BLOGGER RETURNS FROM THE DEAD

Linda in Cairo

It has been 38 days since I last added something new to this blog.  Part of that extended hiatus is owing to  ten days in Alaska, first admiring my beautiful granddaughter receiving her RN certification, and then observing Christmas with my extended Cordova, Alaska, family, now swollen to a “go forth, be fruitful, and multiply” level of nine, if you include boyfriends.  However, upon returning to sunny Bellingham I have been engaged in a struggle with some kind of crud – not flu, but close.  For most of that time I have felt like the man described in a famous Yukon poem: “When into the din and the glare, there stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog dirty but loaded for bear (that last doesn’t apply).  He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, with scarcely the strength of a louse….”*

Well, I am up to at least two-louse strength, so I am going to attempt a few cancer blogs, before I travel to Borrego Springs for the balance of the winter – probably next week.  However, at 2-louse strength about all I am up for is to direct you to a couple of important web sites:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< 

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20180118/Study-devises-efficient-and-economical-strategy-to-screen-breast-and-ovarian-cancer-gene-mutations.aspx

It has long been known that mutations of BRCA 1, or BRCA2, make women far more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer.  The prevailing policy, however, has been not to offer testing to the general population, on the grounds that it would not be “cost effective”  (How I hate that term where cancer is concerned!)  Well, an authoritative study in the UK, using “complex mathematical models” indicates it is, in fact, demonstratively cost-effective.  Every woman should be offered that test, free of charge (fat chance.)   Hell, my wife died of ovarian cancer and I don’t even know whether she carried the BRCA mutations, or not.  Linda has several close female relatives, so it would be nice to know!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/891412

Another new wrinkle in OVCA therapy.  If this had been available nine tears ago I might have had Linda for one more year.

 *Name the poem and the author