Week 7
1059 words by aperraul
My project is about educating women about subjects concerning their health by working at a women’s health clinic. At the clinic, health topics range from breast cancer, breastfeeding, stress and many other topics and concerns that women deal with. Did you know that each year 182,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,300 die from breast cancer alone? Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women. In addition to this, African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. Also, women are not the only one’s that can get breast cancer. In 2005, it was estimated that about 1,690 men would be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States alone. There are two kinds of breast cancer, noninvasive breast cancer and invasive breast cancer. Noninvasive breast cancer is when the cancer is confined to the ducts of the breast and does not spread to the surrounding tissue. Invasive breast cancer is when breast cancer cells penetrate through normal breast tissue and invades the surrounding areas. This is more serious than noninvasive, because it can spread to other parts of the body such as the liver, the bones, the lungs or the brain. The best way to beat breast cancer is through early detection. Early signs of breast cancer are if you detect a lump, swelling, nipple discharge or a depression on the breast surface. History of breast cancer in the family can lead to increased risk, although most breast cancer is diagnosed in women with no family history of cancer.
Here are a few facts on breast cancer that I got from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, INC. website:
• Every two minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
• This year more than 211,000 new cases of breast cancer are expected in the United States.
• One woman in eight who lives to age 85 will develop breast cancer during her lifetime.
• Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women between the ages of 40 and 55.
• 1,600 men are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 400 are predicted to die.
• Seventy percent of all breast cancers are found through breast self-exams. Not all lumps are detectable by touch. We recommend regular mammograms and monthly breast self-exams.
• Eight out of ten breast lumps are not cancerous. If you find a lump, don’t panic-call your doctor for an appointment.
• Mammography is a low-dose X-ray examination that can detect breast cancer up to two years before it is large enough to be felt.
When breast cancer is found early, the five-year survival rate is 96%. This is good news! Over 2 million breast cancer survivors are alive in America today.
It seems the main weapon in defeating breast cancer is vigilance, so an early detection plan for breast cancer should be implemented. You should get a clinical breast examination every three years from the age of 20 to the age of 39 and every year after that. You should also do a monthly self breast examination beginning at the age of 20. Details on how to do a self breast exam can be found at this website: http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/index.html . You should get your first baseline mammogram at the age of 40 and a mammogram every one to two years for women ages 40 to 49. Women who are 50 years old should get a mammogram every year. Also a healthy lifestyle such as a low-fat diet, regular exercise, no smoking and no drinking can also minimize the risk of getting breast cancer.
Another big problem that women face is stress. Women usually have two jobs, a job outside the home and that of being a mother and a wife. Stress can happen for a variety of reasons. Such as daily life, stress in the workplace, a traumatic incident, death, family responsibilities and many more. During stress, women tend to turn to friends and family for help. It was found that a women’s body tends to make a chemical that initiates this response. The chemical oxytocin has a calming affect on the body during times of stress. Symptoms of stress can manifest itself in a variety of ways; the most common are headaches, sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating, short-temper, depression, and anxiety.
Here are some statistics about women and stress from the website Stress Directions:
• women who work full-time and have children under the age of 13 report the greatest stress worldwide
• nearly one in four mothers who work full-time and have children under 13 feel stress almost every day
• globally, 23% of women executives and professionals, and 19% of their male peers, say
• they feel “super-stressed”
God’s house being a tent tells us that God was more like a military leader. He was more comfortable in the tent then he would be in a temple. In a passage in the Bible, God shows his lack of enthusiasm when asked if he would like to stay in a temple rather than in a tent. In ancient Israel, the God’s tent was carried from place to place when ever the Israelites moved; this was accompanied by a procession of trumpets and troops in tribal formation. This corresponds to many accounts of how Egyptians treated their pharaohs during time of war, as “divine warriors.” This seemed the way that God liked to be portrayed as the Israelite’s “divine warrior.”
The idea of “promised land” is problematic, because who really has the right to claim a piece of land as their own because a deity promised it to them. The Israelites slaughtered and conquered the Canaanites, because the land they were staying on was supposedly promised to them by God. This chain of events can be linked with the fate of the Indians. The Europeans came and basically kicked them off their land because they saw themselves as God’s chosen people. I know I would be upset if a group of people one day rang my doorbell and told me that I had to leave my home because my house was promised to them by their god.
Sources:
www.thebreastcancersite.com/
www.thebreastcancersite.com/
http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/index.html
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/stress.htm
http://www.stressdirections.com/personal/about_stress/stress_statistics.html