h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ben, I thought about you when I read this.

http://news.aol.com/health/article/migraines-may-slash-breast-cancer-risk/239980?icid=100214839x1212480931x1200824451

That is interesting, thank you Hyp.

I had assumed from the title of the conversation that someone was putting bad juju on my space, so it was very nice to find it quite the opposite.

Have some wheat and yeast free

B

This goes to further the old addage that every cloud has a silver lining.

If anything contributed to Lady C's breast cancer, which of course is the wrong way to look at it, it would have been the high alcohol consumption. But, it has made me nervous. I seem to be drawn to articles on the subject lately.

I honestly think that the causes of cancer are so ... statistical, that "if only" games are just dangerous mind-. Not to say that one should immediately go out and smoke, drink and be merry. But to say that one shouldn't attribute cause and effect where it really is impossible to do so.

B

I don't think they know what causes cancer. Any of us could get it. But there are things that appear to increase the odds. And heavy alscohol consumption seems to increase the odds of breast cancer. My sister was a really heavy drinker, not a casual drinker. She drank more in a week than I do in a year.

But she had cancer on her father's side. I don't. We have different fathers. What I have is a mother with skin cancer caused by sun exposure and a father who had kidney cancer (which was cured) supposedly caused by exposure to chemicals at work. Part of me says not to worry, that the causes were environmental rather than genetic. The other part of me is starting to worry.

*Joins in*

Breast cancer worries me sick because my mother was treated - successfully - for it a few years ago. I can't imagine how worried YOU must be, Hyp, if I feel sick about it. I too saw the migraine story and I swear I went HA HA! in triumph, as if I'd won something. I'm the only woman in the family to get migraines (my Dad is my genetic ta-muchly for migraines).

My maternal grandfather drank like a proverbial and died in his fifties of bowel cancer. My Dad drinks like a proverbial AND smoked from the tender age of twelve and has damaged his heart instead. My other grandfather is Made of Steel and is in his nineties now.

Next time the world falls to sparkling shards I shall tell myself it's good for my tits. HA HA.

I suppose this is a good time to get something off my chest. It isn't a fact I want to talk about in the salon and certainly not in a journal entry. It seems that my sister found the lump in her breast over a year before she died. She didn't go to the doctor, didn't tell her husband or me or her daughter. She just lived with it all that time. I can't imagine what she was thinking. I am absolutely furious with her. Did she think she would wake up some morning and it would be gone? By the time the doctors found it, it was the size of an orange, had spread to her bones and was too late to treat.

Anyway, there is a lot more to the story. When I see you, we need to have a hen party and let me vent. I hate to say it, but if she was still alive, I'd happily strangle her.

Oh God, Hyp. Oh God. I am so so sorry.

For some reason I missed the last two posts here. Probably because I unsubscribed, though I was crazy-busy in November.

Hypatia, I am so sorry to hear that. I felt a similar exasperated fury mixed with savage pity for the former PL's daughter (remember him?) who committed suicide aged 14. Just what did she think she was playing at? Oh, there's nothing I can say that you've not thought and felt already, especially since it's five months since you posted.

Like Ag said, I am so very sorry.

B