I came across several interesting bits of news – some that you can use today.  Let me know what you think.

Many patients truly believe that if they can only practice true positive thinking, they will be rid of cancer, eventually.  For these folks disease progression carries the additional burden of sense of failure.  The Medscape article I review below is very worth reading –  for the sake of your mental health.

You think it is hard to talk to teenagers?  Try to walk in the shoes of an oncologist trying to talk to a cancer patient with unrealistic expectations.  Conversely, imagine talking to a dismissively paternalistic physician who is tone deaf to the needs of his patients.  The article we review below does an excellent job of discussing these tough issues.

Fair warning: this article has nothing to do with CLL. Or at best, only a tenuous link if you are interested in dealing with illness, grief and loss. This article describes my visit to Dharamsala, the seat of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If you are not big on travelogues, hit the delete button now.

Very often I come across interesting little nuggets of CLL information that are not quite enough for a full article.  In an attempt to capture these tidbits, I thought I would start this on-going thread.  New items will be reported under this heading as they come to my attention.

One man’s pro-active response to CLL diagnosis is another man’s obsessive behavior.  When does “out-sourcing” CLL worry become denial?  Where in the spectrum of patients’ responses do you fit?

Have you suffered a deep chest infection where you felt your lungs and airways were choking with thick blobs of  mucus and no amount of coughing could bring it up sufficiently to let you breathe again?  Here is an interesting development that may help in those situations.

Statins are probably the most often prescribed medications in the world, for the purpose of lowering high cholesterol. Are statins good for cancer patients?As the title suggests, this is a controversial issue.  You can make up your own mind after reading the latest information on this subject.

The answer in a word is yes. In this article we discuss the relationship between incidence of CLL and ethnicity.

The results of our Half-Time survey are in!