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tumor-related stories

JJ Gies Fights Through Pain to Make Fit Gains

That's Fit Club, Fitness, Motivation

thats fit club

That's Fit Club is our feature devoted to you, the reader! We have all learned so much on our paths to becoming more fit, and now it's time to learn from and inspire each other! That's Fit Club members are constantly working to better themselves. Some are perfect; some are not. But all have health on the mind.

Besides showing you off, we want to reward you for all of your hard work! Everlast and Everlast Woman have been giving gorgeous workout T-shirts to each featured member! We are so grateful for their generous support and have been honored to partner up with them. We bid them farewell with great thanks, and are excited to introduce our new That's Fit Club sponsor. We welcome adidas to our club and are proud to announce they'll be providing awesome gym bags to each new featured member starting next week. To join, please send Fitz your answers to these questions, with a photo of yourself. Time for you to be the motivator!

jj giesName: JJ Gies

Age: 35 +

Occupation: Utility Player, part time student, teacher and customer service.

How often do you exercise? I used to train six days a week with one day of rest, but because of the tumor in my foot, I am limited to working out every other day.

What type of exercise do you do? Rollerblading, mountain biking and lifting weights. On a good day, I play beach volleyball.

What gets you to work out, even when you're feeling lazy? I just convince myself that no matter the pain or how I feel that the end results justify the means, Plus I know that after a workout i feel so much better all around.

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A spicy way to fight pancreatic cancer

Diet & Weight Loss, Nutrition & Supplements

Can certain foods really protect you against cancer? RealAge thinks so and reports that turmeric is just the spice for the prevention of pancreatic cancer, the very disease that just took the life of The Last Lecture guy Randy Pausch and is giving actor Patrick Swayze a run for his money.

It's curcumin, the yellow stuff found in turmeric, that works wonders on tumor cells. When researchers added the substance to cancerous pancreatic cells, production practically shut down. Thumbs up, then, for the spice that gives curry and other Far Eastern dishes it's strong and distinctive flavor.

These foods also keep pancreas happy: Onions, arugula, fish, eggs, poultry, D-fortified cereal, and dairy.

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Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?

Healthy Aging, Healthy Home, Healthy Relationships, Stress Reduction, Womens Health, Celebrities and Entertainment, Healthy Products and Reviews, Healthy Events, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Celebs & Entertainment, Reviews & Products, Motivation, Men's Health

I'm literally a sobbing crying mess as I write this. I fell in love with a dying man a few weeks ago when I caught wind of him giving an amazing gift to his students, colleagues, friends and family at Carnegie Mellon University. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor gave his Last Lecture now famous on YouTube, on September 18, 2007. Randy's lecture was called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." Now, I have my own spectacular husband, but I imagine anyone who knows, or knows of Randy . . . would love him very much.

For a man whose pancreas is being destroyed by a cancer that could take his life within months . . . he was hysterical, energetic, inspirational, and relentless about the idea that life can be wonderful every day, and that his days still are. He told stories of his childhood and made one of the most insightful statements I've ever heard. "Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore? Choose!"

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Rehab gone right

Healthy Habits, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness

On Monday, I graduated from my rehab stint. Physical therapy rehab, that is. There was no big ceremony or anything. Just me and my therapist reviewing my progress over the past five weeks. It was pretty enlightening, what we talked about, and I left the clinic feeling both successful and motivated.

When I first walked through my rehab clinic doors, I wasn't sure anything could be done to fix the tightness, the limited range of motion, the sometimes pain I felt in the area of my left arm. It had been three long years since I'd had surgery to remove a breast cancer tumor, after all, and almost that long since radiation zapped the whole cancerous area. Both are to blame for what I was experiencing and the way I considered it, if my problems weren't solved long ago, there was little that could be done now.

I was wrong.

My therapist took tons of measurements when we first started working together. I moved, bent, stretched, pushed, and pulled so she could record numbers of all sorts. Then we spent weeks on our tasks. She massaged and manipulated and broke down scar tissue, stiffness, knots. Armed with weekly exercises, I stretched and strengthened by body at home. Together, we achieved victory -- my improved numbers prove it. I'm responsible for 50 percent of the success, my therapist tells me. She takes credit for the other 50 percent.

Before I left my final appointment, my expert shared a few parting words. Here they are.

  • My posture is better. She could tell the moment I walked in the door. Must be the exercise in standing tall she'd given me during one visit and my new awareness of the poor posture I'd been carrying with me all these years.

  • I should be sleeping on my back, not on my side. Back sleepers enjoy better alignment and less rounding of the shoulders -- one of my posture problems. My assignment from this moment on is to sleep on my back with one relatively flat pillow under my head. I should make sure my pillow fills the gap between my neck and my bed. I should enjoy the benefits of this technique immensely, says my therapist.

  • Keep at it, says this same gal who streamlined all my at-home exercises and told me precisely what I need to do to hang on to the results the two of us have achieved.

Woman has internal organs removed in unique surgery

Diet & Weight Loss, Reviews & Products

Brooke Zepp wasn't taking no for an answer. The 63-year-old Florida woman had a rare tumor deep in her abdomen. Her doctors told her that it was inoperable, and that she had only months left to live. Rather than accepting her fate, however, she asked someone else. Eventually, she ended up at the Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center Transplant Institute.

The team there did a surgery that was the first of its kind. They removed six of Zepp's internal organs -- the stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, small intestine, and part of the large intestine -- to get at the tumor. The organs were left on ice while the tumor was removed, then put back in place, using artificial blood vessels to reconnect the blood supply.

Zepp claims to be feeling great and has a new lease on life. The surgery may lead to new procedures for operating on people with tumors that are tough to remove.

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No more uncomfortable mammograms?

Diet & Weight Loss

Good news! Researchers are reporting that there may be a less painful, and more accurate, way to scan breast tissue for abnormalities. Called the "Cone Beam Breast Computed Tomography" scanner, this new form of x-ray is basically a fancier version of the CT scan. It takes a three-dimensional view of the breast and the surrounding tissue, even over into the armpit, all without compressing anything between cold glass plates.

So far the scanner has detected all cancers found by standard mammography, and in one case created a clearer image of a cancer that was hard to see on the mammogram. Researchers are hopeful so far, saying that although several trials are still needed before the study is complete, it looks as though the new scan can detect more tumors than the mammogram can.

If approved, this procedure would be much pricier than a mammogram, and therefore most likely reserved for those at highest risk. But regardless, I'm sure women all over the world will have their fingers crossed that the results so far hold true!

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