Quick poll

Happy Thanksgiving!  I have a quick question for you guys, lurkers and commenters alike.  Could you please leave me a comment and tell me what this is?  I’d really appreciate y’all even clicking through from Facebook or your reader to do this — I need a cross-section of folks telling me what they think this might be.

It should only take a second — I just want a word or two, not a dissertation.

I’ll tell you why on Monday.  And thanks.  To all of you, for all that you’ve given to me over the years.  It’s been wonderful, and I give thanks for you every day.

Hope for Anissa

Have you heard about Hope4Peyton? Peyton is a little girl in Atlanta who has fought the same disease we do — cancer — but at a much, much earlier age. Peyton was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at age 3, and her mama chronicled the story of her fight — and her family’s fight — at a blog called Hope4Peyton.org. Together, they battled cancer, and won. Peyton just celebrated her one-year anniversary of the completion of treatment, and cheers were heard around the blogosphere, in support of her, and her mother, Anissa.

Tonight* the blogosphere is bustling again in support of Peyton, now 5, and her mom Anissa. But this time the worry is for Anissa. Anissa Mayhew, blogger, mom of 3, and founder of Aiming Low, suffered a stroke last night, and is in the ICU.

Anissa is not a mother with cancer. But she is a mother active in the cancer-fighting community, a blogger, a mama, and a force behind the Friends of Maddie that supported MamaSpohr with the loss of her beautiful child earlier this year. She’s good people.

She’s good people. And she’s fighting for her life in the ICU. Whether you see the blog posts, catch the tweets (tagged #prayersforanissa), or just feel a little something different in the air this week, think about her. Send her prayers, or thoughts, or healing light, or whatever is appropriate in your faith tradition, but please, think about her as she fights for her life this week. I will be. I’ll be thinking about her, about her three beautiful children, and how very, very much I want her to recover and be her smart-alecky self again.

Hope for Anissa. #prayersforanissa. Hope, indeed, for us all.

*Originally printed at Mothers With Cancer on November 18.  Please leave comments at Hope4Peyton, where her family will see them and be comforted.

American Cancer Society

You are going to be mentioned at the American Cancer Society’s annual meeting (hashtag #acsmtg09) today!  Yes, you!  Team WhyMommy, and the supporters of Mothers With Cancer!

I know, I know, it’s terrible timing, and I’d rather be sitting here nonstop #prayingforanissa, but the show must go on, right?  Cancer doesn’t stop fighting when we’re distracted.  And neither can we.

Here’s a link to my remarks.

Prayers for Anissa

Prayers for Anissa.  And much, much love to her family.

In defense of mammograms

Earlier today, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued new recommendations on regular mammograms for women in their 40’s.  In short, they’re against them.

The findings are based, in part, on a finding from a meta-review of studies by the Oregon University Health Sciences Center showing that mammography reduced deaths from breast cancer by about 15% in women ages 40-49.  This data was put into a set of models that then predict that, if women postpone their first mammogram to age 50, only 3% more would die.  The study authors then weighed this risk of death versus the harms, identified in the study as “false-positive mammograms, unnecessary biopsies, and overdiagnosis,” and concluded that “the benefits of screening from ages 40 to 49 years were small.”

So, mammograms help save lives.  Just not enough lives.

Seriously?

One other point.  If you go to the original paper that discusses the models (Mandelblatt et al 2009), and click to see the data tables that show the details behind the 3% above, you learn that the 3% is a median of the six models used.  Individual, stand-alone models predicted additional deaths of 2-10% if women postponed their first mammogram to age 50.  That seems significant to me (perhaps because I can name so many women whose cancer was discovered by mammogram in their 30s or 40s, and I am better for having known them).  But beyond that, Table 3 shows clearly that mammography starting at age 40 not only saves lives, but results in between a predicted 11 and 57  “life-years gained because of averted or delayed breast cancer death,” for every 1000 women.

Let me translate that.

Because of effective screening strategies, such as mammograms, for every 1000 women, someone or some combination of them are living a collective 11 to 57 (median 33) years longer than they would have otherwise.

Let’s try that again.

Say I have 2000 followers on twitter who happen to be women.  If all of us get mammograms, there’s an extra 66 years of life to be lived.  66 years, among us, to raise our families.  To raise questions.  To raise hell.  Without mammograms, those 66 years evaporate.

Which would you prefer?

Annual or biannual mammograms, regular self-exams, and a chance to spend more time with your family?  More time at work?  More time laughing, and giggling, and throwing your kids in the leaves as you rake them?  More Thanksgiving dinners, more Christmas mornings, more birthdays?

Yeah, me too.  So before you write off mammograms, please read more about the report, find out what groups like the American Cancer Society have to say (there’s a good explanation at Dr. Len’s blog), and talk about these recommendations with your doctor.  Know the risks.  Know the benefits.  Know your own body … and always remember — if you notice a change in one breast but not the other, call your doctor right away.

As I meet more and more mothers with cancer, the importance of early detection just grows in my mind.  Tonight at 5 and 6, I’ll be on the Channel 5 newscast, talking about the importance of mammograms as one tool for early detection, as well as another important tool that we can all use … breast self-awareness.