January Support Group Meeting

And a very happy New Year to all our readers/visitors. During December we treated ourselves to a yummy pre-Christmas lunch instead of our regular meeting. We’ll be getting together once again on Friday 20 January in central Basel over the lunch hour for the usual chitchat, moral support, info exchange and just to catch up on where everyone’s at.

If you’d like to join us, or to find out more about the support group, our meeetings, guest speakers for 2012 and other stuff,  send us an email on cancersupportbasel@gmail.com

November Support Group Meeting

We will be getting together for our next meeting in a central location in Basel on Friday 18 November  over the lunch hour. If you’d like to join us, or are interested in finding out more about the Basel Cancer Support Group, please send a mail to cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll do the rest. Look forward  to hearing from/seeing you!

The value (or not?) of routine mammography

One of the questions that arises regularly within our group is the value (or otherwise) of routine screening for breast cancer in preventing mortality. The subject is discussed here in a detailed report (including results from several large-scale studies) that’s up on the National Breast Cancer Coalition website.

The report concludes that:

‘Evidence from studies of varied quality indicate that, overall, mammography screening has a modest effect on breast cancer mortality.

October Support Group Meeting

We will be getting together for our next meeting in a central location in Basel on Friday 21 October over the lunch hour. If you’d like to join us, or are interested in finding out more about the Basel Cancer Support Group, please send a mail to cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll do the rest. Look forward  to hearing from/seeing you!

September Support Group Meeting

Our next get-together will be on Friday, 23rd September at a central location in Basel. If you would like to come along, please send us a mail on cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll give you the details.

August Support Group Meeting

Our next get-together will be on Friday, 19th August at a central location in Basel. If you would like to come along, please send us a mail on cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll give you the details.

Advocacy: What is it all about? by Leonie Young from Bloom, Reach to Recovery International

I recently read an article by Leonie Young, published in the Reach to Recovery International magazine Bloom. It struck a chord for lots of reasons. We at Cancer Support Basel have never really thought of ourselves as ‘advocates’ (too political, not our thing, difficult as expats in Switzerland…). Then we discovered that Leonie’s definition of advocacy sums up what we at Cancer Support Basel try to do.

Leonie writes:

If we can find ways to bring hope and optimism to peoples’ lives, even when this may seem impossible then we can begin to have an influence on the personal impact of cancer.

If you don’t think you are an advocate, just think of times you have talked to another woman about her breast cancer journey, or the times when you helped someone find information, or have spoken up for someone who is not confident.

Read the full text of the article here

June Support Group Meeting and AGM

Our next gathering will take place on June 10th. On this occasion we will also be holding our Annual General Meeting. As we aim at keeping formalities to a minimum and to focus on catering to the needs of our members, the AGM should not take long. We will still be able to fully enjoy our lunch together. If you would like to join us at a central location in Basel, please send us a mail on cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll give you the details.

Summary of proceedings, 12th St Gallen Breast Cancer Conference 2011

Dr Christoph Rageth  of the Brustzentrum in Zurich  has sent me his summary of the proceedings at this year’s St Gallen breast cancer conference. The 12th Breast Cancer Conference, which is also known as the Consensus Conference, took place in St Gallen from 16-19 March 2011. Together with the annual congresses in San Antonio (San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium) and principally Chicago (ASCO – American Society of Clinical Oncology), as well as the biennial European Congress (2010 in Barcelona; 2012 in Vienna), the biennial St Gallen conference is ranked among the most important in the world. The reason for this is that on the last day of the congress, fifty of the best known specialists in the world (medical oncologists, surgeons, radiotherapy specialists, researchers) vote on the most burning topics relating to breast cancer treatment. Read about it here.

May Support Group Meeting

Our next gathering will take place on May 6th. We will meet over lunch in a central location in Basel. If you would like to join us, please send us a mail on cancersupportbasel@gmail.com and we’ll give you the details. Happy Easter to all of you.