Breast Cancer Treatment and Fertility

Being diagnosed with breast cancer can be a devastating experience for women. Along with the fear of death, surgery and harsh cancer treatments , breast cancer also elicits fears on loss of sexuality and body image. It is of utmost importance that the patient and her physician have an in-depth discussion, so that they can make the best decisions about her care.

Most women are ill-informed about the questions they must be asking their doctor before the treatment starts. Young women who are yet to have children and mothers who are planning for more children are advised to talk to their physician about how cancer treatment can put their fertility at risk.

Chemotherapy may affect your ability to have children. Many well-informed young women decide to freeze their eggs before the chemo starts, but not all women have sufficient knowledge about how the treatment can affect their fertility or about the options that are available to preserve their fertility.

Fertility issues during breast cancer

Most physicians will advise you that breast cancer treatment must take priority over fertility. Fortunately, breast cancer does not mean that your dreams of becoming a parent are doomed forever. Even with cancer treatment as your first priority, you can still maximize your chances of becoming a parent.

It is important that the physician and the patient work together on this. If the patient is in a relationship, the partner's concerns must be factored in as well. Some of the questions that you need to answer include:

How important is it to have a baby, for you and your partner?

Do you have an optimistic prognosis that allows you to plan for your future as a parent?

Will it be safe for you to be pregnant?

If there is a recurrence or the survival is limited, will the child have enough caretakers in your absence?

Are you comfortable with adoption or consider using donor eggs to become a parent?

These are definitely tough questions for anyone to answer, even more so for someone who is already bogged down by the severe emotional toll that cancer can unleash. Nonetheless, it is important that you answer these questions as you prepare for the cancer treatment .

Chemotherapy and fertility

Will chemotherapy make you infertile? The answer to this depends on the woman's age and the type of chemotherapy drugs that are used. The younger you are, the better your chances that the ovaries will continue producing fertile eggs even after treatment. Certain chemotherapy drugs, especially those belonging to the group of alkylating agents, can cause relatively more damage to the ovaries than others. Talk to your physician about the type of drugs that will be used for your cancer treatment .

Preserving fertility

If you have been given a relatively good prognosis by your doctor, you may want to ask a fertility expert about the possible options to preserve your fertility.

Here are some questions you may want to ask your fertility expert:

Should you freeze your eggs now? What does the procedure involve?

Should you also consider freezing some of your ovarian tissue?

Are there fertility treatments that will be less risky for you?

What are the financial, medical, emotional and time-wise costs that each of these options involve?

If your doctor says it is okay to postpone your chemo, you may want to undergo ovarian stimulation during this time to harvest enough eggs. Also consider how safe fertility drugs are. Some hormones in the drugs may encourage breast cancer cell activity and cause it to spread rapidly.

With some soul-searching and discussion with your oncologist and fertility expert, you can come up with a definite plan to become a parent in future.

Indulgent Behavior You Should Enjoy in Moderation

Everybody likes to let loose occasionally and do things they would not normally do in life. These activities, done in moderation, are usually not harmful or unhealthy. Everyone likes to splurge every now and then to celebrate or indulge. Many times this behavior occurs around the holidays or a big celebration like a birthday, anniversary or wedding. You may even let loose when things have been going rough in your life. If you have been involved in some stressful situations of late, you might just want to go out with friends, let your hair down and relax. The important thing to understand when it comes to this kind of thing is to know now to control things so they do not get out of control. Indulging every now and then is great, but you need to make sure it does not become a habit. Behaviors that are fine in moderation may be unhealthy if done on the regular basis. The last thing you want is to make yourself sick or develop lung cancer or pancreas cancer because of a lot of bad life decisions.

Going out for a cocktail periodically is not going to harm you in any way. As a matter of fact, a lot of medical professionals believe an occasional glass of red wine is good for your heart. Some also believe beer is a healthy beverage when consumed in moderation. Even getting a little tipsy at a celebration will not leave any permanent scars. However, if you drink alcohol excessively, there will be lasting effects. This is especially true if it is done on a regular basis. If you find yourself consuming a lot of alcohol a few times a month, it may be a sign of a bigger problem. Likewise, if you are using alcohol to get through your day or self-medicate a serious problem, you should speak to your doctor about how you are feeling.

Overeating is another behavior a lot of people fall prey to. There is nothing wrong with ordering dessert occasionally or hitting the buffet when you are on vacation. However, if you are eating unhealthy foods and high quantities of fatty foods on the daily basis, your body is going to suffer. You will feel unhealthy and over time, the poor eating habits will take their toll. Save the sugary treats and indulgent foods for occasional splurges and special occasions and choose fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins for your regular meals.

Gambling is fun for a lot of people and when done in moderation, it is a great way to let loose with your friends and enjoy a night out. However, if you are gambling above your means or you view it as a means of earning an income, it is going to lead to a great deal of problems. Gamble for recreation, not to make a living.

Finally, relaxation is a great stress reducer and should be scheduled into everyone’s life. However, if you feel like you are always lazing about and you rarely leave your couch, you may be indulging in lethargic behavior. Save lying around for raining days and special occasions. When possible get outside and get active.

Use Subliminal Learning to Enrich Your Life

The newest and most revolutionary type of learning today is subliminal learning. In this particular learning technique, learners can easily absorb knowledge and learn even without focusing consciously on the material they are studying and without the need for formal classroom education. With this new discovery, you can now say goodbye to mental blocks and learning difficulties. Any knowledge or skill can now be learned almost instantly and with virtually no effort at all.

What It Can Do For You. Subliminal learning is now being used for many purposes, and it can also be used to enrich your life. A lot of people are already reaping the benefits of this new learning technique. With it, you can:

• Learn new skills that will boost your performance in your profession
• Learn new languages
• Build a more impressive vocabulary
• Learn how to play musical instruments
• Solve mathematical equations more easily

A lot of people do not think much about this amazing new learning technique. After all, it does seem a bit far-fetched? How can you really learn something without having to consciously study it? Well, a brief look at how subliminal learning works will make you an instant believer.

How It Works. Subliminal learning works pretty much like how your brain absorbs songs that get stuck in your head even without you consciously storing it. This shows us that beneath our conscious minds, there is another mental facility that can absorb information on its own and without conscious prompting from us. This mental facility is what sets to work in subliminal learning.

The material to be studied is sent straight to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is like a sponge; it absorbs anything without filtering them out unlike the conscious mind. The main challenge is to quiet down the conscious mind to access the subconscious and then to design the knowledge to be learned in a way that is easily understood and accepted by the subconscious.

How It Is Done. There are many methods through which subliminal learning is applied, such as:

• Displaying images briefly in between video frames
• Playing almost inaudible sounds beneath MP3 songs

Subliminal videos and MP3 or other audio files can easily be downloaded over the Internet. Investing in especially designed videos or MP3s can help you meet various learning goals in a short time.

So if you’re looking to improve your performance at work and boost your chances of getting a promotion, or if you want to have the language skills necessary to grab global work opportunities, then you can rely on subliminal learning. This way, you can enrich your mind and use it to enrich your life without having to go back to the classroom. This way, you can learn new skills and languages while you have a full time job. This new learning technique has indeed come in handy and has effectively paved the way for many employees and entrepreneurs to reach higher goals in their careers and businesses.