Before You Donate
Think very seriously before donating to any breastcancer organization, or fundraising program until you read their Annual Report to see who their top contributors are, and if they have a product that appears frequently in the message the organization sends to the public. That would be unethical and its illegal. The same applies to a request that the public buys products, but does not receive a "donor receipt" for tax-deductible purpose. Read any and all food labels that breastcancer "non-profits" are promoting to raise money. Some organizations tell the public to help them raise money by asking you to visit their websites, but that only gives them "hits" to increase their sponsors.
Another tip, "signing" an online Petition is not acceptable, so don't fall for such antics. An ethical non-profit, or professional will not request your visit to their website, nor use "cookies" placed on your computer when you visit their site.
Purchase the Breastcancer Postage Stamp, the Post Office will always give you your charitable deduction receipt. Its a valid form of fund raising.
Her Story, continued. . .
"My younger brother died from cancer of the kidney when he was just nineteen. It broke my heart. We were four and one-half years apart in age.
Then, eighteen years later our little sister died from ovarian/uterine cancer at twenty-six. Her Caesarian born baby was not yet two years old leaving three very small children. "Why?" I was told her ob-gyn was not licensed to practice in Michigan— I don't know that for sure. I remember thinking, "What difference does it make now?"
Swiftly, cancer overcame them. "Thank God Dr. Bruce Drukker (Henry Ford Hospital) my sister's oncological gynecologist did not believe in extreme measures vs. quality of life and just 'closed up' he told me to await other tests to determine if chemotherapy was in order. By then, one of her kidneys was failing (in a week!). My heart was breaking─she was my "baby" from the day she was born. Out of my awareness of my immediate family history (I've learned of more since then) I was split in my concerns for myself.
One, I felt that the odds of three out of three were slim. But, the odds could be high that I might also get this dread disease. I was determined to avoid obvious carcinogens, maintained regular physical examinations, breastfed all of my children, avoided hormones, was livid about insecticides, wore shoes on all the seashores (to avoid carcinogenic hydrocarbons from the oil spills washed ashore) and even kept the children from sitting close to a color TV, or off to the side of one, and informed each of my physicians of my family history of cancer. Honestly, only two ever responded in a proactive manner by telling me about tests that needed to be done, and when, etc. One was Peter Cohn, M.D., Dallas."
In Spring, 1998, her mammogram revealed the tell-tale signs of extensive longitudinal, askew calcifications, in two 3.4 cm. sites and larger extending from the areola area (right behind the nipple) back toward her arm pit. The first reading was the prior month, and reported no signs of any malignancy as were the two annual mammograms before in spite of taking the time to speak directly to the radiologists who brushed off her concerns and refused 2nd readings.
After her delayed diagnosis she found out that the UTSW radiologist was not licensed to practice in Texas. "I've heard she is now in Florida (2001). I'm tracking her, believe me— the State Board of Medical Examiners in Texas never responded to the complaint I filed against Dr. Levy or the breast surgeon, Dr. Marilyn Leitch (*see below)."
A few months prior to that she had moved to "a lovely city, a couple of hours south to identify and cultivate a board to personify the state's rich, natural history heritage: an exciting natural science collection that had been ignored for years. Everyone agreed that the complete task would take about two three years, including identifying major donors, so I made the move." This diagnosis came as an incredible shock!" There she was— without her friends, family, loved ones, or colleagues, with cancer.
Ultimately, in a short period of time she had to virtually beg for preventive care, in an effort to avoid a cancer death like her younger siblings suffered, once the sites were found by mammography on her right breast. Two years in a row, in spite of their family history, radiologists missed the telltale malignant sites on her breast on the mammograms. The *head surgeon she selected, at a large academic medical school in the southwest gave her less than 5% difference in recurrence IF she had a mastectomy requiring no radiation or chemotherapy, instead of a lumpectomy followed by radiation.
"Of course, I selected mastectomy because I knew I would not approve radiation because the most recent studies I'd casually seen showed no difference in life expectancy." However, the surgeon did not perform the mastectomy during a surgery that removed most of her breast, nor did she examine even one lymph node for the new Sentinel Lymph Node biopsy that this patient had traveled there to obtain.
After the surgery, the radiation oncologists refused radiation due to the size of the sites on her right breast and the narrow margins from the malignant sites. Later, her surgeon told her, "They want me to re-do the surgery before they will use radiation."
Ill with severe and increasing shortness of breath that was ignored because the surgeon was always "traveling she told me" she called a close friend and made the legal arrangements for all of her medical records to be retrieved as soon as possible and taken to her personally in Dallas the town she had moved from only a few months before.
That night "I prayed myself to sleep, believed that I was not going to live through the night because I couldn't breathe. Why I didn't go to any one of many physicians I knew in the Metroplex is beyond me, even an ER, but I don't think I was not able to think clearly." Instead, she drove the 200 miles back home to obtain her new internist's help.
Reviewed: Monday, September 26, 2005