3 Things They Don’t Tell You About Breast Cancer Detection

The most important thing to get out of this article is this…Do monthly self breast exams right after your period. PERIOD.  You know your body and you will know if something doesn’t “feel right”.

Now for 3 Important facts that have never stood out in my reading of breast cancer detection…

1.  This was shocking when I heard a doctor talk about this at a Fundraiser for Breast Cancer and the 3Day Walk.  So I looked this up and found it verified by yet another doctor.  Usually there is NO FAMILY HISTORY in breast cancer cases.

“Typically, in most cancers there is not a family history. In fact, the incidence of positive family history depending on whose series you review once in the neighborhood of 7 percent sometimes may be up to 9 percent or 10 percent. So, it is actually more common not to have a family history, particularly, breast cancer.”

So it seems you are at just as high of risk if there is no family history of breast cancer.

2.  Film mammography is NOT the golden standard for breast cancer detection.  Digital mammography is much better for two reasons.  Digital images allow you to manipulate them and analyze them better.  They also make it easer to share images for consulting with other doctors and specialists.  Digital mammography detected up to 28% more cancers  than regular film mammography.

Have your annual mammogram at a center that does Digital Mammography

3.  During her ordeal with breast cancer my girlfriend told me that she had learned that MRI’s were the best screen for detecting breast cancer.  They aren’t done because of the cost.  BUT what is really concerning is that in the case of DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ, affecting the milk ducts in the breast),  MRI scans were far superior than mammography. In a UK study of more than 7,300 women, 92 percent of those with DCIS were diagnosed by MRI compared with 56 percent by mammography. According to the UK specialists, MRI’s had too many false positives which meant more biopsies had to be performed than were needed.

Lobby for MRI’s in the future for breast cancer detection. I’d prefer a false positive over detection at stage III any day.

Best Breast Cancer Sites as published in Good Housekeeping Magazine

You’ve Just Found a Lump

The ABCs of Breast Cancer Guide at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation site (komen.org) will walk you through all the decisions you’ll need to make, from type of biopsy to kind of treatment. The site is also noted for its inclusion of alternative treatments.

You’re Especially Interested in New Findings

In addition to basic information, breastcancer.org features clear analyses of the latest studies, with an emphasis on how the results may apply to you.

You Want to Connect with Other Patients

The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization (y-me.org) offers a hotline, guides to local support groups, and more.

Problem solving: After Clarice Richter of Southington, Connecticut, was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, connecting with the support group at the Komen Foundation’s Website was like “having a best friend all the time. I’d wake up at two in the morning, go online, and someone would be there to talk.”

Think pink. Wear pink.  And give to find a cure!   Strappys does offer two pink bra strap options.  A percentage of the proceeds will be given to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Sister’s Killer Chili

This is the chili cook-off winner!

Or so my sister says!  She saw my last chili post and wanted a cook-off.  I have made both recipes and would probably choose this one myself BUT the other recipe is just so darn easy to make with only 4 necessary ingredients.

We served this during the Superbowl last year and the pot was drained!

1 can hominy

1 can corn

1 can kidney beans

1 can Ranch Style Jalapeno Beans

1 pack ranch dressing mix

1 pack taco seasoning

1 can white corn

1 garlic bulb

2 cans diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers

1 pound ground turkey

1 pound ground beef

Brown the meat and drain.  Mix all and cook in crock pot.

29 Day Giving Challenge – Give Each Day to Make an Impact

I was excited and moved upon checking out this site, www.29Gifts.org.  The idea is to give away something every day for 29 days. Why? Because to see your world change, you have to DO something to change your world.  Now I would say that I am a happy person.  Probably the happiest I’ve ever been BUT I worry that I am becoming too focused around myself and my family.  A little outreach couldn’t hurt.  So I signed up to start my own personal challenge.  I hope everyone who reads this does.

Have you  read any books about the Laws of Attraction? I can’t say that I have. Nor have I done much spiritual reading in the past few years, but you would have to live under a rock not to have heard some of these quotes:

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

“For it is in giving that we receive.” St Francis of Assisi

“Giving liberates the soul of the giver.” Maya Angelou

“He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.”  Lao Tsu

“Giving brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something, 
experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.” Buddha.

Your 29 Gifts can be anything — material objects, money, your time, smiles or kind thoughts.

I compiled a list of ideas to get you started but there are over 3,000 giving stories posted on the site.  Here are a few gift ideas to get started with.

Time * Attention * Sweat * Work * Physical Energy * Mental Energy * Blessings * Endorsement * Encouragement * Concern * Love * Gifts * Laughter * Suggestion * Helping hand * Listening ear * Communication * Appreciation * Physical affection * Good advice * Laughter * Reprimand * Empathy * Tears * Encouragement * Prayer * Inspiration * Motivation * Recommendation * Ideas * Connections * Validation * A Smile

I am starting my 29 day giving challenge today.  The first gift I am giving away is passing this site along to you.  Go to www.29Gifts.org

I plan to write about this some more and share my giving stories.  I hope you’ll do the same.

Solution for disappearing socks

Solution for disappearing socks!!!

I’ve been doing my own informal survey and have found that most women struggle with mismatched and lost socks.  Yeah!  It’s not just me.  I have found that people put them in drawers, plastic containers, bags, etc. to match up later.  I do the same.

The simplest and cheapest solution I know of is this.  Buy a couple packs of safety pins.  Have each person pin their socks together BEFORE they throw them in the dirty clothes basket.  They will go through the washer and dryer like this and come out as a pair. You can even put them away pinned together if you want. My husband and I did this until our first child could crawl.  We didn’t want safety pins around that he could swallow.

I knew someone had to have a more sophisticated solution to this problem so here it is…Sockpro Sock Holders.  They keep socks together in the washer and dryer.

New School Year, New Year’s Resolutions

We all make New Year’s Resolutions right? It seems like the beginning of the new year at our house is the beginning of the school year.  Now would be the perfect time to start a resolution to do something exciting. Here are some ideas to get you and your kids started. We really like #’s 1, and 4 at our house.

1. Attempt a world record. Remember the Brady Bunch where Bobby and Cindy decided to break the teeter totter record? Well, they didn’t last much past their bedtime. But good ‘ole Mike pointed out that they probably did set a record for kids their age! Every year my son wants to buy the Guiness Book of World Records.

2.  Plan a family day trip (or week long vacation). Pick a place that is within an hour of your house. Have the kids use the internet to research things to do and see and places to eat.  Let them plan the day and figure out what it will cost. Include gas, meals, snacks, entry fees, etc.

3.  Set a goal for the year and write it down. See how fun and rewarding it can be to accomplish your goal. Here are a few ideas.

Become a school officer. Find out what it takes and get on that path.

Vow to be on time every day. Set your alarm and make it happen.

Keep a neat desk. Or locker. Find a place for everything and put it back in it’s place.

Learn a foreign language. Do you know what language this is or what it means? xie xie.

Play on the school sports team. Michael Jordan of basketball fame didn’t make the cut for the team his sophmore year of high school. Keep practicing and stay focused. He didn’t give up and he made it the following year.  And you know the rest of he story.

Volunteer to help others. Visit a nursing home decked out in Halloween costumes to hand out treats to seniors. OR get a group together to visit and sing for the holidays.

Organize a cleanup program in your neighborhood.

Play an online game at http://freerice.com and feed the hungry while you learn new words. For each definition you answer correctly in Free Rice’s vocabulary game, 20 grains of rice will be donated to the UN World Food Program to help end hunger

4.  Make a time capsule with your family or your class. Decide when you will dig it up. Will you come back after college? Sooner, later? Some things you can include: A photo of yourself or your group. A written list of things that are important to you NOW – favorite songs, TV shows, favorite hobbies and a picture of you doing them. Items that represent what is going on in the world now. Such as a newspaper. A copy of your report card.

How to Get Your Kid to Keep his Room Clean

My preteen son had definite ideas about how he wanted his new bedroom to look.  He wanted a skateboarding theme and red and black walls.  One wall red, one black, and oh yes some stripes too!  That sounded like a lot of work and paint.  Quick I had to think of something that would pull all this together. LUCKILY on an outing to Bed, Bath and Beyond we came across Quicksilver bedding in grey, black and red! I couldn’t believe the sticker price on the collection that included the comforter, sham,  throw pillows and sheets.  One look at his face and I knew he really wanted this bedding. So just like a Mom, I said, “I will buy you this bedding if you promise to make your bed every day.” It was the perfect deal. He got his bedding and that bed has been made every day for the past 3 months.  We then went on to paint the walls – all of them- grey.  But he kept insisting on stripes.  Thankfully I found this really cool product at Lowe’s. It’s called Wall POPS!  It was a 16 1/2 foot by 6.5 inch wide stripe.  Also found online at walldecorshops. You pull the backing off as you unroll the sticker across the wall.  He now has a red stripe and a black stripe. And because he basically has large “sticker” stripes he is allowed to put all his collected skateboarding and skiing stickers on top of these stripes.  He takes pride in putting them up neatly.  As a matter of fact, he takes pride in taking care of his room.  It’s his room.  He decorated it the way he wanted.  I, Mom, win because it is one less room in the house that I have to worry about!

Organizing Your Life In a 10 Step Process

Moving is painful, exhilarating, exhausting and eye-openng. If you move as much as we do chances are you stll have stuff in boxes that you haven’t looked at since your last move. I have no excuses now not to get organized. I’m not planning to move any time soon and I have the space I need. So where do I start? I always love a plan to follow. But why reinvent the wheel. People have been organizing forever. So when I came across this book at my Mother-in- law’s house, Eliminate Chaos: The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home and Life, I said A-HA – my plan. So here we go. Here are the 10 steps that I will be tackling room by room in my house. First, the laundry room/mud room. It is the first room I see most days upon entering my house!

1. Dedicate time. You have to schedule it into your calendar or you won’t find the time.
2. Gather supplies. No shopping yet! You should have these: a) Trash can  -  b )Boxes- c) Pen to label boxes- d) Pen to write with – e) Sticky notes and paper – f) Tape
3. Establish a Staging area. Make sure you have plenty of room to sort things whether it be a large table or the hallway floor.
4. Sort – make a decision with every item you touch to Keep–Donate-Sell-Throw Away
5. Purge
6. Group like items together.  Put them in categories.
7. Examine your space.
8. Shop!  Create a list of the group’s of items( #6 )that you want to organize.  Take measurements and take them with you.  Take photos of your space and your items with your phone camera and you’ll be able to show them to the salesclerk.
9. Install products
10. Maintain.  This is a daily routine.  Put things where they belong.

My advice to anyone who enters a drab room on their way into their house.  Organize it and decorate.  It will brighten your outlook more than you can imagine…coming and going!

The Secret of Self Talk

What have you told yourself today?  Do you know?  This is hard to tap into at times.  It’s important though. You are who you tell yourself you are!

Athletes are trained to visualize themselves winning, to see themselves doing everything right, to think in the positive.  But what happens when an underlying message comes through.  Does that cause them to lose?  Actually, studies have shown that it does.

When we tell our kids, or our employees, they are good at something  do they like doing it more?

These thoughts surfaced as I was talking about reading groups at the kids’ school.  Remembering back oh so many years ago… If you were in the top reading group you were a smart kid.  If you were in the lowest reading group, you weren’t.   If you believed you were a good reader you read for pleasure.  If you weren’t a ‘good reader’ you avoided reading and would even say “I don’t like to read”.   So we’re still passing this message on to our kids. I don’t know of any way around it.  I do know what happened at our house.  My youngest son was put in the lowest reading level in kindergarten.  Not because he couldn’t read the books that the kids in the top level were reading BUT because he couldn’t keep up with them in the other center activities, OR just turning the pages.  Over the summer we continued our reading and Hooked on Phonics.  I kept telling him he was a great reader in front of his Dad and his Grandparents and his Aunt and Cousins.  We would say he was a Rock Star in reading.  We would marvel at how well he read and pronounced menus.

So off he goes to a brand new school for first grade and he promptly tells his teacher, ” I’m a good reader. I can read at the 3rd grade level.”  I would say his confidence was up!  And whether he can read at that level or not, he believes he can and he enjoys his reading every night.

So maybe we need to break down old ideas that we have about ourselves.  Look at what we are good at. Tell ourselves what we are capable of.  See ourselves doing well and doing IT!  Whatever IT may be. Now go tell yourself how great you are…

Chili Cookoff Winning recipe- 5 ingredients!

My girlfriend won a chili cookoff with this winning recipe.  I think she used only 4 of the  ingredients.  She says cumin is optional!

Ingredients

45 oz. Great Northern White Beans, canned – DO NOT drain

32 oz. salsa – I use Pace mild and medium

1 lb. chicken, cooked and diced

10 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded or cubed

Dash of cumin, optional

Instructions

Cook chicken in oven, then cut into cubes OR, cut chicken and stir fry on stove.  Put cooked chicken aside. In a large pot, combine beans (entire cans, DO NOT DRAIN) and salsa.  Add cooked chicken and cumin. Simmer on low for about an hour.  In the last 10- 15 minutes add the cheese and stir to blend.

Serve with cornbread.  Also good served with extra cheese, sour cream and avocado as sides.

Over 40 and Fabulous

This has been a popular headline with so many actresses over 40 looking just fabulous at the Emmys.  It’s true that 40 may be the new 30.  According to 60 Minutes correspondent Andy Rooney, he values women over 40 most of all. Here were a few of his reasons:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask,’What are you thinking?’ She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over 40 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting.

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk, if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffe d, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’, here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Women have so much more confidence in their 40’s and a better sense of what they want or need in their life.  BUT, let’s face it, our faces and our figures probably give us away as “over 40″.  Yes the 40 year old stars look awesome but most of us don’t have access to airbrushed makeup and hair stylists every day.  Not to mention the amount of money that is spent on Botox, Juvederm, Implants, Photofacials, etc. I hate to say that on many days I go out looking like a before photo.  Thank God no one is around to snap pictures and publish them. But the point here is, don’t be so hard on yourself.  The stars do not walk around looking like themselves either.  When you need a lift, put on that extra makeup and SMILE!  and if you need to check out some more stars without their makeup just to feel more secure, go to stars-without-makeup and remember that even Andy Rooney values women over 40 because they are sexier, forthright, honest and dignified!