fully sequenced human genomes and dissect how variations in thousands of genes, each exerting a small effect, might ultimately add up to the heightened risk of an illness.
âIt is not hard to imagine a world in which we are sorted into those who do and those who do not require screening for particular cancers based on both inherited risk and potential exposures.
One machine-learning algorithm has learned to predict human height as the consequence of variations in a thousand-odd genes. (Take a moment to digest this startling fact: Such an algorithm might soon predict your actual height, or the future height of your unborn child, based on your genetic sequence alone.) Another program can predict the risk of future cardiovascular disease; yet another, the future risk of obesity. Notably, some of these genetic markers are independent of previously known risk factors, such as cholesterol levels in the case of cardiovascular disease.
Such algorithms might soon identify those of us at highest genetic risk for future cancers. They may even be able to account for the role that chance and the environment play in the development of many cancers, including the ones that run in families. It is not hard to imagine a world in which we are sorted into those who do and those who do not require screening for particular cancers based on both inherited risk and potential exposures.
Other machines, meanwhile, would seek to identify chemical signals of current cancer in our blood or other organs. Called a liquid biopsy, or liquid surveillance, such procedures look for minuscule amounts of the products that cancer cells shedâshards of DNA, proteins and other substancesâinto the blood or other circulating tissues. By scouring the body to find ovarian, lung and prostate cancers, for instance, before these become clinically manifest, we might enable earlier or better treatment.
Liquid biopsies will further expand the pool of people who must be surveyed and screened for cancer. They may also heighten the risk of overdiagnosis. What if someone is found to carry a liquid marker for ovarian cancer, say, but the cancer never takes root in her body? Cancer cells, we now know, can exist in a body, or a site within the body, without becoming manifest as clinical disease or a detectable metastasis. Most likely, this is because the âsoilâ of a particular organ does not allow the âseedâ of a cancer to sprout. And some of the markers may turn out to overlap with benign diseases, thereby increasing the risk of false positive results.
Perhaps most concerning, the markers that liquid biopsies identify can tell us that a cancer may be growing somewhere in the body, but they usually donât tell us where, nor do they reveal the stage of the cancerâs development (although these puzzles are being tackled). A patient with troubling markers on a liquid biopsy would likely then undergo a raft of screenings, some of them invasive, in search of a cancer that might not actually need to be treated or that would otherwise make itself known in good time. Some liquid biopsy start-up companies, daunted by these complexities, have begun to focus on the early detection of relapsesâa much more tractable challenge.
The promise of detecting cancer in its earliest stages, together with that of identifying those at genetic risk for future cancer, is powerfully alluring. And yet the prospect of farther-reaching surveillance for this elusive long-term illness also warrants caution. In the 1950s, the sociologist Erving Goffman coined the term âtotal institutionâ for a community in which âa great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life.â
âWill we allow anxiety to consume our culture, or can we find a balance between curative therapies and the condition of being mortal?
Total institutions, such as mental hospitals, prisons and even boarding schools, have rituals of entry and exit. They inculcate belonging. They invent their own vocabulary and codes of behavior; they have an internal logic, impenetrable to others. They encourage surveillance and create anxiety: Members are united by a common sense of purpose, by the feeling of being chosen or marked. Those who are expelled may feel a sense of betrayal, while those who remain can be consumed by the guilt of survivorship.
In this new era of cancer treatment, I wonder whether we unwittingly, but insidiously, intensify the totality of the âcancer institutionâ for patients. When I once asked a woman with a rare sarcoma about her life outside the hospital, she observed, âI am in the hospital even when I am outside the hospital.â
People like Laura M. certainly experience a âcancer worldâ in that way. They are in either treatment, remission, surveillance, maintenance or re-surveillance. Mavens of early detection are working on algorithms that will pick up cancerous lesions on patientsâ imaging results and classify them as malignant, using criteria that seem to defy even the most acute human eye. The German computer scientist Sebastian Thrun imagines a world in which even the daily instruments of our normal lives morph into weapons of diagnostic surveillanceâa bathtub that scans your body to detect abnormal masses that might require investigation; a mirror that could check your body for precancerous moles; a computer program that (with your consent) would scour your Instagram or page while you slept at night, evaluating changes in your photographs that might signal signs of cancer.
In the most optimistic scenario of such a futureâone in which every person had to be genetically annotated, subjected to surveillance and treated if a tumor was foundâmany lives would be saved by early diagnosis, but the costs would be astronomical. Issues of over-diagnosis and overtreatment would have to be addressed. We would have to devise careful guidelines about when not to act and whom not to treat.
Laura M.âs experience presages a strange new world of constant diagnostic surveillance; of dealing with the anxiety of relapse and maintenance; of that peculiar desolation of the shuttle from clinical trial to clinical trial, and from hospital to hospital, as she tries to keep one step ahead in the chess game against cancer; and of watching doctors pit their will, wit and imagination against a formidable enemy that keeps changing its shape.
This world has its own internal vocabulary. A âhaircut partyâ is a celebration thrown in honor of a person about to enter the cancer world as a sign of solidarity, even if the patient is spared hair-loss-inducing chemo. âNo Exit chemo,â as a patient of mine put it, describes the fact that a unique personalized chemo regimen for a patient produces unique toxicities, like the personal hell assigned in Sartreâs play.
âA world in which cancer is normalized as a manageable chronic condition would be a wonderful thing,â medical historian Steven Shapin wrote in 2010. âBut a risk-factor world in which we all think of ourselves as precancerous would not,â he continued. âIt might decrease the incidence of some forms of malignancy while hugely increasing the numbers of healthy people under medical treatment. It would be a strange victory in which the price to be paid for checking the spread of cancer through the body is its uncontrolled spread through the culture.â
One could argue that routine surveillance for other formerly fatal conditions has become woven into our lives with little or no ill consequence: No scientist bemoans the cultural and medical surveillance of cardiac disease, for example. We do not suffer overmuch from automobile safety having dramatically altered our driving habits, either. Yet perhaps precisely because cancer encompasses so many different cancers, the cultural shift feels totalizing, unstoppable.
The borders of Cancerland are changing and, with them, how Americans collectively conceive of illness and health. What shape will we give the surveillance of cancer in the years ahead? Will it be a great civil project, in which all Americans partakeâa project of justice? Or will the most vulnerable among us see their health insurance curtailed as we increase genomic surveillance and curtail privacy laws, all while the elites bemoan the inability of âdisadvantaged populationsâ to curtail their smoking or overeating? Will we allow anxiety to dominate our cultural attitude toward risk, or will we find a balance between curative therapies and the condition of being mortal?
To date, Laura M. has not suffered from a relapse of breast cancer. Nor, fortunately, has she had a new cancer anywhere in her body. But strange victory over her body has not spared her mind. She remains haunted by the future prospect of illness.
The novelist and critic Susan Sontag once wrote of a passport between the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the ill, imagining a bidirectional passage: Men and women might pass into illness, but some would return to wellness. In inventing cancerâs new surveillance culture, I fear that we have closed the borders of the kingdoms. I fear that we now possess one-way passports into the realm of illness. What we will find there is up to us._
Dr. Mukherjee is assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and the Pulitzer Prizeâwinning author of âThe Emperor of All Maladies.â This essay is adapted from his contribution to âA New Deal for Cancer: Lessons from a 50 Year War,â edited by Abbe R. Gluck and Charles S. Fuchs and published last month by PublicAffairs_.
0 notes
Photo
With October just a few hours away, most of our feeds and environments will be filled with #breastcancerawareness and #pinkribbons. Awareness and early detection are great, donât get me wrong. But we as a community need more action. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed in their lifetime with #breastcancer. Out of that insane statistic, 1 in 3 will develop #metastaticbreastcancer. I know so many young women who have dealt with breast cancer or reproductive cancers from their 20s to 40s. My mom was one of them, diagnosed at stage 3 right before turning 40, following a #stageiv with #brainmets diagnosis 3 years later. Some of my best friends are thriving at stage 4, and I wish I could take that pain and stress from them. I wish they had the chance to have the choice I was able to make. The picture of my mom was from 17th birthday, just ten days before she passed away. This October, I want you all to do me a favor. If you are planning to donate or buy something with a #pinkribbon, please ask where and how your funds will be used. Out of all the money that is raised for this month, 2-5% goes to metastatic breast cancer research. Please consider making a donation to either @metavivor or @the_breasties, as both are amazing nonprofits that have helped this community so much. Since itâs also #hbocweek, if you have a family history of breast, #ovariancancer, #coloncancer, or #pancreaticcancer (just to name a few), please reach out to your doctor about #genetictesting. Knowing your risk can help you #advocate for yourself when something feels off. . . . #previvor #brca1 #brca #foobs #movemountains #wahtmm https://www.instagram.com/p/B3DqsGmFCn8/?igshid=4697jgno3j9x
#breastcancerawareness#pinkribbons#breastcancer#metastaticbreastcancer#stageiv#brainmets#pinkribbon#hbocweek#ovariancancer#coloncancer#pancreaticcancer#genetictesting#advocate#previvor#brca1#brca#foobs#movemountains#wahtmm
0 notes
Photo
"This one is dedicated to all the other young women fighting cancer out there - my breasties, my teal sisters, my #BRCAsisterhood and #previvors and everything else. You all inspire me so much and make me feel like I can do this! So this reminder is to you, my badass babes because #YouCanDoIt and if you canât, weâve got each otherâs backs...we got this. #WeCanDoIt" #WorldCancerDay #R29Regram: @kmellott http://bit.ly/2DUaDQ4
0 notes
Text
Alkermes Awards COVID-19 Relief Fund Grants to 10 Innovative Programs Designed to Address Challenges for Patient Communities
 Alkermes plc (Nasdaq: ALKS) today announced that 10 nonprofit organizations have been awarded grants from the company's COVID-19 Relief Fund, a special edition of the company's signature Alkermes Inspiration GrantsŸ program, that was established to assist nonprofit organizations in their work to rapidly address pandemic-related needs for people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer. More than 350 applications were submitted in May 2020 for this highly competitive program.
Collectively, the programs receiving grants reach across Alkermes' therapeutic focus areas and seek to serve populations that span ethnic, socio-economic, gender, and age spectrums, utilizing a variety of approaches targeted to the acute challenges presented by COVID-19, including: peer-support programs; innovative technologies, formats and channels to expand access to and reach of essential nonprofit programming; creative approaches to bolster crisis response; and provision of essentials such as food, housing, and career support.
"As stay-at-home orders took effect across the U.S., we reached out to understand how efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 were impacting people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer," said Richard Pops, Chief Executive Officer of Alkermes. "We learned that the fear, social isolation, and economic hardship impacting so many has led to even greater challenges for these communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to help address their unique and complex needs and will continue to evolve our longstanding efforts to provide meaningful and lasting support for these patient populations."
2020 Grant Recipient Organizations and Programs:
10,000 Beds is launching a new podcast to give people in recovery access to accurate information, a safe place to be heard and to listen, and a source for guidance on how to navigate a socially distanced world as they attempt to socially reintegrate.
Clubhouse International's Online Communities project is a comprehensive digital response to establish new channels of communication and virtual resources for Clubhouses and their members to address social and economic isolation for people living with mental illness.
Community Servings is increasing kitchen/delivery capacity and providing 75,000 medically-tailored meals to 340 clients and their families affected by cancer throughout Massachusetts.
Faces & Voices of Recovery is working to ensure recovery community organizations across the nation can sustain and adapt peer recovery support services through and beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic, with tools and resources to build organizational knowledge, capacity, and resilience in response to emergencies and risks.
Imerman Angels provides COVID-19 related information and will increase online capacity, video programming and other digital vehicles to partner cancer fighters, survivors, and caregivers with someone just like them â a "Mentor Angel" â a cancer survivor, previvor, or caregiver who has faced the same type of cancer.
National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City, through its NAMI-NYC Helpline, provides materials, information, resources, and referrals on current and ever-changing COVID-19 issues relating to mental health in New York City, connecting callers with vital services including housing, employment, healthcare, public services/benefits, and legal services.
Ohio Recovery Housing provides recovery housing operators with best-practice guidance, along with training and technical assistance, so that they may continue to offer quality environments during and after the pandemic, looking beyond immediate needs, bringing back lost capacity, being more sustainable, and growing to meet increasing demand.
Sound Mind Live's Artist Ambassadors Crisis Response Program will feature well-known musical artists speaking out on mental health effects of COVID-19 and ways to address them, including a COVID-19 Mental Health Resource Toolkit and a series of online interviews, virtual panels, and podcasts.
This Is My Brave is building upon BraveTV, a Facebook Live series, to urgently address COVID-19 related needs for people living with addiction and serious mental illness to continually increase the number of individuals putting a name, face, and story to mental illness through storytelling, and with a focus on highlighting and partnering with mental health organizations that are led by, and serve, members of the Black community.
Young People in Recovery serves youth and young adults who are no longer able to access in-person services with virtual peer recovery support services such as peer recovery support meetings, pro-social activities, and life skills trainings to help them maintain long-term recovery from drugs and alcohol.
Grant recipients were selected based on pre-determined decision criteria including: a focus on people living with mental illness, substance use disorders, or cancer; clearly defined needs, objectives, activity format, mode of delivery, and intended audience; relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic; ability to implement in a rapid time frame and sustainability of the impact beyond the immediate crisis; the organization's ability to execute the proposed program; and uniqueness and creativity of the proposed program/solution.
Since 2016, the Alkermes Inspiration Grants program has awarded more than $3 million in funding to innovative programs that support the comprehensive needs of those most impacted by serious diseases in our areas of focus. Due to the urgent and unexpected needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company revamped its Alkermes Inspiration Grants program for 2020 to provide grants to assist nonprofit organizations in their work to urgently address pandemic-related needs for people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer. For more information on the Alkermes COVID-19 Relief Fund, including additional details about the grant recipients and awarded programs, please visit https://www.alkermes.com/responsibility.
About Alkermes plc Alkermes plc is a fully integrated, global biopharmaceutical company developing innovative medicines in the fields of neuroscience and oncology. The company has a portfolio of proprietary commercial products focused on addiction and schizophrenia, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Alkermes plc has an R&D center in Waltham, Massachusetts; a research and manufacturing facility in Athlone, Ireland; and a manufacturing facility in Wilmington, Ohio. For more information, please visit Alkermes' website at www.alkermes.com.
ALKERMES INSPIRATION GRANTS is a registered service mark of Alkermes, Inc.
Alkermes Contacts: For Investors:Â Sandy Coombs, +1 781 609 6377 For Media:Â Â Â Â Â Katie Joyce, +1 781 609 6806
source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/45346-Alkermes-Awards-COVID-19-Relief-Fund-Grants-to-10-Innovative-Programs-Designed-to-Address-Challenges-for-Patient-Communities?tracking_source=rss
0 notes
Photo
I can finally talk about some personal stuff going on lately, so listen up! Some of you know that before my mom passed away, I was tested for #BRCA1 because of how young she was, it was her 2nd battle with #breastcancer, and she had genetic mutation. When I found out I have the same mutation she had, I started going to her oncologist once a year to make sure everything was a-okay. Fast forward 9 years later to this past April, I went in for my normal appointment after my mammogram and MRI, I asked about his thoughts on other preventative measures like surgery. He told me he would give me one, but recommended that I wait because he âdidnât want me to miss out on breast feedingâ when I have kids. Crazy right? So, when I talked to the ever so wonderful @mpegg17 about what happened, she recommended @orlandohealth #CancerGenetics clinic, and that I should go for a second opinion. After meeting with a genetic counselor and the research doctor to discuss risks from my gene, they gave me all the information I didnât have before. They even asked if I wanted to meet with surgeons to talk about surgery. Fast forward to today, Iâve met with a reconstructive surgeon and he gave me all of the information to cement my decision for a preventative #doublemastectomy and have a reconstructive surgery done! Today was the first of many appointments, but I feel like Iâm taking a step in the right direction đȘđ»đđ #beBRCAware #breastcancerawareness #previvor #BRCA1positive #imamutant #fuckcancer #nottodaysatan (at Aesthetic & Reconstructive Surgery Institute at Orlando Health) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_VC3TFnbFIr4h0d11LWjABCd5W5WF6fCx9lg0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=sgs9ajqzlr1o
#breastcancerawareness#brca1#bebrcaware#brca1positive#imamutant#nottodaysatan#doublemastectomy#previvor#cancergenetics#breastcancer#fuckcancer
0 notes