#and hersheys specifically never came back out in support of her

[butchvamp]

really disliking this new corporate strategy of using trans people as marketing (hersheys and now bud light(?????)) where these massive billion dollar brands just expose trans women to the most vile harassment possible while they get to profit off their image and pretend to be progressive. like wow cool you put trans women on your chocolate bar and your beer cans but are you like, doing anything for them and the wider community or are you just parading them around...lol. also it really frustrates me that people will eat this shit up. brands targeting the lgbt community as a marketing demographic is not a good thing, actually. it should piss you off that target sells tshirts with the word queer on it. it should piss you off that hersheys "we use child slave labor" chocolate is trying to target you specifically with their advertisements

[jacksonunocards]

Schizophrenia and Eating Disorders in Black Swan

Darren Aronovsky’s 2010 film Black Swan centers around a dedicated, obsessive ballerina named Nina Sayers. The film’s entire conceit, and the story arc of its lead, are based around psychosis and duality, just like the Swan Lake ballet that the characters carry out. While it’s never stated outright, Nina displays symptoms of schizophrenia and eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. For what it’s worth, the movie never seems as concerned with any kind of message as much as it is with its premise, its imagery, and its build- which place its depictions of mental illness on brightly-lit center stage.

In the film, Nina (Natalie Portman) lives on the Upper East Side of New York City with her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), herself a former ballerina. There is no mention of any further relatives, and the only concrete information we know about her mother’s career is that she never left the dance corps before quitting to raise Nina at age twenty-eight. Her relationship with her mother is always filtered through her complete dedication to dance- her mother undresses her when she gets home, refuses to give Nina privacy, and herself displays, on multiple occasions, harsh mood swings.

Her mother also reveals that Nina has a history of scratching herself, providing the viewer with the crucial context that what they’re about to see didn’t come out of nowhere. Nina is constantly seen picking at her skin and discovering scratches on her back, even though we never see her actually inflicting them until near the climax of the film.

The production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake that the story follows is an unprecedented one- the roles of the innocent, incorruptible White Swan and the chaotic, sensual Black Swan are to be performed by the same dancer. Director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) makes it clear to Nina that he doesn’t see in her the darkness or abandon necessary to play the Black Swan- that is until they begin an arguably predatory relationship behind the scenes, and Nina is pitted against an edgy newcomer named only as Lily (Mila Kunis).

Nina is elated to find that she has gotten the part of both swans, but as the grueling rehearsals for the show drag on, she starts to lose her grip on reality. Her relationship with her mother grows more and more volatile, she does ecstasy with Lily, and she begins to hallucinate. Her visions usually involve seeing Lily as her own doppelganger, or injuries she inflicts upon herself. Everything comes to a head the night of the first show, as she seemingly murders Lily to embrace and become the Black Swan. Finally, just like the White Swan, she dies by her own hand at the end of the show.

The film’s escalation is very steady, and can be marked best by Nina’s hallucinations as they increase in length, frequency, and severity. They come in two different forms- visual (though these are usually accompanied by a non-diegetic audio cue) and auditory. A 2016 study by the University of Chicago at Illinois supports an assertion that Nina suffers from schizophrenia rather than a possible bipolar disorder like her mother:

In the present study, participants with schizophrenia reported significantly more auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) than did participants with bipolar disorder with psychosis. This is consistent with previous research indicating that the prevalence of hallucinations among hospitalized psychiatric participants was ​​​highest among participants with schizophrenia, relative to ​​​participants ​​​with bipolar disorder and participants with major depression.

The same article further compounds the theory by finding the same correlation the other way around, by observing the diagnoses of patients that had experienced a fully formed auditory hallucination in the past seven days:

Of these 76 participants with present-state psychosis, 53 (33 male) were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 23 (11 male) were diagnosed with psychotic bipolar disorder.

Other symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions (such as Nina’s unfounded paranoia that Lily is out to sabotage her) and agitated movements. It could be argued that her scratching and picking habits, which could be seen as symptoms of anxiety, are actually a further manifestation of her schizophrenia, especially when they tie into a visual hallucination of blood and ripped skin.

The portrayal of Nina’s specific auditory hallucinations, which most notably include the rustling of feathers and a voice saying “sweet girl”, are in line with the cognitive model of auditory hallucinations summarized by a Spanish study from earlier this year:

The ‘cognitive’ model maintains that they are due to a failure to recognize internal, non-perceptual stimuli – for example, inner speech, mental imagery or intrusive memories – as being self-generated.

The phrase “sweet girl” carries a lot of baggage for Nina- it represents the person she was before Swan Lake as well as the current White Swan, who was dedicated to technical perfection and accepted her mother’s overbearing behavior. They are presented as self-generated and can occur at any time, more tied to the preceding circumstances than any actual auditory stimuli. Whether or not the cognitive model is more scientifically sound than the alternate neurological model, it seems to be the one that Black Swan bases its representation on.

Finally, Nina is shown frequently vomiting after eating and taking extremely small meals, i.e. half of a grapefruit for breakfast. When she lands the lead role in Swan Lake, her mother surprises her with a cake, and a brief but intense argument ensues about the size of Nina’s piece, and her compulsions are seemingly rewarded when a costume designer observes that she has lost weight. Anorexia (self-starvation) and bulimia (binging and purging) can certainly be classified as their own illnesses, but there does exist a connection between these eating disorders and schizophrenia. A study published in Psychiatry Research, titled Features of schizophrenia following premorbid eating disorders, came to these three conclusions in August 2019:

• Ten percent of schizophrenia cases in a large case series met criteria for premorbid eating disorders (ED).

• Cases with premorbid ED may constitute a distinct subtype of schizophrenia.

• Premorbid eating disorders should be considered as a feature for psychosis risk in prodromal schizophrenia.

Eating disorders have always been prevalent in the dance world, and it’s possible that Nina still would have suffered from them without the impetus of Swan Lake, her psychosis, or Lily, but Aronofsky presents them in much the same way- deeply intertwined with the progression of the story and with each other. It’s no coincidence that Lily, whom Nina temporarily sees as the evil Black Swan, is seen ordering an extra bloody hamburger at a club while Nina eats nothing. As her visions grow more involved and disturbing, so do her fasting and vomiting, supporting the theory that her psychosis and eating disorders are all part of one mental illness.

While Black Swan never seems to make any kind of overarching statement about mental illness or the way that anyone but Nina is treated, and its portrayals of these symptoms are poetic and dramatic, its representations seem consistent and accurate. Tied in with its unique story, dynamic visuals, and performances, it stands as a culturally significant depiction of eating disorders, schizophrenia, and their relationship.


Works Cited

Jenkins, Lisanne M., et al. “Working Memory Predicts Presence of Auditory Verbal

Hallucinations in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder with Psychosis.” Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, vol. 40, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 84–94. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13803395.2017.1321106.

Fuentes-Claramonte, Paola, et al. “The Interfering Effects of Frequent Auditory Verbal

Hallucinations on Shadowing Performance in Schizophrenia.” Schizophrenia Research, vol. 208, June 2019, pp. 488–489. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.schres.2019.01.019.

Malaspina, Dolores, et al. “Features of Schizophrenia Following Premorbid Eating

Disorders.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 278, Aug. 2019, pp. 275–280. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.06.035.

[thegooddoctorheadcanonsarchive]

‘Sup

Alright, so. I guess this post has been a long time coming, and I’ll try to keep it as succinct as I can. But with the constant messages in my inbox and the comments on my fics (Do No Harm in particular) I’m just gonna put this here.

From the moment The Good Doctor came out, I was in love with it. I loved its message, its story, its characters. And for a long time it was amazing. I found my inspiration to write again, you all seemed to like my work, people were even recognizing me and asking for me. The second half of season one, when it came back...it wasn’t as great, but it was okay still. I just figured I had to wait for it to get out of its dry spell.

But that dry spell’s still going on.

The Good Doctor's potential is being wasted. Because the writing is so bad. Not even from a personal, opinionated viewpoint, like “Oh, I don’t like how Jared had to leave, I miss him and the show’s not the same.” No, that’s not it. From the technical, fundamental viewpoint of writing, it’s bad. As I see it; you may not agree and that’s fine (I am not going to argue with anyone on this post). This is just me explaining myself and my absence from the fandom as of late.

The show...is not a show. It is episodes. Separate and disconnected, there is no flow from one to another, no overreaching plotlines (save for the one about Glassman’s cancer that is so often added more as an afterthought and somehow has little to do with Shaun) no motifs no lessons no building. You tune in for one episode (maybe the plot stretches to two if you’re lucky), you watch it, and then afterwards...that’s it. A plot/plot point wasn’t wrapped up or explained in that timeslot? Sucks, fill in the blanks yourself. (Ex: Claire’s ‘determination’ to bring Coyle to justice that was immediately dropped. Shaun leaving out tuna for the cat trying to draw it in, only to never see it again. Lim’s ticket nobody cared about in the first place; we didn’t even see where that out-of-place plot went. What happened to that lawyer guy? Andrew’s wife? She’s not important anymore, you don’t need to find out what happens even though we spent so long detailing the issue to you. Jared and the patient that liked him? What patient that liked him?)

We are expected as an audience just to...accept things in passing without question, which is not what we should have to do. Stories should be shown and explained. Not shoved in our face so quickly all we can do is accept it, or stories so vague they don’t answer any of our questions so we just stop asking. (Ex: Lea’s back from Hershey. We’ll tease you with explaining why she left and why it was such a big deal even though she was only gone for about a handful of episodes before we just brought her back suddenly, but that’s all you get. Kenny’s in jail. Yeah, he stole somethin’ or idk. Jessica’s gone. Don’t ask why, she’s not important. Heck, even Glassman being fired and Shaun being let off the hook and Andrews being made president...just glossed over. Told to us through narration mostly.)

It’s as if they don’t trust that they have enough time to properly build and structure a naturally-developing plot that makes sense, so they try to shoehorn it all into one compact episode and think we’ll still be as invested...which doesn’t work. (Ex: Melendez and Lim should have slept together more than just the once. They should have been sleeping together for some time, we should have seen them slowly round the corner into “Maybe it’s more than just sex” we should have gotten to actually associate and care about them as a couple, and then, episodes later, the quarantine should have happened, which would make the plotline so much more palpable and actually interesting...not to mention logical. Same with Tyler and Morgan. You cannot expect the audience to be attached to a person we met fifteen minutes ago and be sad when they die. Literally, we were smacked going into the finale with: “Oh yeah, by the way, these two couples are a thing, care about them.” ...No, I didn’t care. At all. I was bored. Because I didn’t even actually know that guy’s name until after he died, that was how sudden and odd his character was. There should have been build-up with that too. Even if it was just a couple flirting scenes over episodes!!! Like, it’s not hard!!!) Literally, if you told me the writers had no idea where they were going with the story, and they were writing blind and just seeing where it went episode by episode, I would believe you one hundred percent. Because it just seems unplanned. Worse than unplanned! I never know what’s going to happen in any of my fics when I start them, but I never actually show that...even I can do a better job of planning and connecting...and I don’t.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Not taking the time to build to those things specifically (couples that suddenly have to watch the other part of them die/be in danger and other situations like that) is one thing and one thing only: it is a cheap way to get the audience to be upset. It’s cheap. And that’s what the show is now. All its heart-string tugs, they’re too sudden or awkward, because the writers don’t want to show the growth and the layering to it, they just want you to be sad or ‘interested’ and that’s it.)

The characters we’ve grown to know and love (the ones that are still around...) are not the same. They are different people, and it’s sad to watch them act directly against the traits we’ve come associate with them. (Ex: Claire ‘apologizing’ to Melendez, and being proud that she is willingly making herself look like the one in the wrong just to save his ego. Claire would never do that. She is strong-willed and independent, and she has worked too hard to step down for anyone, especially a man. Glassman and Shaun told each other they loved each other at the end of season one. A moment that made us all scream, a moment that was actually built up to for once, a moment that we were waiting for, that was so important to both of them...and a moment that was immediately forgotten. Throughout season two, Shaun has been significantly detached from Glassman and his treatment for someone that was so distraught before. There have been a couple cute/supportive moments...but only a couple. For a large majority, they’ve ignored one another. Glassman giving up so easily, knowing that Shaun is trapped with a virus and not even calling anyone to ask how he is???? Nope. #NotMyGlassman. Lim yelling at Claire in season one for not supporting her as women in power that need to stick together and show one another respect, only to immediately snap and scream at the judge during her trial in season two, and stroking Melendez’s ego as well.)

Plotlines and conflicts. They are overly dramatic and don’t make sense when you step back and look at them, not to mention there are so many infuriating double standards just to make an issue. (Ex: It’s such an issue Shaun cannot express empathy, but when Park talks down to a patient for having weight loss surgery and outs him to his husband, and when Morgan is...Morgan 24/7, there’s no issue at all. Obviously Shaun is the only one in the wrong. Just like he was the only one in the wrong for Lea demanding forgiveness and calling him a jackass, even though she’s never been shown to be that high-strung especially to Shaun. He’s wrong there, too, nobody else. For reasons entirely unrelated to what you’re thinking about, yessir. These are direct plotlines just colliding with each other because the writers cannot keep track of them.)

Look...there are just so many more things I could go on to say. But this post is getting too long. I don’t want to leave the fandom altogether; some part of me still hopes the writing will pull through and the show will get back to the way it was. So I’ll keep watching and waiting for that. But for now, that is why I can’t bring myself to write headcanons or fics or anything like that, and why it just pains me when people ask me to. The show isn’t as investing, as emotional, as meaningful. It’s degraded, and I can’t be happy with it right now. Or write for it. 

There are other shows that had better writing, had better truer-to-themselves characters, kept the feeling it had from the pilot straight to its final episode, had overreaching/steady/connecting plotlines, was detailed to the very core, kept in mind everything it stood for, but have been unfairly forgotten, and I miss. And I miss The Good Doctor too, but not for the same reason. I miss The Good Doctor because ever since last winter finale, it’s gone downhill and it’s still going downhill. And it kind of pains me to see the difference between those.

Not gonna delete this blog, I’ll still be here the way I have been popping in every so often...but just for the people that ask where I am/comment on DNH/message me and ask why I’m not writing. This is why. Just made a post for them. 

[the314anoman]

2018 sucked

it was probably the shittiest year of my life, and that’s not an easy title to claim. let’s recap:

it all started way back in early january, when our subway came under new ownership and we got a new manager, who had worked there for a shorter period than i had (yeah, i was part-time working during college, she was full-time, but w/e) and it all went downhill fast. our manager wasn’t bad, she just was just trying to deal with all the new regulations we were facing and the fact that we were Massively Understaffed™ for being located in a fucking mall. like, for contrast, our old managers let us get away with not turning the line coolers off at night if we were really busy, but under the new owners, we had to clean the legs of tables to get the salt of them. i decided to quit in march after having minors stay and help me close even though they were off the clock since they were required to punch out at 9:30 and still getting yelled at for staying too long and not making everything Perfect. it was so stressful trying to work both faster and harder, so i quit. then, college got out in april and i was looking for internships all over and applying everywhere, but i never got even so much as an interview request. so, june came and i just said “fuck it” and applied to other subways closer to home. ended up getting an interview the next day at a different subway, 2 miles from the old one. i got the job and starting working to find out the subway was also Massively Understaffed™ but the manager was more chill, so it seemed fine. turns out the reason the manager was chill is that he was high. like, all the time. this resulted in him having the memory of a goldfish. like, i specifically told him and his assistant manager that i couldn’t work one day and yet he still called asking where i was when i very plainly explained it twice. and he also scheduled a meeting on the day i request off for my niece’s baptism. at 8am. on a sunday. at the same time, i managed to get an interview at a local factory. it wasn’t really an internship nor in my field, but it was a job and it paid $12/hr so i was like, hell yeah, why not. i managed to get the job and started july 1st, which was great, buuuuuut... the job was super boring; it was pretty much doing the same repetitive tasks over and over again for 7.5 hours a day while ~~listening~~ being subjected to country music. BUT, we got 3 breaks a day and it was nice having a chill job. i came up with a lot of really good writing ideas for a novel that’s been a super long wip because my mind was mostly free during work since it was so repetitive. at this time, i’m still working at subway, mostly weekends and some 5-close shifts. i’m not getting a whole lot of sleep and so that probably explains what happens on july 25th, probably the single shittiest day of my life. i get into the factory and the normal manager is gone on vacation and one of my coworkers is taking over. she tells me that i’ve been missing the least important step in the process of making some parts that i’ve been doing for days now. so naturally, i mess it up a couple more times, but only when she’s watching, because ofc. this happens 3 times and the third time i kind of chuckle to myself because i’m literally only doing it when she’s watching. she takes this to mean i’m laughing at her and yells at me about how i think it’s a joke and blah blah blah, like that’s not what i meant at all but she won’t let me explain. THEN, i get out of work and i’m already on the verge of tears because i have a migraine from lack of sleep and i hate getting yelled at, and i see a text i got while at work (we’re not allowed phones on our person at all at the factory. national security stuff apparently) that my grandma is in the hospital and not going to make it. i just... lose it. i go home and just sit outside on a chair, cuddling my cat and gross sobbing for the first time i can recall. i’m supposed to work a 5-9 shift at subway tonight, but i am not in any state to work. i call them through tears saying i can’t work tonight, i’m visiting my grandma in the hospital in muskegon, an hour away. she’s unconscious when i get there. she dies an hour later, while me and my family are eating dinner downstairs in the basement where there’s no signal. eventually tomorrow comes. it’s now july 26th, which if you know me, is my birthday. my 21st birthday, in fact. you know how for most people, their 21st is the best day of your life? yeah, it was one of the worst for me. i still had to get up at 6am for the factory work, then run home, get changed, and work 5-9 at subway. the only bright spot were two helpful coworkers. one from the factory gave me a butterscotch shot, saying you should still try and enjoy your birthday and my subway coworker bought a hershey pie for me and gave me a hug and some helpful advice. (she had been through a similar experience with her mom passing, so she knew a lot about grief.) i took her advice on letting yourself be happy and decided to go to my friends’ meetup that weekend, which i had requested off from subway previously. it’s a while away, but this was planned a long time ago and i don’t get to see my college friends in the summer other than this, so i’m not missing this. but, when i’m almost there i get a call from subway insisting that i work this weekend to make up for missing my 4 hour shift yesterday. i’m furious because i missed it for legitimate reasons and i was already over 2 hours away and i was NOT driving back. (the reason they’re insisting is because they don’t want to pay my coworker overtime, despite the fact she’s living in a trailer park only off her subway income, too.) they say they might have to fire me and i’m like, sure, i have another job and i already put in my 2 weeks lol. so i go there and try to forget this whole week ever happened. the funeral is on monday, the factory gives me it off so i can attend. there’s lots of tears. lots and lots. my grandma touched a lot of people’s lives; she’s one of the kindest people i’ve ever known. she probably would have supported my sexuality if i ever told her, i regret not doing so earlier. i come back to my factory job on tuesday, and as if the universe is answering some unanswered “could things get any worse?” the hiring manager informs me i’m fired, as if it had to be july 31st, to add to the shithole that july 2018 was. this was a temp position to begin with, and i was leaving in a couple weeks anyway, but this is just another blow to an already grieving 21-year-old. i may have just lost both my jobs and my grandmother in the span of 7 days. i leave the factory and get in my car and just. scream. time passes. the pain of july slowly fades from a roaring inferno all over my body to a dull pulsing. good things start to happen again. i move into an apartment with 3 friends, get a job at the theatre after a lot of paperwork issues, i make the cut for an a capella group and find new friends, develop a crush on someone (something i haven’t really had since high school - but that’s a story for another time), and actually start getting my shit together. things are definitely looking up, despite the fact i had the worst month of life a couple months ago. ...and then comes december, as if it’s trying to challenge july to a battle for shittiest month ever. final exams are coming up, i spend a lot of the previous week leading up to exams rehearsing for performances (i had 4 performances in a week’s span), not much studying could be done. not that studying would help that much, as we would see, but w/e. i ended up forgetting my book with all the important formulas and relationships in it that are too complex to memorize, so i completely bombed that final, and therefore failed the whole class. i’m already having to take an extra semester, failing this class does NOT help. i barely stayed above a 3.0 gpa, a requirement for most internships. on the same day we got final grades back, my mom got a call saying my grandpa had died, only a week before christmas. my whole family went back up to do the whole funeral thing again. we are getting awfully familiar with this nursing home (my mom lost both her parents and an uncle in 5 months). finally, on new year’s eve i decide it’s either now or never to admit my feelings, so i ask my crush out. i get rejected, which is mostly what i expected, but it still knocks the wind out of me. so yeah, 2018 was super extra shitty for me. but at the same time, i feel like i’ve grown a lot as a person. i’ve made a bunch of new friends, gained a niece, learned a lot about pain, and done a lot of things i never thought i’d do. hell, i had the balls to ask a guy out, which was something that frightened me to my core. i went on a trip to dc and learned more about the injustices happening here, i went camping/hiking with friends, and went tubing behind a boat. so, i’m not gonna pretend it’s all bad.

[enzaime-blog]

Melanoma Survivor Gets Help, Shares Hope

New Story has been published on http://enzaime.com/melanoma-survivor-gets-help-shares-hope/

Melanoma Survivor Gets Help, Shares Hope

Melanoma Survivor Gets Help, Shares Hope

“As scary as it was, I always tried to stay strong and positive. Cancer can go wherever it wants. I can’t stop it, but it can’t take my attitude and it can’t take my faith. I was determined to stay strong and fight until I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Rosemary Manbachi

When Rosemary Manbachi was being treated for melanoma skin cancer in 2012 and 2013, she received support from her large close-knit family, and sought out resources from her community, including the American Cancer Society. She needed the help. Despite aggressive treatment that included surgeries, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and radiation, Manbachi’s cancer continued to spread for almost a year before showing any signs of improvement. At its worst, the cancer was in Manbachi’s spleen, legs, chest, and rib cage, and broke out in painful tumors all over her neck and arms.

“As scary as it was, I always tried to stay strong and positive,” said Manbachi. “Cancer can go wherever it wants. I can’t stop it, but it can’t take my attitude and it can’t take my faith. I was determined to stay strong and fight until I couldn’t do it anymore.”

From giving care to getting care

Before she found out she had melanoma, Manbachi was a pediatric nurse practitioner for 31 years, most recently working with cardiology patients and their families in outreach clinics of Hershey Medical Center in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region of Pennsylvania. She was also used to taking care of everybody else in her large extended family, including her mother, who died of esophageal cancer in 2007.

“I knew firsthand how devastating cancer is to the caregiver and family. Cancer is a family disease. It’s not just the patient who gets the diagnosis,” said Manbachi. “I think it’s harder on the family than on the patient.”

Manbachi says she went from being a nurse practitioner one day, to being a cancer patient the next. Unlike many cases of melanoma, hers was not discovered because of a mole or other skin changes. Her first symptom was swelling in her left foot. An ultrasound discovered enlarged lymph nodes, which led to biopsies that helped doctors diagnose melanoma. It was already considered stage IV. The original site where the cancer started was never found.

When she learned the stage of her melanoma, Manbachi says she was sad, scared, anxious, and overwhelmed. She was concerned about the impact of her illness on her husband, daughter, and the rest of her family. She worried she might not survive, and that her time with them would be cut short. But after the initial shock, she says, she became determined to remain positive and strong and fight.

“I would allow myself to cry for 20 minutes, and then I would get up and go on,” said Manbachi. “I tried to take it one day at a time. If I focused too much on the future, I became overwhelmed and anxious.”

Her initial treatment plan included surgery to remove 17 lymph nodes, followed by chemotherapy. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. Just 8 weeks later, Manbachi’s cancer came back and was spreading rapidly in her body.

‘I had hope.’

Manbachi’s cancer care team determined her best option was a clinical trial. She entered the hospital in July 2012 to receive interleukin-2 (IL-2), an immunotherapy drug. Her doctor told her it would make her feel like she had a very bad case of the flu. And she did. Her side effects included nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, high fever, confusion, and 40 pounds of weight gain from excess fluid.

No matter how sick she got, Manbachi says she never complained. She was determined to get the highest dose of the drug she could tolerate and stay on it as long as possible. Her husband stayed by her bedside and her brothers and sisters kept her spirits up. But in October 2012, scans showed her cancer was continuing to spread, and she was taken off the clinical trial.

“My biggest fear was that I was going to run out of options,” said Manbachi. “But I kept reading and researching about melanoma. I had hope for new research being done for melanoma.”

Manbachi’s doctors decided on a treatment combination they had not tried before in any other patient. She received the immunotherapy drug Yervoy (ipilimumab), the targeted therapy drug Zelboraf (vemurafenib), and radiation. She had to go to the hospital – more than 2 hours from home – every day for treatment for 4 weeks. During that time, she stayed at the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge facility in Hershey. A Hope Lodge community offers free, home-like accommodations for cancer patients and their caregivers whose best treatment options are away from home. She checked in the day after Christmas, and she and her husband spent New Year’s Eve there, where staff threw a party for the guests.

“It was a wonderful experience. The staff were overwhelmingly welcoming. I was 2 hours away from home, but never felt like I was away from family. Every day someone came in to volunteer, make dinner, and play games,” said Manbachi. “It’s one thing to have physical and medical support, but emotional support is very helpful. The group we were with played a big part in helping me heal emotionally on my cancer journey. I still stay in touch with those people. My family held a fundraiser and I donated back to the Hershey Hope Lodge, Hershey’s Melanoma Team, and a prescription fund for cancer patients.”

Meanwhile, Manbachi developed lupus, arthritis, and severe skin rashes from her treatments. She had large tumors in her groin and neck and she could barely walk. But she was encouraged that the melanoma had not spread to her brain, liver, lungs or heart. She was determined to continue the treatment.

In February 2013, after nearly a year of showing no response to any treatment, Manbachi’s scans found no evidence of cancer in her body. “It was like a miracle,” she said. In December 2013, she was taken off all her cancer medication and had follow-up tests every 3 months for 2 years. Now she has those check-ups every 6 months.

Key advice

Today, Manbachi shares her story with as many people as she can, whether she’s in a support group or a doctor’s office waiting room. “You never know when your story will encourage or help others,” she says. “I’m always happy to help others with cancer.”

Among her advice:

Seek out a committed team of health care providers who specialize in the type of cancer you have.

Be an advocate for yourself and stay educated about the specific type of cancer you have and the treatment options available.

Eat a healthy diet and exercise on a regular basis, even if it’s only walking daily.

Get regular checkups and health care screenings.

Use all the resources available to cancer patients in your area. Cancer wellness centers and hospitals offer support groups, exercise classes, massages, and more. Look Good Feel Better is a free program that helps cancer patients manage the appearance-related side effects of treatment.

Try to manage your stress and not let the little things bother you.

Take one day at a time and one treatment at a time. Try to stay positive and stay in the present.

Enjoy every minute you have with family and friends, and appreciate life.

Reach out to others with cancer and tell your story because we gain strength from each other.