Category Archives: Cancer

‘Find a part of each day to relish’: coping with cancer and Covid

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This year has challenged us all. But for Sarah Hughes it’s been particularly hard. Here, she talks about living with cancer – and letting in the light in the darkest of times

The strangest thing about having an incurable illness during a time of pandemic is the weird but unavoidable sense that everyone has finally caught up with you. As people started talking about how worried they were, how they couldn’t stop thinking about the virus, how difficult life now seemed, how isolated, the temptation to say: “Hey guys, welcome to my world” was overwhelming.

This had never felt more pertinent than last month, when social media lit up with Breast Cancer Awareness memes and pink ribbons and talk of fighting and beating the disease. For those of us with stage IV cancer such messages seem beamed in from another planet. As the campaign group MetUpUK points out, 31 people die every day from metastatic breast cancer, and countless more of us live each day with a disease that has a median survival rate of two to three years – a rate that drops considerably if you have a cancer that began as a triple negative breast cancer, as mine did. Yet our stories, which might force people to face the uncomfortable truth that we are not “winning” the “fight”, are rarely told.

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Tracey Emin on her cancer: ‘I will find love. I will have exhibitions. I will enjoy life’

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As she recovers from a brutal summer of cancer treatment, Tracey Emin takes us round her new show – and imagines spending the next 30 years painting in her pyjamas to the sound of birdsong

‘I am so lucky,” says Tracey Emin as we stand in the grand galleries of the Royal Academy. I can tell, from her brown eyes, that she’s smiling beneath her face mask. As we roam rooms painted moody blue for her new exhibition, in which her paintings, bronzes and neons are juxtaposed with the oils and watercolours of Edvard Munch, Emin adjusts her stoma bag occasionally and laughs a lot. “I’m in love with Munch,” she says. “Not with the art, but with the man. I have been since I was 18.”

This is not what I expected. Minutes earlier, walking through this London gallery’s courtyard, I felt darkness descending everywhere. England was re-entering lockdown, Biden hadn’t yet won Michigan and the last visitors to the Royal Academy for a month were heading out into the night. I expected the 57-year-old artist to be at death’s door, defeated by disease and circumstance. She is, after all, putting on an exhibition hardly anyone will see: “They sold 16,000 advance tickets but when Boris announced the second lockdown, we knew we couldn’t open.” All she can hope is that the gallery will open in December, but that is uncertain.

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Elliot Dallen, who inspired many with articles about his cancer, dies aged 31

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Dallen died hours after the Guardian published piece that reflected on facing terminal illness

The family of a young man who wrote movingly of coping with terminal cancer against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have told of taking comfort from the huge response to his articles, after he died on Monday.

Elliot Dallen, 31, died hours after the Guardian published the second of two articles by him in which he reflected on his life and shared the lessons which he had learned.

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Researchers say blood test can detect cancer years before symptoms

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Team based in China develop test that identifies cancers up to four years before signs appear

A blood test can pick up cancers up to four years before symptoms appear, researchers say, in the latest study to raise hopes of early detection.

A team led by researchers in China say the non-invasive blood test – called PanSeer – detects cancer in 95% of individuals who have no symptoms but later receive a diagnosis.

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Kelly Preston, actor and wife of John Travolta, dies aged 57 from breast cancer

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Travolta says ‘Kelly’s love and life will always be remembered’ after revealing actor’s death after two-year illness

Kelly Preston, who appeared in the hit films Jerry Maguire and Twins, has died, her husband, John Travolta, said. She was 57.

Travolta said in an Instagram post that his wife of 28 years, who was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, died on Sunday.

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A difficult conversation with her family led to a better death for my patient | Ranjana Srivastava

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Helping grieving relatives reach a difficult decision without hectoring or judging is a fine art

“What kind of God would do this?” she sobs and rocks. I am sinking in my chair and the nurse is perched on the side table. To focus on something other than her palpable despair, I regard the worn sofa and imagine a public hospital meeting room with comfort and sunlight. When a daughter arrives, she squeezes in beside her grieving mother.

She is a woman plainly devoted to God and her children, especially the unmarried daughter who is now my patient. The second daughter strikes me as thoughtful and educated, and as becomes evident, helpless to stem the tide of her mother’s sorrow. I fret at this, not because I am rushed, rather the patient needs an urgent outcome.

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Cancer treatment during the pandemic is bringing back traumatic memories

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I am about to go through an invasive therapy for my cervical cancer. The process has brought me closer to my seven-year-old self

In a large black planner that I keep next to my bed, I mark off each round of chemotherapy and radiation. And after each one, I feel a growing sense of dread.

That’s because every mark means I’m one step closer to brachytherapy, a process that involves doctors sticking radioactive materials into my cervix – or what’s left of it anyway. It’s a way for them to aim high doses of radiation at my tumor, without risking the other nearby organs.

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Cancer Research UK to cut funding for research by £44m

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UK’s biggest cancer charity expects income to fall by up to 25% as a result of the coronavirus crisis

The UK’s biggest cancer charity is cutting research funding by £44m because of a sharp fall in income and has acknowledged that the move could set back the fight against the disease for many years.

Cancer Research UK (CRUK), which funds nearly half of the cancer research in the country, said it was the most difficult decision it had ever taken but explained that it believed limiting spending now would enable it to continue to support life-saving research in the long-run.

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AI program could check blood for signs of lung cancer

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Scientists hope that if software passes trials it could boost screening rates

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence program that can screen people for lung cancer by analysing their blood for DNA mutations that drive the disease.

The software is experimental and needs to be verified in a clinical trial, but doctors are hopeful that if it proves its worth at scale, it will boost lung cancer screening rates by making the procedure as simple as a routine blood test.

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We are old and in love, but she left me after my cancer diagnosis | Dear Mariella

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We might assume better treatment from maturing adults but at least she was decisive, says Mariella Frostrup

The dilemma In the summer I met a wonderful woman online. She is kind, clever, good looking and many other positive things. We clicked from the outset and became lovers after a couple of months. We have a combined age of 127, but we both said the sex was the best we’ve ever enjoyed. She told me she loved me – and it was reciprocated. We live 100 miles apart, but that suited our busy lifestyles.

Everything was wonderful and we seemed to be very much on the same wavelength until November, when I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The treatment is extensive, but hasn’t yet started. She broke up with me over Christmas. She still professes love for me (though we haven’t been in contact for a few weeks), but says she is too busy with work, family and friends to commit to me, and that I would become too needy of her and her time. I don’t agree that I would, but I can see why she might say that. I have recently retired. I miss her terribly and don’t know how to deal with it.

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Second person ever to be cleared of HIV reveals identity

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Adam Castillejo, known as the London patient, goes public to give hope to others with illness

The second person ever to be cleared of HIV has revealed his identity, saying he wants to be an “ambassador of hope” to others with the condition.

Adam Castillejo, the so-called London patient, was declared free of HIV last year, 18 months after stopping antiretroviral therapy following a stem cell – or bone marrow – transplant to treat blood cancer.

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‘Electronic nose’ could smell breath to warn about higher risk of oesophageal cancer

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Current diagnostic method for Barrett’s oesophagus relies on invasive and costly endoscopy

An electronic device that “sniffs” breath may offer a new way to identify people with a condition that can lead to cancer of the oesophagus, researchers have revealed.

Recent figures suggest there are about 9,000 new cases of oesophageal cancer, or cancer of the food pipe, every year in the UK.

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My mum only had a few months to live. So we rented a van and took a road trip

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We’d been incredibly close when I was a child. Then, in 1994 she went away and never came back. Now here we were, taking to the road with no real plan after her cancer diagnosis

I had been sitting in the cafeteria of a hospital in Perth, Australia, for seven hours waiting for the phone to ring.

Seven hours of drained coffee cups, watching families cry and cling to each other, wondering if they were tears of grief or relief, seven hours of slowly feeling the panic rise up through my body.

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Mass cervical cancer vaccine rollout could save 62 million lives in next 100 years

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Studies project rapidly deploying HPV vaccine in 78 of the world’s poorest countries could help prevent more than 74 million cases

More than 74m cervical cancer cases and 62m deaths could be averted in the next 100 years if 78 of the world’s poorest countries rapidly deploy HPV vaccinations, cervical screening and cancer treatment, two new studies have projected.

The predictive modelling is published on Friday in Lancet by Université Laval, Harvard University and Cancer Council New South Wales working with the World Health Organisation. All three teams independently developed their models based on the biological understanding of cervical cancer, and multiple data sources from multiple countries located in east Asia and Pacific, Europe and central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

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New boiler, £0? The plumber, hairdresser and beautician who work for free

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Haircuts for rough sleepers. Beauty treatments for cancer patients. Boilers for disabled people. A wave of specialists are providing skills – and hope – for those in need

Goodwill, it appears, is in high demand. One thing all the altruists I met while researching this article have in common is that they’re on the phone the whole time. Perhaps if mobiles had been around in Robin Hood’s day he would have had one pressed constantly to his lughole. “Marion … yes, love. I’m just having a fight on a bridge with Little John … sorry, you’re breaking up, terrible reception in here, all the oaks... What, the Sheriff’s abducted you? OK, I’m coming!”

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They’re the pants that I want: buyer pays $405,700 for Olivia Newton-John’s Grease outfit

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Actor’s famous black trousers and leather jacket sold at auction along with other memorabilia, raising $2.4m

Olivia Newton-John’s tight black trousers and leather jacket from the movie Grease have sold for $405,700 at a Beverly Hills auction, more than double the expected price.

The outfit that marked the transition of Newton-John’s character in the 1978 musical from demure high schooler to sexy Sandy was among 500 items for sale at Julien’s Auctions to help raise money for the performer’s cancer treatment centre in Australia.

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Cancer-causing chemical found in WeWork phone booths

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In latest headache for cash-strapped company, WeWork says it has closed about 2,300 phone booths amid formaldehyde scare

WeWork, the cash-strapped office-sharing company, has a new problem that may prove costly. It has closed about 2,300 phone booths at some of its 223 sites in the United States and Canada after it says it discovered elevated levels of formaldehyde.

The company said in an email to its tenants on Monday that the chemical could pose a cancer-risk if there is long-term exposure.

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Zantac in global recall over ‘unacceptable’ levels of potential carcinogen

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Heartburn medicine pulled by GlaxoSmithKline while it investigates source of impurity

GlaxoSmithKline is recalling the popular heartburn medicine Zantac in all markets, days after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found “unacceptable” levels of probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug.

Zantac, also sold generically as ranitidine, is the latest drug in which cancer-causing impurities have been found. Regulators have been recalling some blood pressure and heart failure medicines since last year.

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‘War on cancer’ metaphors may do harm, research shows

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Use of military terminology can make people more fearful and fatalistic, say psychologists

The ubiquitous use of war metaphors when referring to cancer may do more harm than good, according to research into the psychological impact the phrases have on people’s views of the disease.

Framing cancer in military terms made treatment seem more difficult and left people feeling more fatalistic about the illness, believing there was little they could do to reduce their risk, researchers found.

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What’s wrong with Angela Merkel? As a doctor, I will sit out the pop quiz | Ranjana Srivastava

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When someone is confronted by illness, we can’t resist being intrusive and speculative

This month my dear friend died from cancer, leaving behind a young family. A continent apart, we talked about her illness and what it meant. She told me that she wasn’t afraid of dying and I believed her because she knew the rich legacy she had created. But in the aftermath of her death a post her daughter released tore me asunder. In it, my friend recalls the reaction of strangers to her illness.

“How could you contract this disgusting illness?” one wailed. “You could easily have another five years,” shrugged another. (She just made it past one.) An acquaintance was angry at not having been told sooner. Another was perplexed by her equanimity, leading to an ambush at the elevator: “You know this is terminal, right?” Someone wanted to know the exact site of cancer. Another recalled the relative of a relative who died of exactly that kind of cancer not so long ago.

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