Tag Archives: Massachusetts General Hospital

Stressed About Stress

Posted on April 10, 2012 by April Yablonsky

We all know that stress isn’t good for us. But does it contribute to cancer? I wonder this all the time. My breast cancer diagnosis certainly added to my stress level, as did my treatment. Most of us have work, family, and daily life stresses to deal with as well. In my mind, keeping my stress level down keeps my cancer recurrence chances down. There’s no way to know if this actually works, as the studies on stress and cancer risk are inconclusive.
I try not to worry about recurrence and then I find myself worrying that my worry will cause …

 

Fitting In

Posted on February 21, 2012 by April Yablonsky

Fitting in is something most of us have struggled with at one time or another, whether on the school playground, with a new group of friends, or the sales conference at work. My greatest challenge to fit in has been with the breast cancer survivor community.
Being a 28-year old with breast cancer is certainly not the norm, but it’s my norm. When I started going to my appts at Mass General, I was always the youngest patient in the waiting room by a large margin. When my mother would take me to my appts, the nurses mistook her for the …

 

Not the Ideal Patient

Posted on February 7, 2012 by April Yablonsky

I am a really difficult patient. I have a major fear of IVs and I cringe whenever I see one. My husband changes the channel anytime there’s a needle on TV whether it be on a commercial or one of our favorite shows. I cry when I have to have blood drawn and I freak out at the site of an IV. I’ve been like this my whole adult life, so when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 28, part of the horror was knowing how many hours I would be spending at the hospital scared …

 

PAINT THE TOWN PINK: Brenda Pignone: ‘I am blessed to be here’

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Carol

Wicked Local Abington
Posted Oct 17, 2010
Seven year ago July 8, 2003 on what was planned to be a day shopping with my then 13-year-old daughter became a day that stopped me in my tracks and cemented the meaning of “your life can change forever in one moment.”
Sara and I took the train to Boston and I told her that I needed to stop at Mass General Hospital to “quickly have my mammogram” and then we could head out for a day of shopping and lunch. The radiologist suggested that the mammogram showed an area of calcifications and that she would like …

 

New Breast Imaging Test Shows Great Promise

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Carol

November 9, 2010 4:46 PM
BOSTON (CBS) – Imagine a breast imaging test that could tell doctors which lumps are cancerous and which are benign. Knowing that could save millions of women from getting unnecessary and, sometimes painful, tests.
Local doctors say they’ve developed a test that, even in its early stages, seems to show great promise.
3-D digital mammography has been used for years to find suspicious breast lesions. Now doctors at Mass General have found combining that screening with a new optical imaging technique which measures hemoglobin and oxygen levels in breast tissue …