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June 2013
- Thursday, June 13, 2013
Do You Think Lung Cancer is Shameful?By Heather Millar I just took an on-line test from The Lung Cancer Project, a joint effort of the oncology biotech company Genentech and (more...)
- Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Michael Douglas, HPV, and Throat CancerBy Heather Millar Before the Angelina Jolie mastectomy stories have even faded from the pages of People magazine, a celebrity once again (more...)
May 2013
- Thursday, May 30, 2013
Will Life Ever Feel Normal Again?By Heather Millar About two months ago, I went in for my annual ob-gyn check-up. My doctor, Mindy Goldman, a professor at University of (more...)
- Thursday, May 23, 2013
Talking to Your Doctor About Financial ConcernsBy Heather Millar As I’ve mentioned many times, I am very, very lucky to have what the press have called a “gold-plated” insurance (more...)
- Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Thoughts on Angelina's DecisionBy Heather Millar Both my Twitter feed and my Facebook feed are crackling with discussion of a remarkable op-ed by Angelina Jolie (more...)
- Thursday, May 09, 2013
Sex and CancerBy Heather Millar In my experience, sex is the big elephant in the room for cancer patients. I’ve written about this before, here and (more...)
- Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Comfort Food During ChemoBy Heather Millar As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been cooking for an old family friend and neighbor who has metastatic lung cancer. (more...)
April 2013
- Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Can a Pill Prevent Breast Cancer?By Heather Millar Should healthy women take a pill to prevent breast cancer? Last week, a government-sponsored panel of experts said (more...)
- Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Why Can't We Have a Better Hospital Gown?By Heather Millar When I first saw the press release about a new hospital gown design being introduced by the Henry Ford Hospital in (more...)
- Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Writing Your Way Through CancerBy Heather Millar I try to never forget that it’s a privilege to be a reporter. It’s increasingly like being an actor or a sculptor (more...)
- Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The Ones That Get Us ThroughBy Heather Millar I went in for my oncology checkup yesterday and it was bittersweet. My mammogram showed clear; my physical exam (more...)
March 2013
- Wednesday, March 27, 2013
The Cancer Screening DebateBy Heather Millar As most cancer patients are probably aware, there are several ongoing debates about cancer screening in this country. (more...)
- Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Rethinking the Role of AntioxidantsBy Heather Millar I always feel virtuous in the morning when I have plain Greek yogurt topped with blueberries. “What a (more...)
- Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Cancer VillagesBy Heather Millar Today, I started to write a post about insomnia. I’ve been tossing and turning a bit lately, though not as severely (more...)
- Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Surviving Is Traumatic TooBy Heather Millar I’ve got a close friend whose sister had breast cancer 15 years ago. Even now—decades on, with neither symptoms (more...)
February 2013
- Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Getting SloppyBy Heather Millar When I was in active treatment for breast cancer, medical appointments, tests, scans, infusion sessions, radiation (more...)
- Wednesday, February 20, 2013
To Drink, or Not to Drink? That is the QuestionBy Heather Millar I know a woman from a support group has not touched a drop of alcohol since her diagnosis with breast cancer several (more...)
- Friday, February 15, 2013
Prevention Neglected: Could Your Couch or Dashboard Cause Cancer?By Heather Millar The cancer world is all a-twitter about a just-released, federally-mandated report that says that research into the (more...)
- Thursday, February 07, 2013
Is More Necessarily Better?By Heather Millar As I write this, my ailing, 84-year-old mother is upstairs asleep. Mom does not have cancer, but she has a (more...)
January 2013
- Wednesday, January 30, 2013
If Only I Had a One-handed DoctorBy Heather Millar I stole that headline idea from the biologist who used to be president of my university. He used to say that he wanted (more...)
- Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Decreasing the Environmental Footprint of SicknessBy Heather Millar The other day, I was walking the dogs and ran into an acquaintance. Our German Shepherds like each other; we both have (more...)
- Wednesday, January 16, 2013
For Cancer Patients, the Star Trek “Tricorder” Still a DreamBy Heather Millar A couple weeks ago, my tween daughter came running out of the bathroom with a copy of the super-serious British news (more...)
- Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Cancer Hits the “Reset” ButtonBy Heather Millar The New Year is when people, especially journalists, love to take stock: The last week of the old year, and the first (more...)
- Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Early Screening Not a “Get Out Of Jail Free” CardBy Heather Millar As a cancer patient, it feels intuitively right that early screening and early detection of cancer means a better (more...)
December 2012
- Friday, December 28, 2012
Soon, You May Not Need Wigs During ChemoBy Heather Millar With the flurry of news releases out of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Forum earlier this month, I forgot to (more...)
- Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Remember to Sing in the LifeboatsBy Heather Millar The headline above is a quote from “Anonymous,” one of my favorites from that prolific author. I’ve been (more...)
- Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Whaddaya Mean, the Docs Aren’t Sure?By Heather Millar Last week, lots of headlines came out of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Forum. This happens every year, as breast (more...)
- Wednesday, December 05, 2012
What if Something Happens to Me?By Heather Millar I’ve written a few times about the dear family friend and neighbor who now fights metastatic lung cancer. (more...)
November 2012
- Wednesday, November 28, 2012
You’ve Got Cancer? Why Are You Smoking?By Heather Millar I must admit that I’ve not always been the most understanding person when these two questions have come up in (more...)
- Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Just Say "No" to Ridiculous Drug PricesBy Heather Millar I’m not the kind of person who feels the need to balance my checkbook to the penny. I don’t pore over every (more...)
- Wednesday, November 14, 2012
As a Cancer Patient, What Do You Want?By Heather Millar As I was scrolling through a cancer patient newsgroup this week, I came across a cry for help from a fellow (more...)
- Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Anger, Sure. Managing Anger is What CountsBy Heather Millar When I first saw the news item that a Taiwanese cancer patient had set fire to his hospital, I flashed back on a (more...)
October 2012
- Wednesday, October 31, 2012
What’s the Best Thing I Can Say This Week? Vote!By Heather Millar I had lots of ideas for this week’s post: • It’s Halloween today. What’s more scary than cancer? (Cue (more...)
- Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Got Cancer? Here Come the Marketers!By Heather Millar This is only my third October as a member of the “breast cancer community” and I’m already tired. I’m not (more...)
- Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Suspicious Lab Result? Turn Left at Pathology…By Heather Millar I hate GPS systems that talk. “Turn left here, turn right there.” And if you overshoot, or decide to make your own (more...)
- Wednesday, October 10, 2012
“Hi, How Ya Doing? I’ve Got Cancer.”By Heather Millar Do you ever notice how, when you bring up cancer, people get all serious? When you’re first diagnosed and you (more...)
- Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Don't Cross Bridges Before You Come to ThemBy Heather Millar Last Friday, I went in for what I hope is my very last clinical trial appointment, a brain MRI and a series of (more...)
September 2012
- Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Ask for Help if You Need It; Give It If You Can!By Heather Millar I’ve mentioned a couple of times that we have a family friend who has metastatic lung cancer. I’ve known him and (more...)
- Wednesday, September 19, 2012
What If Cancer Is Just One of Your Problems?By Heather Millar I just got off the phone with the wife of one of my husband’s colleagues. She has just been diagnosed with breast (more...)
- Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Miracle Drug? Cancer Patients BewareBy Heather Millar When I was sick and in active treatment, I often thought of this quote attributed to the current Dalai Lama: “If a (more...)
- Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Wash, Wash, and Wash AgainBy Heather Millar “A hospital is no place to get well.” If only that were just a well-travelled joke…every year more than 2 (more...)
August 2012
- Friday, August 31, 2012
Many Losses, Many Beliefs, Many MisunderstandingsBy Heather Millar I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how cancer is so often about loss, just as life is so often about loss. (more...)
- Wednesday, August 29, 2012
If the News Isn’t Good, How Would You Spend Your Time?By Heather Millar For me, pancreatic cancer looms as a big, big bogeyman. A few years ago, at a family Easter gathering, my cousin’s (more...)
- Friday, August 24, 2012
Is Chemo-Brain Real? What Was the Question Again?By Heather Millar I got an email this week from a clinical coordinator at UC San Francisco. It’s time for what I hope is the last (more...)
- Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The Cancer Patient and the VigilanteBy Heather Millar The first time I heard the story, I dismissed it as a freak occurrence. But, then, I heard of another case not (more...)
- Friday, August 17, 2012
The Little Things That Linger OnBy Heather Millar The second weekend of every August, my family, my older brother’s family, and the families of many friends and (more...)
- Friday, August 10, 2012
The Big WaitBy Heather Millar As I mentioned in a previous post, I went in for my six-month oncology check-up last week. Everything went fine. (more...)
- Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Coverage Dropped? A Student Wages War on TwitterBy Heather Millar Arijit Guha, 31, is a graduate student at Arizona State University. He’s working on a Ph.D. in sustainability. In (more...)
- Friday, August 03, 2012
In Praise of the OrdinaryBy Heather Millar The woman burst out of the door to the mammography suites and procedure rooms. She whisked past me. She held a (more...)
- Wednesday, August 01, 2012
A Port in a Storm? Or Not?By Heather Millar I have an acquaintance who’s about to start chemotherapy. Lately, she’s been obsessing about whether or not to (more...)
July 2012
- Friday, July 27, 2012
Why Did Sally Ride Keep Her Cancer Secret?By Heather Millar It would have been difficult, this week, to miss the news that Sally Ride, the first American woman to blast into (more...)
- Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Expect the Blues, and Know There’s HelpBy Heather Millar When I finished the toughest part of my treatment about a year ago, I expected to feel elated. After all, the (more...)
- Friday, July 20, 2012
Help is Just a Phone Call AwayBy Heather Millar Remember the fog that surrounded you right after diagnosis? Remember how difficult it is to become an instant (more...)
- Friday, July 13, 2012
We’re Still Pals, Right?By Heather Millar This week, on a support group listserv, I read yet another sad story about relationships distorted by cancer. The (more...)
- Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Wow, Man. Maybe we should, like, keep an open mindBy Heather Millar I grew up in San Francisco in the late 1960s and 1970s, not even two miles from the famously groovy (more...)
June 2012
- Friday, June 29, 2012
Be the Squeaky WheelBy Heather Millar My half-brother and I joke that we’re now at the age where all we do is sit around and talk about our ailments. (more...)
- Wednesday, June 27, 2012
De-coding the Medical CodesBy Heather Millar When I was in active treatment, I kept a running tally of how much my medical care was costing. Then, and now, I (more...)
- Friday, June 22, 2012
Cancer: Maybe It’s Not What You ThinkBy Heather Millar We need to rethink cancer. Once upon a time, researchers thought that if we could just find the magic key to (more...)
- Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Every Positive Needs a NegativeBy Heather Millar As I’m writing this, I have an icky summer cold. It’s nothing serious, just the usual aches, cough, sneezing, (more...)
- Friday, June 15, 2012
Are CT Scans Raising Our Cancer Risk?By Heather Millar I know a young med student who’s a thyroid cancer survivor. When we first talked about it, she said, “I (more...)
- Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Common Sense is a Cancer Patient’s Best DefenseBy Heather Millar Last week, a family friend and neighbor found out that he has lung cancer. He’s in his 80s. In the email (more...)
- Friday, June 08, 2012
Last on the Bucket List: Taking Stock Eases Stress, SymptomsBy Heather Millar A growing body of research suggests that talking things out, taking stock, and tapping into whatever spiritual (more...)
- Wednesday, June 06, 2012
And a Long, Strange Trip It Can BeBy Heather Millar One of the first things that freaked me out about cancer was the notion that it can move around the body, MY body. (more...)
- Friday, June 01, 2012
Here’s Cancer: Can You Bring Yourself to Really Look?By Heather Millar Carey Goldberg—a friend and former reporter for The Boston Globe and The New York Times—alerted me to a (more...)
May 2012
- Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Have Cancer, Will TravelBy Heather Millar As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I was diagnosed with breast cancer about three weeks before my family and (more...)
- Friday, May 25, 2012
Should You Get Screened? It’s Complicated.By Heather Millar This week, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) made headlines when it recommended that the screening blood (more...)
- Wednesday, May 23, 2012
To Supplement, or Not to SupplementBy Heather Millar I’m not much of a vitamin person. That is, I don’t take a lot of multi-vitamins and other dietary supplements. (more...)
- Friday, May 18, 2012
A Cancer Diagnosis Should Not Equal PovertyBy Heather Millar I remember clearly when I first realized that cancer too often translates into a financial meltdown: I was sitting (more...)
- Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Carcinogens in Lipstick? ATM Receipts? How Can This Be?By Heather Millar Every day, we live in a soup of manufactured chemicals, and only a few of them have been tested for safety. Even (more...)
- Friday, May 11, 2012
If It Sounds too Good to be True, It Probably IsBy Heather Millar Not long after I was diagnosed with cancer, an alternative medicine professional shared this kernel of wisdom: (more...)
- Wednesday, May 09, 2012
The Funny Side of CancerBy Heather Millar OK, I know that cancer isn’t really funny. But funny things happen to cancer patients: I got into a bike (more...)
- Thursday, May 03, 2012
When Speaking Up is a Matter of Life and DeathBy Heather Millar Cancer care is complicated, stressful. The outcome is always uncertain. You’d think that in this sort of highly (more...)
- Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Moving Ahead With a PlanBy Heather Millar I have an appointment with my primary care doc in about a week. Luckily for me, I won’t have to recite chapter (more...)
April 2012
- Thursday, April 26, 2012
Even More Reasons to Eat Less, Exercise MoreBy Heather Millar Within just a few hours of being diagnosed with breast cancer, I searched desperately for the bright side. “Well,” (more...)
- Wednesday, April 25, 2012
When You Don’t Want to Get Wigged OutBy Heather Millar As I’ve mentioned before, I participated in a clinical trial that saved 75 to 80 percent of my hair during chemo. (more...)
- Friday, April 20, 2012
Your Sex Life on Cancer. What Sex Life? Part 2By Heather Millar In my last post I tried to address what we cancer patients can do to keep the romantic fires burning during (more...)
- Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Your Sex Life on Cancer: What Sex Life? Part 1By Heather Millar This may be stating the obvious: Cancer is not an aphrodisiac. For most of us, thoughts of romance fly out the (more...)
- Friday, April 13, 2012
Why Do You Walk?By Heather Millar Just as I was starting chemo, in late October 2010, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer came to San Francisco, where I (more...)
- Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Don’t Make Chemo Harder Than It Already IsBy Heather Millar Her first chemo infusion had been four days earlier and, as might be expected, she was feeling terrible in all the (more...)
- Friday, April 06, 2012
Do You Really Need That? At Least Talk About ItBy Heather Millar I’ve been working on a book proposal for the last couple weeks and thinking a lot about the cost of medical care (more...)
- Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Good Luck CharmsBy Heather Millar A couple of weeks ago, as I was dusting the bookshelves in our family room, my daughter asked, “Mom, why do you (more...)
March 2012
- Friday, March 30, 2012
How to Reach Out When a Patient Says NoBy Heather Millar One of my dearest friends called a few days ago, sounding upset and confused: A childhood friend of hers has Stage IV, (more...)
- Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Chemo Means Going Bald? Not NecessarilyBy Heather Millar When I wrote my last post about hair, I wasn’t completely clear about my hair situation because it would have made (more...)
- Friday, March 23, 2012
Your Hair After ChemoBy Heather Millar I need to get a new head shot. The picture that you see to the right of this blog post is about three years old. (more...)
- Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Your New Best Friend: An Audio RecorderBy Heather Millar If you were diagnosed with cancer forty years ago, your doctor might not even have told you about your diagnosis. (more...)
- Friday, March 16, 2012
I’m Not Afraid! Or Am I?By Heather Millar After the initial few freak-out weeks following my breast cancer diagnosis, I thought of myself as a pretty (more...)
- Wednesday, March 14, 2012
When Denial Can Kill YouBy Heather Millar Three in four people don’t know many of the common warning signs of cancer, according to a survey of 2,090 people (more...)
- Friday, March 09, 2012
I’m Brave and Heroic? What About You?By Heather Millar I think I know how HRH Princess Diana felt. I may have been waiting my whole life to write that sentence. A few (more...)
- Wednesday, March 07, 2012
You Don’t Have to Go It AloneBy Heather Millar About a week ago, I was talking to a friend who’s about six months behind me in the breast cancer (more...)
- Friday, March 02, 2012
Baggage that Lingers OnBy Heather Millar Most cancer patients I know have an all-too-detailed sense of the toll that their disease and treatment takes on (more...)
February 2012
- Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Some Thoughts on NumbersBy Heather Millar At my oncology check-up earlier this month, I ran into an elegant woman in the waiting room of the Breast Care Center. (more...)
- Friday, February 24, 2012
Skiing on Ash WednesdayBy Heather Millar I went skiing on Ash Wednesday. For those of you who aren’t religious, or who practice a different religion, Ash (more...)
- Friday, February 17, 2012
Sharing Our Stories, and Our Data, May Save LivesBy Heather Millar When it comes to cancer research, you might say that I’m an outlier. Since I was diagnosed with breast cancer 18 (more...)
- Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Happy Chemo-versary to meBy Heather Millar Last Friday marked exactly one year since I finished chemotherapy. I’m calling it my “chemo-versary.” I took (more...)
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