Health: December 2007 Archives

By Jennifer Medvin: Many of us were probably surprised and very upset by the passing of Dana Fairbanks on the L Word. Yes, she was just a fictional character, but the impact allowed the threat of cancer to hit home. The writer's showed that youth, an athletic build and even fame will not stop you from being affected by cancer. No one knows that more than Melissa Etheridge who underwent two cancer surgeries in 2004.

Discovery of a lump can generate fear in a woman. This may strike at the core of a women's self image through the thought of breast cancer, of losing her breast and maybe even losing her life. Women are eight times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer and lung cancer kills twice as many women every year than cancer of the breast. But the main reason breast cancer is a woman's worst nightmare is the fact that it kills more women age 35 to 55 than any other disease.

Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation Receives $1 Million Dollar Donation In Honor of "The L Word" Stars Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey

An anonymous donor has given a $1 million dollar gift to the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in honor of Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey, two of the stars of the hit Showtime series, "The L Word," for the realism and truth they brought to a breast cancer storyline that ended with the death of Erin Daniels' character, Dana Fairbanks. This is the largest private donation ever made to the Foundation.

"The donor, who has chosen to remain anonymous, wanted to honor the actresses for their compelling portrayal of a couple dealing with the tragic consequence of breast cancer," says the Foundation's Executive Director Naz Sykes. "Ultimately, she decided the best way to do that was to give a generous donation that would help us advance the work we are doing to end breast cancer in our lifetime."

By Tod Companion

It's a fact of life that sometimes you get down. For many people, this feeling passes with time. For others, it's a constant condition. When your behavior changes because of this feeling, it becomes clinical depression. For many years, there was little outside of therapy that science could do for those suffering from depression. In recent years, however, advances in pharmacology have led to many medications for depression. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, you can't just take a pill, or eat a cookie to affect a change in yourself.

Depression is not just feeling bad. That's a state of mind, but while it can be a symptom of depression, just feeling bad doesn't mean you are clinically depressed. Depression occurs when this sadness lasts for an extended period of time. It's also accompanied by abnormal behaviors - obsessive eating or starving one's self, inability to sleep or sleeping too much. Loss of interest in sex is often a sign of depression. Disinterest in friends, family, career and life in general are also hallmarks of depression. Depression can also be accompanied by obsessive/compulsive behaviors - counting, constant cleaning, excessive ordering and neatness.