Battling Cancer

By Groshan Fabiola

Leukemia interferes with the body’s production of white blood cells. These cells are supposed to fight infections with viruses or bacteria, and when someone has leukemia, they are defective and their number is largely increased, but because they are not fulfilling their role any more, although their number can increase ten times the body’s defense system is seriously weakened and any infection can be very dangerous.

Unfortunately leukemia can affect young children too, and the number of child leukemia cases keeps increasing. There are two types of leukemia - acute leukemia - a cancer that develops and evolves very fast and it affects all the white blood cells, and chronic leukemia - it develops slower and healthy white blood cells can still be found.

More →

A test developed by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists is the first to identify which malignant blood cells are highly vulnerable to a promising type of experimental drugs that unleash pent-up “cell suicide” factors to destroy the cancer.

(Read the rest of this article …)

By Steve John Cowan

All of the different “types” of cancer can be deadly, that’s a given. Even though survival rates tend to be much higher nowadays than they were perhaps twenty years ago, the fact is that a diagnosis of cancer can still be a death sentence and this is especially so when it affects the most vital components of the body.

One such type of cancer that falls into this category is cancer of the blood, more commonly known as leukemia. Many people may not think of it this way, but, in simple terms, blood is the most important tissue of the body.

More →

By Carolina Fernandez

Plucky (pluk’e) adj. Brave and spirited; courageous.

Have you ever noticed how few people possess radiating energy? How eyes lack sparkle and how few real smiles there are out there? How almost no one looks you in the eyes when you talk or how few people have truly gracious social skills? One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the lack of charisma or magnetism or exuberance among people everywhere!

So when I met Lorraine and Cam, I was immediately drawn to their energy. To their lit-up eyes, frequent laughter and bubbly personalities. Now they’re not particularly bubbly as in “effervescent.” No, they are actually more on the subdued side. But when one talks to them, their eyes twinkle. They smile when they talk. They maintain fabulous eye contact. Good upbringing? Perhaps. I’ve met both of their parents, even though one set lives in Scotland and the other in England (and we live up here in Connecticut in New England) and they are, indeed, darling people.

More →

NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) — Nearly 300 rescue and recovery workers from the World Trade Center site have been diagnosed with cancer since Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Post reports.

Blood-cell cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and Hodgkin`s disease are being reported at a much higher rate than normal from World Trade Center rescue workers, attorney David Worby told the Post.

More →