Client Testimonials
Doctors Debate
Value of
Chemotherapy
“Very pleased with the service - The office
was helpful in scheduling me. The provider
called me in advance of his arrival. He
was efficient, answered my questions
and provided me with recommendations.
I have used this company before and
always had a good experience.”
The breast cancer trifecta was once
indisputable: Surgery, radiation,
chemotherapy. This combination
has led to great numbers of cancer
survivors, but is it all necessary?
According to a 2015 paper published
in the New England Journal of
Medicine, a study of more than 10,000
women found very low rates of cancer
recurrence in women who had early-
stage breast cancer with no lymph
node involvement and who were
treated with hormonal therapy alone.
This study and others are leading
oncologists to ask if, in early-
stage treatment, chemotherapy is
overprescribed.
Cancer mortality rates have been
much improved since the 1980s,
with a nearly 40 percent decrease
in deaths, and credit for that win
goes generally to chemotherapy. But
chemo is a dramatic chemical attack
Chemotherapy... is it necessary?
that comes with its own problems.
With new advances in genomic testing
and tumor biology, some oncologists
are asking if it is always necessary.
In fact, use of chemotherapy to
treat early breast cancer has been
declining. In a study of about 3,000
early-stage tumor patients, use of
chemotherapy declined to 21 percent
from 34 percent.
But cancer experts warn that
withholding chemo is justified in only
a fraction of cases. Focusing on the
bad side effects of chemotherapy
misses the point, some doctors
say, stating it has saved the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people.
“They did an excellent job of cleaning
my carpets and hard wood floors in our
new home. The carpets were beautiful
and they brought some life back into
some hardwood floors that had been
damaged. They were very responsive,
professional, and friendly. I've seen some
reviews mentioning parts of the floor
that could not be cleaned - this was the
case with my floors because what looked
like dirt was actually damage - but he
took the time to show me the spots
and explain why and his explanations
matched our home inspector's remarks
exactly. Sometimes the floor needs to
be refinished. Nevertheless, my floors
looked great after the cleaning! I will
definitely call them again.”
The Good Life
Don’t Retire... Refire!
When Ken Blanchard, author of The One
Minute Manager, happened to meet up
with his old friend psychologist Morton
Shaevitz, they talked about how people
approach getting older. Quoted in USA Today, Blanchard’s best
advice is, “Get out of your comfort
zone. Take a class at a local college,
which will put you into a new setting
with different people.”
Blanchard, 75, said he used the term
“refire” to describe the attitude of
approaching life with gusto. He and
Shaevitz, 79, agreed that refire is a way
of seeing each day as an opportunity. The two of them have formed The Last
Minute Gang, an informal group of a
dozen friends or couples, people who
have agreed that, at the last minute,
if someone calls and invites you to do
something, unless you’re previously
committed, you’ll say yes.
Together they wrote Refire! Don’t
Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life
the Best of Your Life. It tells about a
fictional couple who worked with
others to evaluate different aspects
of their lives, emotionally, physically
and spiritually. Shaevitz says people
who are going toward something have
the opportunity to live fuller lives. In
the book, Blanchard used a fictional
couple because, “When you tell a
story, people can suspend their inner
critic and watch what happens to the
characters in a detached way.”
dnaproclean.com
Let your retirement be a new beginning
to the best of your life.
Moneywise
Put Retirement Before
Future College Funding
It is more important to securely fund
retirement accounts than to save heavily
for a child’s college education, according
to USA Today. This might sound selfish
to those who think preparing their kids
for the future is a more noble goal. But,
in fact, it is wise. While children can take
out student loans to pay for college, it is
unlikely that parents can finance their
way through retirement.
College students have many options to
pay for their education and having a fully
funded savings account might tempt the
family to place less importance on free
grants and scholarships that will often
require more work up front but don’t have
to be paid back.