kitty bedtime

Following depression to the wrong conclusion

Why is it wrong? Because I say so.

Of course there's no *right* conclusion but it has to be said, most people who have depression survive it. Some are lucky enough to eventually leave depression behind permanently.

**potentially triggering**

Suicide on impulse by Scott Anderson at the NYTimes

via Ginmar: What have I done?

Both articles speak for themselves.

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Hmmm...

*attempts log-in again*

Apparently several letters have decided they are once more working.

When in doubt, blame the cats.

Another inflammatory title preceding bad reporting

From the Scotsman: Breast cancer self-exams do more harm than good

I guess the title did one thing - I clicked on the link. What is going on here? Women beating themselves up in the name of examination? Harm from self-handling boobs?

Well, no. Women who do regular self-exams for lumps in their breasts have more benign lumps examined by doctors than women who dinnae bother.

This is inflammatory language:
Many women practise a rigid routine of checking their breasts on a regular basis to see if there are any lumps that might indicate they have cancer.

Correct? Maybe, but to refer to a practice that need take no more than seconds once a month, it's playing rather loose with the truth.
Why do women do this? Because doctors tell them to, mainly. Perhaps because female relatives or friends recommend it.
No-one ever told me. I read about it somewhere, when I was quite young - maybe in the book my mum gave me about menstruation, maybe in some magazine article. So I always knew it was recommended practise.

But the review by researchers at the Cochrane Collaboration – an international body that assesses the combined results of medical studies – has concluded there is no evidence that systematic self-exams actually reduce breast cancer deaths. They also said the common practice could do more harm than good, with more women having to undergo biopsies on lumps that do not turn out to be cancer.

Cancer charities said they encouraged women to be "breast aware", as opposed to carrying out systematic self-exams, and to report any worrying changes to their doctors. This is also the government's guidance.

The latest Cochrane review of research on self-examination included two large studies involving nearly 400,000 women in Russia and China.

In these studies, 3,406 women who carried out self-examination of their breasts had to have biopsies to see if they had cancer. Among those women not carrying out the checks, only 1,856 had the biopsies.

However, the researchers found no significant difference in deaths between the groups.


I can't comment on the research, which evidently is being reported by a paper who thinks this deserves top headline for the day. But apparently the problem is not the self-exam. Not the self-exam - the medical response.
Medics poking needles at benign lumps is painful, leaves scar tissue, and can cause difficulty breast-feeding. It's that simple. If the lump was benign, it was a waste of time. If it was cancer, however - well, most likely it's the start of a great deal of pain and stress but there's the reassurance that at least it was found and treated.

The headline is a falsehood. There is no harm possible from a normal breast self-examination. It's what you do with the information obtained, and what the medics (if the decision is to turn yourself over to them) decide that has the potential to cause harm.

The bottom line seems to be - if you find a lump, consult a medic. I don't. Well - lessee *lifts t-shirt* Okay, pressing against the skin on the left of the left side there's a hard, uneven mass extending towards the centre, about 2 - 3 inches all round. *gropes other side* Small lump upper right.
This is going to be a bad month. I'm fibrocystic. Those lumps will soften after menstruation, usually fading away entirely within a few days of starting. That's why women are instructed to time the exam around then, to avoid alerting them to these hormone-sensitive cysts which are almost always benign, and can be incredibly painful.
I knew nearly a fortnight ago that it was going to get rough, because these lumps are carried over from the previous cycle. They didn't go away completely. That happens to me once or twice a year. And the second time round when they're getting bigger the pain tends to be rather more intense than a normal month.
I decided a long time ago that if anything stuck around for a third cycle, it was probably time to get it checked out. And that's when knowing what's going on starts to swing towards 'harmful', because chances are the doc'll want to stick a needle in it. Which can create scar tissue and compound the problem (though sometimes the thought of getting the cysts drained is actually quite tempting).

From what I've read, women who are fibrocystic are not going to catch a cancerous lump at an early stage unless they *are* getting every lump checked - totally impractical. I did read of a survival story written by a doctor who was both fibrocystic and checking regularly and, as I would, she delayed two or three cycles before being convinced that it wasn't a benign lump.
Mastitis can also cause similar lumps - I don't know so much about humans, but I handle a great many bovine udders and if I find anything like that lump on my left, it's usually mastitis and will slowly disappear following treatment.

Sunday 6 July

Two links

Via The Hand Mirror

Why would a young woman with a potentially strong case refuse to pursue justice against her attackers?

the reason she would not lay a formal complaint was to avoid being victimised again.

"As you will appreciate, she anticipates that that course would generate extensive and invasive news media, threaten her privacy and personal life, and compound the impact on her of the 15 June sexual violations," said the letter, written by Chapman Tripp lawyer Jack Hodder.

It should be noted that the first I heard about the 'allegations' against certain members of the English rugby team, included was the information that the young woman concerned was declining to press charges.
She's not silly. Regardless, anyone with half an eye on the media will be aware that the anticipated 're-victimisation' has already happened. Is still happening, every time some rape apologist says or taps into his keyboard vehement words targetting her.
What did she do to deserve this? Nothing.
In spite of our largest newspaper's inability to discern between consensual sex and sexual violence, the distinction is as clear as can be. Women do not rape themselves.
Why is the world at large so concerned with the good name of four rapists?

The *men*, believe it or not, were perfectly free to avoid any slur on their name. By not raping.

In better news:

Deborah of In a Strange Land is hosting the Second down-under Feminists Carnival

Can I make that three links? *checks browser history*

Downsizing for humour - to the best of my knowledge this is the very first
Feminist LOL Funfair

Because there's no such thing as too much kitty blogging...