October is Cancer Awareness Month. To celebrate it, I wrote this song for the American Cancer Society. It was performed at one of their Relay For Life candlelight ceremonies. On a cool October evening, hundreds of cancer survivors all lit candles and walked around a track while my daughter and I performed this song. It …
Ever have difficulty sleeping? I’m not surprised if you said, “Yes.” Among my patients and friends, poor sleep is one of the most common complaints people talk about. It seems almost no one is spared at least a little insomnia. Several years ago I composed a series of three lullaby albums (Lullabies for Kids …
Women with breast cancer must not only deal with the challenges of a potentially life-threatening disease; they also have to face the challenges of breast cancer treatment. Chemotherapy is an essential mainstay for many who require breast cancer treatment, but it causes side effects that are at best unpleasant and at worst, toxic. And in …
Do you have a strong family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer? Are you thinking of doing a BRCA genetic test to find out if your genes put you at increased risk for those cancers? Would you visit your doctor or healthcare provider to get tested, or would you do as an increasing number …
There is no easy way to deal with the loss of a parent. They’ve literally know us our whole lives and for most of us, they provided unconditional love. Unfortunately, it’s part of the life cycle most of us have to deal with. I know when my dad died, it was a huge loss. Recently, …
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month Women are marching around the country to bring awareness and to raise money for breast cancer prevention. It’s no wonder. Breast cancer is scary and with good reason. It can be a lethal disease, the treatment can change a woman’s body, and screening is uncomfortable. But there is …
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was five years ago, almost exactly. I was waiting with my wife, Sharon in her doctor’s office. After a brief conversation, he got to the point of the visit. (Click here for an audio version of me narrating this post over a bed of my original music). …
You wouldn’t think the World Series and colonoscopy had anything to do with each other. But for me it did. When my doctor suggested I have a colonoscopy, I said I’d do it when the Red Sox won the World Series. At the time, they hadn’t done it in 86 years and I thought I …
You know that estrogen plays a role in some breast cancers. You may also know that the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone originally are created in the ovary, testis and adrenal gland by metabolizing cholesterol. You may not know that an intermediate of cholesterol metabolism occurs in a type of blood cell called macrophages. It’s …
I recently returned from the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine where I had the opportunity to interview Richard Santen, one of the leading authorities on estrogen and breast cancer. Today I’d like to share with you information on estrogen’s impact on breast cancer. When asked to talk about whether or not …
