Women, Chemotherapy | featured news

With thinning brown hair and nearly invisible eyebrows, Margaret Fisher sits her frail frame down in the salon chair. She received a diagnosis of Stage IV pancreatic cancer almost two years ago and has undergone 18 radiation treatments and six rounds of chemotherapy since. A hairstylist places a wig on Fisher’s head and draws eyebrows on her bare face. Fisher, 63, looks in the mirror and smiles.

Jenni Lake gave birth to a baby boy the month before her 18th birthday, though she was not destined to become just another teenage mother. That much, she knew. While being admitted to the hospital, she pulled her nurse down to her at bed level and whispered into her ear. The nurse would later repeat the girl's words to comfort her family, as their worst fears were realized a day after Jenni's baby was born.

D.J. Soviero wanted the least treatment that would beat back her small, early-stage breast cancer, but her first doctor insisted she had only one option: tumor removal followed by radiation and chemotherapy.

Then she found a novel program at the University of California, San Francisco, that gave her an unbiased evaluation of the pros and cons of all treatment options.
"I realized that I didn't need to use a sledgehammer. It was my choice," said Soviero, of San Francisco, who went with the lumpectomy and radiation, but refused the chemo.