Three years ago I got a call from him as he was waiting for the results of his biopsy to come in. It was the first time I heard fear in my friend’s voice.

A few years on and watching him work with this new reality has been an education in living. I have never seem someone fight a war right in front of me and still think about what t-shirt quality they’ll use for the new batch of prints they’ve designed. I’ve never watched someone negotiate and renegotiate their terms of living while finding the art in the most overlooked flowers.

A few months ago he asked me to go to chemo with him to take some pics to show ya’ll out there that it’s not this scary torture chamber we non-chemo types have in our mind’s eye.

Please click on the link to watch his journey -

http://http://thedotspot.net/2011/12/01/my-trip-to-the-chemo-room/

http://www.lindasonline.com/

A link to motivational videos from Livestrong.

GENERAL INFORMATION

www.cancersource.com

Information about cancer and treatments for the public and professionals.

www.oncolink.upenn.edu

Comprehensive information provided by the University of Pennsylvania suitable for the lay person.

www.cansa.co.za

Local site for the South African National Cancer Association.

www.aicr.org

Diet, nutrition and recipe focused, by the American Institute for Cancer Research.

www.cancer.org

American Cancer Society site.

www.cancerhelp.org.uk

Site hosted by Cancer Research (UK) – plenty of easy to understand information.

www.laf.org

Lance Armstrong Foundation (American cyclist and survivor of testicular cancer).

www.cancersupportivecare.com

Based on the book “Supportive Cancer Care”, written by E & I Rosenbaum.

www.acor.org

Association of Cancer Online Resources, for anyone affected by cancer or related diseases.

www.cancerbackup.org.uk

British site, addressing many concerns about different types of cancer

www.mskcc.org

Site for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York

www.plwc.org.za

People Living With Cancer organisation in South Africa

SITES FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS

www.grouploop.org

Specially for teens with cancer

www.candlelighters.org

Childhood cancer foundation

www.myparentscancer.com.au

Great interactive site for kids whose parents have breast cancer.  Even includes an emotion barometer!!!

www.choc.org.za

South African childhood cancer organisation.  Support for parents of children with cancer.

www.clicsargent.org.uk

British site with information and resources for children with cancer, and their parents.  Downloadable booklets

Some websites relating to diet and nutrition

www.cancercare.org  Site with many self-help features, and useful information sheets named “Cancer Briefs”

www.quackwatch.com  A regularly updated resource which alerts users to potential “quackery” in all areas of medical care

www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Resourcessupport/Eatingwell  British site, addressing many concerns about different types of cancer

www.oncolink.upenn.edu  Comprehensive information provided by the University of Pennsylvania suitable for the lay person

www.mskcc.org  Site for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, NY

www.cancer.org  American Cancer Society site

www.acor.org  Association of Cancer Online Resources

Some sites for kids, teens facing cancer

www.grouploop.org – Teens with cancer

www.candlelighters.org – Candlelighters childhood cancer foundation

www.choc.org.za – South African childhood cancer organization

www.plwc.org.za – People Living With Cancer organization

www.kidscope.org – Site for children who witness the effects of cancer on a loved one

www.kid-support.org – helping young people cope when a parent has cancer

www.riprap.org – site for older children/teens, providing information and emotional support as well – interactive and clear

General sites of interest

www.laf.org – Lance Armstrong Foundation

www.cancer.gov  – National Cancer Institute in the USA

www.oncolink.upenn.edu – Very informative and comprehensive site

GVI Oncology, Constantiaberg – telephone 761 4942; fax 797 6536

http://www.mesothelioma.com/

(HealthNewsDigest.com) – University Park, Pa. — Approximately 12 million people in the United States are cancer survivors. On average, their medicalcare costs $4,000 to $5,000 more annually than the care of people who have never had cancer, according to Penn State researchers.
Those who are treated for and survive cancer are susceptible to later health complications and their total medical expenses average about $9,300 per year. People are considered cancer survivors from the moment they are diagnosed through the end of their lives. Advances in medicine enable more people to survive cancer, but there is little information regarding long-term health and economic effects of cancer.
“The fact that so many more people are surviving for a long time has shifted theattention of the oncology community — as well as public health officials — away from a focus simply on treatment and keeping people alive. Now they are starting to think about life after cancer,” said Pamela Farley Short, professor of health policy and administration. Short and her colleagues report their work in today’s issue of Cancer.
Short and her colleagues focused their research on cancer survivors ranging in age from 25 through 64 years. Prior to their study, most information regarding cancer survivors concentrated on patients 65 years and older, relying on data from Medicare. The new study uses national data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and improves on earlier survivor studies based on that survey, which were limited to survivors who received care specifically for cancer in any given year. The researchers linked MEPS to another data source to systematically identify everyone in the survey who had ever been diagnosed with cancer.
“Then we went through an analytic exercise of matching up cancer survivors to otherwise similar people in the survey who don’t have a history of cancer,” said Short. “The question we’re trying to answer is, how much did the fact of having cancer add to the expenditures of cancer survivors? If they hadn’t had cancer, how much less would their annual health care bills be and how much less would they be spending out of pocket?”
Earlier studies analyzing MEPS provided an incomplete picture of cancer survivors.
“We made the effort to do it right, and found the earlier estimates were off,” said Short. Of the people identified as cancer survivors in the research conducted by Short and her colleagues, 53 percent were missed in earlier studies. Consequently the researchers were able to learn more about cancer survivors and their health care spending.
The researchers found that as a group, cancer survivors in the U.S. are disproportionately women, non-Hispanic whites, unmarried — single, divorced or widowed — and publicly insured. However, men paid 16 percent of cancer-related increases in health care out of pocket, and women paid 9 percent. According to Short, the largest out-of-pocket expense for survivors is prescriptions.
“This research is also important because cancer survivors are a sympathetic group for calling attention to the challenges that many people face in paying for health care,” said Short. “Almost everybody has a friend or someone in their family who’s had cancer, so it resonates. In a way, I think cancer survivors are poster children for a lot of the issues that we face as a society in considering whether and how to proceed with health care reform.”