Stop the Silence - Sean Patrick's Fight Against Ovarian Cancer

The first message that she was dying came by bicycle. Sean Patrick rode up the steep trail on Smuggler Mountain, Aspen, Colorado, on a cool, pre-fall day in 1995. She had spent many summer afternoons biking through the Aspen groves, enjoying the late sun shining patchwork on the trail. Normally energized from the strenuous workout and her daily 15- to 22-mile rides, Patrick was shocked when she became so out of breath that she had to get off the bike to avoid throwing up.

It was radical, she says. I couldnt get up. At first she thought she had over trained or suffered from exhaustion from too much traveling. Confirming her ideas, Patricks doctor suggested that she slow down and get a hobby. If you cant slow down, he said to her, I can always give you a prescription for Valium.

After weeks of still not being able to ride or rock climbher favorite sportPatrick returned to her doctor, who did blood work, but found nothing obviously wrong. He told her not to worry. It wasnt until 1997 that she finally found out that she had a rare form of ovarian cancer called Micropapillary Serous Carcinoma. After the late discovery, Patrick endured seven surgeries and, at one point in 2001 after being flown to a hospital via flight for life, doctors told her she wouldnt live past six weeks.

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Patrick did live, and she says, in large part it was due to her experiences in the mountains. She was strong from regularly biking and lifting weights, and she was mentally balanced after decades of rock climbing. The wilderness and leadership skills she gleaned in places like the Rocky Mountains prepared her for the greatest challenge of her lifesurviving that six-week ordeal in the hospital.

While on her deathbed in the ICU, a doctor inserted a blood gas line in her body, and it hurt like hell, she says. I snapped and got angry, and at that moment I came back into my body. She likens the feeling to being really scared after a rock climbing fall or when she has been stuck on the side of a mountain on a ledge in a thunderstorm. I would get scared and then angry, and that would act as a catalyst to get moving. I knew if I did not keep moving in the face of my disease that I would not make it.

Since her extraordinary recovery six years ago, Patrick continues to move rapidly forward. Not only does she still climb and play in the mountainsshe topped out on the Grand Teton after 22 hours of climbing through blizzard conditions in 2004but she also decided to make it her mission to raise awareness and money for the cancer that almost killed her. My lifes goal is to prevent as many women as possible from going through what I experienced, she says.

In the last few years Patrick has helped create an ovarian cancer website for the Johns Hopkins Medical institute, and she regularly travels around the country on speaking engagements. Patricks crowning achievement is the non-profit HERA Foundation (Health, Empowerment, Research, Advocacy), which she created in 2002. She organizes Climb For Life events around the country and in Mexico, which bring women and men together to rock climb, do yoga, watch climbing slide shows and films, and, most importantly, learn about and raise money for ovarian cancer.

Friend and Climb for Life volunteer, Deanne Pranke says that Patricks climbing events have been incredibly inspirational for thousands of people. Sean has brought ovarian cancer out in the open and empowered many women such as myself to take charge of our health and educate our loved ones and friends about this kind of cancer.

Adds Patrick, The need for perseverance forces women to reach deep inside themselves when they feel like they cant go further. The lessons you learn from climbing and taking care of yourself in the wilderness translate into successful life strategies on a day to day basis. In fact, Patrick has never seen a sport as empowering as climbing is for women. Often when Ive seen women get to the top of a route in the gym, the transformation on their face is phenomenal, she explains.

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Sean Patricks wide smile greets the climbers as they stream into the third-floor room of REI Denver, spring 2004. Running her hand through a shock of white blonde hair, she says shes nervous when speaking publicly, but her voice is steady and vibrant as she talks about ovarian cancer and the HERA Climb for Life REI Road tour (now in its third year), sponsored by REI, Black Diamond, and HERA. She speaks to the audience with the fluency of someone who possesses a vast knowledge of the disease and the politics surrounding it.

After her diagnosis, Patrick became a research maven, reading everything she could find on the subject and hounding doctors all over the country. With her energetic and insistent attitude, shes penetrated the wall of scientific jargon to understand her disease. What she learned inspired her to reach out to others.

Since its inception, she says, the foundation has provided doctors with research grants; provided seed grants to a number of small communities, which have allowed them to offer immediate assistance to aid patients with travel, hotel rooms, and childcare while they are undergoing treatment; and established awareness programs throughout the United States.

Patrick has also convinced thousands of women and men to work with her. Among those women are famous alpinist Kitty Calhoun and salt Lake City, Utah, resident Hillary Silberman. Both women worked with Patrick to create a video highlighting the HERA Foundation and ovarian cancer.

According to Silberman, making the video and volunteering for HERA changed her life. Silbermans mother died in 2003 from ovarian cancer, and she says that she felt helpless in the face of her mothers illness. My involvement with HERA gave me the tools to work with to deal with my mothers death as well as people to connect with who understand where Im coming from.

By being involved and being proactive, Silberman explains, she has done something positive for others by presenting them with information. I have also done something positive for myself by beginning to think about what I needed to do to protect myself and get early detection.

With cancer affecting most of the female members of her family, Silberman is at a high risk for contracting the disease, although she doesnt currently have it. Her nurse practitioner tried to convince her not to worry, but Patrick and the Climb for Life events convinced Silberman to follow through on her own to seek the medical services she needs for early detection. The feeling of strength, perseverance and tenaciousness that climbing engenders made me not give up when professionals were telling me not to worry.

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As with most female-specific diseases, says Patrick, ovarian cancer has typically been ignored by the medical industry. Despite the fact that it kills women of all ages and more women than all the other gynecological cancers combined, many doctors are ignorant of its symptoms and think the disease affects only the elderly. This, explains Patrick, partially results from the medical fields traditional focus on men and male-specific diseases.

For example, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that although coronary heart disease (CHD) causes more than 250,000 deaths in women each year, much of the research in the last 20 years on CHD has either excluded women entirely or included only limited numbers of women.

Additionally, doctors treat women different than men in hospitals. According to a fall 2001 study published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, womens pain reports are taken less seriously than mens, and women receive less aggressive treatment than men for their pain. Also, women were more likely to have their pain reports discounted as emotional and therefore, not real.

I have had several experiences with this kind of dismissive treatment by both male and female doctors, says Patrick. It is a flaw in how medicine is taughtwomen complain, men dont, so they take mens complaints more seriously. To get the best treatment, you have to find a doctormale or female (one is not better than another in being more empathetic)that sees you as a person and not a statistical group.

Although Patrick seeks to change the way doctors view ovarian cancer and other women-specific diseases, she believes its more imperative to encourage women to take control of their own health. Ovarian cancer is not a silent killer, she says, the disease has symptoms, and its important that women are made aware of what they are. women who go to the doctor with gastrointestinal symptoms must make sure that ovarian cancer is ruled out.

Through climbing, Patrick believes that women can be taught to stand up for themselves. Not only do these events teach women self-reliance, but they are also places where we can turn our passion for climbing into a passion for making a difference.

I think success in climbing no matter what level you climb at5.4 to 5.14translates to successful life strategies, Patrick says. I want women who are empowered by the mountains to take this back into everyday life, and as it relates to the medical community, I want them to trust their intuition despite their doctors contention that they may not have a problem. In climbing and in life, trust yourself.

For more information on ovarian cancer and the HERA Foundation, please visit the HERA Foundation Website at www.theherafoundation.org. Climb For Life events are held regularly around the country. The next 2007 event will be held in Boulder, Colorado. Registration has started.

Lizzy Scully Writer lizzy@girlsed.org

To find out more about registering or volunteering for the June 15-17, 2007 event, please visit: http://www.climb4lifeco.kintera.org/.

Hot Yoga Bayside New York

The Dishwasher: A Kitchen Appliance I Cannot Live Without (I Tried)

kitchen remodeling is one of the biggest home improvement projects that you can take on. You can help minimize the frustrations and spread out the expenses of this time consuming project by doing it in stages. One of the most helpful improvements you can make is to get a dishwasher.

I am amazed at families who live without a dishwasher. I grew up with one in every home, then when I got married we didn't have one in our first home. It was incredible how time consuming it was to wash dishes by hand. I definitely had better things to do with my time. When we moved to our next home I made sure there was one already installed, or at least plenty of room to put one. There's no way I'm doing without it again.

Dishwashers are more complicated than you'd think. They come in a variety of styles and have an astonishing range of features. There are built-in dishwashers, stand-alone dishwashers and countertop dishwashers. For instance, Bosch has a line of dishwashers that is so quiet you might forget you turned it on. I know because my mother in law has one. It's phenomenal. The most recognized are built-in dishwashers which are less visible once installed. If you have a very small kitchen and no available slot for a built in you'll need to get a portable rolling dishwasher, which are self contained units often with a counter top that can be useful for other kitchen needs. Some come with a full blown chopping block on top.

In addition to their obvious time saving factor, dishwashers can also be energy efficient. Electric dishwashers use less hot water than washing and rinsing dishes by hand. (If your spouse is complaining about the money for a dishwasher give him that fact). Many of them carry the energy star label and have special settings specifically to use less water and if you have a water softener you can use less soap, too.

If you don't have a dishwasher already I highly recommend one. From that point on you'll never voluntarily go back to hand washing again.

Get more information on dishwashers and portable dishwashers at our resource site. This is a sister site to Compact Refrigerator review.

Yoga In South West New York

Greatest Super Bowls

There have been a number of great games over the years which makes finding one of the greatest super bowls out of this list a difficult task. Over the nearly 40 year history of this big game there have been a number of blowouts, but the close ones have given us something to remember for years to come.

5. Super Bowl XXIII (1989, 49ers 20, bengals 16)

This was san Fran's 3rd Super Bowl of the 80s and was won in thrilling fashion. The 49ers led in net yards 452 to 229 but still was down 16-13 after Jim Breech kicked a 40-yard field goal with a little over three minutes remaining.

In comes joe Montana, driving 92 yards and ending with a 10 yard TD pass to John Taylor with 34 seconds left.

Rice was named the Super Bowl MVP after gaining a Super Bowl record 215 yards on 11 catches. montana had a Super Bowl record 357 yards passing.

4. Super Bowl XXV (1991, giants 20, bills 19)

The giants won their 2nd Super Bowl in 5 years by controlling the ball for 40 minutes in this game. The bills scored 95 points in their two other playoff games that year, but only had their offense on the field for 8 minutes in the 2nd half.

But this game is known for only one thing, and that's Scott Norwood's missed field goal with seconds remaining, as it sailed wide right. That missed field goal basically set the tone for the bills over the next four years, as they only found disappointment in the Super Bowl.

3. Super Bowl XXXVI (2002, Patriots 20, Rams 17)

As Norwood's miss set the tone for disappointment with the bills, Adam Vinatieri's 48 yard FG to win the game help guide the Pats to Super Bowl wins in 3 of the next 4 years.

The Pats were 14 point underdogs who were outgained 427-267 in total yards. There were several turnovers in this game that let the Pats stay in it, the first being Ty Law's return for a TD, then Terrell Buckley's fumble recovery, and an Otis smith interception. These three big plays let New england jump to a 17-3 lead.

After the Rams struck back to tie it up at 17, Brady moved the ball easily with 1:30 left in the game to help Vinatieri drill a 48-yarder as time expired. Brady ended up the MVP despite going 16 of 27 for 145 yards.

2. Super Bowl III (1969, Jets 16, colts 7)

The guarantee by joe Namath basically makes this game great. The AFL hadn't even been competitive in the Super Bowl before this and they beat a baltimore team that had only lost once in 16 games.

Namath backed up his claim by completing 17 of 28 for 206 yards and earning the MVP honors. This game put the AFL on the map.

1. Super Bowl XXXIV (2000, Rams 23, Titans 16)

This game ended with Mike Jones being tackled by Kevin Dyson at the 1-yard line as time expired, giving the Rams their first Super Bowl title.

The Titans defense really stepped up as the Rams took it into the red zone on their first 6 possessions but were held to 3 field goals and a TD.

The Titans finally got their offense going by scoring a pair of touchdowns on two seven minute drives, but a missed 2-point conversion made the score 16-13. Then with only 2:12 left in the game Al Del Greco tied the game up with a 43-yard field goal. It didn't take long for the Rams to strike back as on the first play Isaac Bruce went deep for a quick TD with 1:54 left. The Titans wouldn't quit and drove downfield to Tennessee to the 10 with only six seconds remaining. Without a timeout left, McNair attempted a quick pass to Dyson, who caught it at the 3 but was stopped at the 1 by Jones as time expired. Warner was the MVP with a Super Bowl record 414 yards and 2 TD. Holt and Bruce both had big games, the former with 7 catches and 109 yards with the latter going for 162 yards on 6 grabs.

All About Yoga Positions Poses

10 Tips to De-stress, Part 1

Have you ever had times when everything feels like a drag and you hate to get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work, do whatever you have to, run your errands, take care of children, do housekeeping, and so on and so forth? It doesnt help if it is a lovely sunny day, you feel gray and cloudy. You feel so bad that you dont even want to feel better. You may also be so stressed you cant even think straight. Your mind spins; you are not in control.

Though this is a very common position to be in, turn it around you must. As you know, no one is all right, if you are not all right, so there is no time to lose. You are a lighthouse. You owe it to yourself and everyone you encounter today, to spread light. Turn it around. What you want to do is find ways to have fun doing what you must; everything, really. So here are some solutions for you:

1. You play games. You may think that games and fun are for children and you are way past that stage and it is really silly to be acting silly. Well, let me disagree. Once you get in the playing mode, there is no stop. Make up little things to begin with until you feel more comfortable stretching yourself. Start with walking. Even if you are not in the mood to take a walk, some walk you need to do: from your car to the store, from your office to you car, from your house to your mailbox, etc. Take this opportunity to step on everything that makes a noise, or a click, or a splash. Begin by stepping on dry leavesnow is the best time of the year for this. Then, if you are really walking for the pleasure of it, find a little stone and kick it so it is always ahead of you; you will have a goal to pursue as well as putting your mind into something a fun.

2. Listen to some calming music. This is especially good when you are stuck in traffic. It can be classical, if you like it, or any type of meditation music, you know, the ones which play some cymbals, water running, gongs, bells, birds singing, etc. You know what I mean. Just pay attention not to fall sleep, especially while driving.

3. Go for a walk, or run or exercise, or do yoga and tai-chi, or dance, or whatever is your favorite form of movement. It neednt be one whole hour. Twenty minutes is plenty to refresh your body and soul. Avoid pumping your adrenals before you go to bed, or you will not sleep when you need to.

4. Light a candle and/or incense. Nothing needs to be elaborated, really, and you can do so while attending to other things as well, if you must. A candle is good for any occasion, from cooking to reading. You can also spend a minute staring at the flame. This is a great de-stressor. I always have one on while I am working at the computer. Of course, you need to pay attention that you will not burn down the house. Though lightning candles may seem more of a female kind of activity, men will profit greatly from it. Just give it a try.

5. Take a minute every hour of the day to stop whatever you are doing, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Though it is only a minute per hour, this is easier said than done, but make a point and stick to it. One minute may seem a lot especially when we are so hurried, but I promise you it is not. You can also take a good sip of water after your deep breath. This is especially good for those who arent too fond of drinking water or those who forget to do so.

So here you have it, at least the first part of my tips. The most important thing here is to remember to avoid excitement or any boost of adrenaline in whatever form, even if it is just a piece of chocolate or a nice cup of coffee. I know it sounds harsh, but you will notice the difference. Next time you feel stressed or burnt out or just plain blas, try any or all of these suggestions. You will feel much better within 20 minutes. Guaranteed.

To be continued

Maria Moratto 2006
Want to have more abundance, health, time, love, fun, and blessings? Visit Prescription For bliss at www.rx4bliss.com, sign up for the newsletter and receive a fr*ee ebook called "Happy People Are More Abundant!"
Dr. Maria Moratto is the author of "The Inspired healing For Your body, Mind, and Soul," "The Inspired healing journal: Mending Your Broken Heart," and "Attract Money journal." Visit her site to get fr*ee affirmation cards.
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Yoga Granbury Texas Meditation