Homework 30- History Project

Christopher R 1/14/11

For my project I decided to do some research, and interview my mom about the deaths she had in her family and the hereditary cancer that has plagued her family. I did research on some of the cancer numbers and ask her how she feels about it. How it connects to her family, and how it connects to her personally.

Question: Which help insurance company do you use?

Answer: Aetna US Health Care

Question: During the course of the unit, our class studied health insurance companies and found out some companies deny insurance because someone is too much of a health risk. How did you pick this health insurance and was it difficult?

Answer: I read up on what Aetna was offering, and I wanted to consider where the doctors were located, I considered the co-payments of the plan as well. My health insurance was through my job and we have to pick a medical plan every year. They don’t ask you questions like if you’re sick. The job pays part of it and we pay part of it. I have a family plan so you are also under it.

Question: How many people in our family have a major illness?

Answer: My sister has high blood pressure and asthma, my sister Vivian has diabetes. My sister Madie was diagnosed with high blood pressure and colon cancer. My sister Shirley had breast cancer but has been cancer free for over twenty years. She also has high blood pressure. My mom has heart trouble and high blood pressure, and my sister Glenda has high blood pressure. I myself have asthma.

Question: What are some deaths you have experienced in your life?

Answer: Many people older than me have died in my family. My father had bladder cancer. My aunt Vick had stomach cancer, my aunt Lucille had cancer. My mother had two brothers who died from other diseases; two of my uncles had liver problems from drinking too much. My brother died from renal failure. I had a brother named Tyree who died from natural causes. One of my uncles named Peter died from something I find kind of funny, he found a snake on the side of the road cooked it and ate it. The venom in the snake killed him. Then my best friend Denise died over a long period of time. She had breast cancer and had mastectomy on her breast. She became cancer free for ten years, but the cancer returned in her lungs. It traveled up to her brain and blinded her for a couple of days. She was on chemo therapy and radiation, but the doctors said one cell always managed to escape. I had a friend named Yvonne died from leukemia which is a cancer in the blood system.

Question: I would we have a lot of illness in your family, and what do you think lead to this?

Answer: I guess the way we eat. Which included a lot of fried foods; this is something we would eat a lot when we were younger. Our parents gave us a lot of fried foods and back then these illnesses weren’t as televised. We would eat freshly grown food from the garden, and now a day there are a lot of foods with unknown chemicals. It was different from when I was younger were people would sell fresh beans, fresh peas, fresh corn, fresh greens. People would kill their own animals and clean the animals that they had on the farm and sell it to different people in our neighborhood. There were a lot of things from the farms of people who were local. Now there are a lot of people who want money so they grow there food by using a lot of chemicals. I think this is what causes a lot of the disease we have now. Where I grew up people died from old age, there weren’t the diseases that are prevalent now.

Question: How doe witnessing all this death change your view on illness and drying?

Answer: It doesn’t change my perspective because that was there way that God had intended them to die. So we never know how we are going to die.

Question: What actions do you do to take care of yourself to lower the risk of getting cancer?
Answer: I have to go twice a year to take a mammogram (X-ray film of the soft tissue of the breast), and I have to go to the oncologist who is doctor that specializes in cancer. She checks my breast. I go to the GYN doctor for a pap smear which is a good way of checking for cancer in the uterus. My regular physician gives me a once a year checkup. I have been through a colonoscopy. They haven't found anything and I have to go back every five years.

Question: If you were ill would you rather have everything done to keep you alive even if it wouldn’t be guaranteed to make you completely better and would you rather die in a hospital or at home?

Answer: I would like to have everything done to keep me alive. I would rather die in a hospital then at home because there are more people to give you care at the hospitals and they do anything to keep you comfortable whereas you would be a burden on someone else at home.

Question: What do you think about the harmful treatments offered for cancer?

Answer: All of the treatments they have for cancer make you even sicker. All the radiation kills most of the cancer but there is usually one cell left that goes somewhere else, so all it really is, is chasing the cancer around the body.

Question: What do you plan to do when you stop working (Retirement Plan)?

Answer: Once I retire, I retire from the bank where I work. I want to become an event planner, such as weddings, and making cakes for weddings and other events. I want to go in business for myself and work when I feel like working instead of have to go to work. I have a 401 K plan.

Question: Do you think you have good eating habits, do you drink a lot?

Answer: My eating habits can be much better than they are. Lose some weight, exercise. I plan to lose weight, by cutting back on what I eat and changing my eating habits, then try to do some more excerise.

Question: According to many of the treatments to prevent cancer can be harmful, do you think exercise and eating right makes more sense than clinical treatments?

Answer: I agree that most of the clinical treatments can make you worse. I think the doctors sometimes try to experiment with you because they don’t really know what they are doing. In fact I think they have medicines that keep you coming back to the doctor.

Question: You do all of the main characteristics that are recommended for preventing cancer, what do you think you can suggest to family?

Answer: Change the eating habits, exercise, and that’s it. Lose weight.


Footnotes:
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8255685/New-Genetic-Test-for-Severe-Childhood-Diseases.html
• http://www.mdanderson.org/patient-and-cancer-information/cancer-information/cancer-topics/prevention-and-screening/hereditary-cancer-syndromes/index.html
• http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=25264
• U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group. United States Cancer Statistics: 1999–2007 Incidence and Mortality Web-based Report. Atlanta (GA): Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Cancer Institute; 2010. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/uscs.
• http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics.jsp
• http://news.myjoyonline.com/ladiescorner/201101/59186.asp
• http://www.buzzle.com/articles/37000-cancer-patients-will-die-without-health-insurance.html
• http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20071220/no-health-insurance-dims-cancer-fate
• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cancer-prevention/CA00024
• http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/prevention/breast/healthprofessional
• http://www.who.int/cancer/prevention/en/
• http://www.13.waisays.com/cancer.htm




* Question I didn’t want to ask: Having weight problems, previous eating problems, hereditary cancer, how safe do you feel?