Strollerderby : chemotherapy

Update: Mother of Boy who Refused Chemo Brings Him Home

KeriF — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:04:00 GMT

Colleen Hauser and her 13-year-old son Daniel voluntarily returned home to Minnesota today, after a week on the run during which authorities believe the pair may have been trying to get to Mexico for holistic treatment of Daniel's cancer.

"My understanding is that Colleen intends to abide by whatever orders the court makes and that she wants to put her best case forward for her son to have a chance at alternative treatment," defense attorney Jennifer Keller told CNN. "But if the court overrules that, she will abide by the orders of the court."

Daniel was taken to a hospital for evaluation; the results of that exam have not been released.

The arrest warrant that had been issued for Colleen Hauser has been quashed, and though legal custody of Daniel has been taken by the court, there are no plans to remove him from his mother's custody, according to Keller.

Original story below:

Last week, a judge ordered that 13-year-old Daniel Hauser must undergo medical treatment for Hodgkins lymphoma, despite his and his parents objections to the treatment. The cancer, which is highly curable with chemotherapy, can be fatal without it. A hearing was held today to update the court on Daniel's condition.

Only problem? Daniel and his mother never showed up.

Daniel's father, Anthony, told the court that he didn't know where his wife and son were.

"She said she was going to leave," Anthony testified. "She said, 'That's all you need to know.' And that's all I know."

Dr. James Joyce, Daniel's family doctor, testified that Daniel's tumor had grown since Daniel's first and only chemotherapy treatment in January. Dr. Joyce said he examined Daniel yesterday and offered to make an appointment with a pediatric oncologist, but Daniel refused and left quickly with his mother, Colleen.

Colleen told the court last week that her son "is not in any medical danger" and that he was being treated with natural alternative medicines.

In his ruling last week, requiring Daniel to continue his chemotherapy, Judge John Rodenberg wrote that Daniel, who cannot read, did not fully understand the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. Daniel told the judge in private testimony that he believed the chemotherapy would kill him.

Judge Rodenberg today issued an arrest warrant for Colleen Hauser and ordered that Daniel be placed in protective custody so he can be treated for his cancer.

This originally seemed to be a story about a teenager trying to make his own decisions and act in his own best interests. But as more information comes to light--he's 13 and can't read?--it's clear that Daniel doesn't have all the facts necessary to make his own decision. Not when his life is on the line.

Judge Orders Parents to Resume Son’s Chemo

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:00:00 GMT

A judge has ruled that a 13-year-old boy with cancer must resume chemotherapy against his parents’ wishes. After Daniel Hauser was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, doctors told him that he had a good chance of being cured through chemotherapy and radiation.

But after just one treatment, which doctors say reduced the size of Daniel’s tumor, the boy and his parents decided they no longer wanted to treat his cancer with mainstream medicine.

After Daniel stopped doing chemo, child protective workers accused his parents of medical neglect. In court, the Hausers explained that their family’s religion advocates the use of alternative medicine, and Daniel himself has refused to undergo more chemotherapy. According to his mother, Daniel is a Medicine Man with the Nemenhah Band, which was founded by a man who claims to have fought cancer solely through alternative remedies.

But the judge was not swayed by the mother’s arguments. He argued that Daniel was unaware of the extent of his illness, and pointed to the fact that “doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.”

The judge gave the family less than a week to find an oncologist and resume chemotherapy if recommended.

The Hausers’ lawyer immediately spoke out against the ruling, saying, "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."

By this logic, the law should not interfere when a child is physically abused by his parents, either. Of course families should be allowed to pursue alternative medicines, but not at the risk of a child’s life.

Photo: ABC News

Chinese Medicine: Would You Use it During Pregnancy?

JeanneSager — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:36:00 GMT

What if the one person who could help you fight the pregnancy-induced nausea, augment labor and turn your breech baby wasn't a medical practitioner? At least not in the traditional sense of the word.

Because thousands of woman are adding another layer to their pre-natal care, adding a practitioner to their team beyond the OB/GYN or midwife. I'm not talking about the doula. I'm talking about their acupuncturist.

Practitioners of Chinese medicine are drawing on thousands of years of the use of acupuncture, herbal therapies and massage to cure some of the most common pregnancy hang-ups. And while some women are still unsure about stepping outside of the realm of American medicine, a California group profiled this weekend in The Mercury News shows the age-old customs are finding more acceptance not only with moms but more traditional medical practitioners.

A study last year showed that acupuncture might actually improve the viability of a pregnancy if administered shortly after a doctor transfer embryos via IVF. But Birthpoint, a group of Santa Cruz practitioners of Chinese medicine, expand their reach far beyond women who have undergone fertility treatments. They treat everyone - and they maintain a steady working relationship with OB/GYNs and midwives. In fact, some of the Birthpoint practitioners ARE certified midwives.

I have never used acupuncture, although I wish I'd had it available to me during my pregnancy considerig its approval by the National Institutes of Health for nausea during chemotherapy. Instead I used the nausea drugs given to chemotherapy patients to fight my hyperemisis gravidarum (extreme morning sickness). If it had been an option, I know I would have sought counsel from my OB/GYN first; I'd imagine most women would. Which makes this pairing so crucial. Most women take the word of their doctor or nurse during this time of their lives more seriously than any other time.

Did you try Chinese medicine during your pregnancy? Did you consult your doctor/midwife first? Would you have cared if he/she was not in support of it?

Image: The Mercury News

New for Mom: Spa Treatments on the Maternity Ward

What Octo-Mom Is Spending The Money On

Teen Declines Heart Transplant

Amy S.F. Lutz — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:01:00 GMT

At what age would you let your child make life-or-death decisions for herself? Is 13 too young?

Hannah Jones' parents, Kirsty and Andrew Jones, don't think so. They support their daughter's decision to reject a potentially life-saving heart transplant, even though doctors felt so strongly that Hannah should get the transplant that hospital authorities tried to have her removed from her parents' custody and forced to have the surgery.

Of course, there are no guarantees that the operation would save the English girl's life. She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was five years old, and chemotherapy left her with a hole in her heart. Doctors admit that the drugs Hannah would need to prevent her immune system from rejecting the new heart might also cause the leukemia to come out of remission. Plus, there's a risk that Hannah wouldn't survive the operation. So, she decided that she just wants to die at home with her family - and that's where she is now, after successfully convincing a child protection officer that her wishes should be respected.

This is such a difficult situation, and I have no idea what I would do in Kirsty and Andrew Jones' position. Would I really trust my 13-year-old to have the kind of perspective and wisdom to weigh the risks and possible benefits of the surgery? I tend to think that I would try to convince my child to try every last possible treatment before giving up, as long as the treatment had a decent shot of helping.

What's Worse, Getting Fat or Getting Pregnant?

JeanneSager — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:08:00 GMT

Been on a diet lately? If pregnancy's in your future, you might find the scale climbing a lot higher than you thought. A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association this month shows women with a history of dieting are more likely to gain weight.

Following 1,200 expectant moms, researchers from the University of North Carolina determined it doesn't matter what you weigh when the sperm meets the egg. It's your history that counts. Ironically, in the same month, the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care claims women are more afraid of gaining weight than they are of getting pregnant. That's what's driving their birth control decisions. It was what they call a "snapshot" study with just 55 women, but together the two offer a look at the delicate balance too many of us are trying to strike in our lives.

Excuse the woman who was once pregnant and is still showing a bit of that state around her mid-section for thinking, but when you get pregnant, AHEM, you gain weight. Well, unless you're pregorexic, but that's another post. Going into pregnancy, I think every woman knows in her head that she's supposed to grow, that watching the numbers on the scale rise is normal. But women who struggle with their weight often have a disconnect between what the brain knows and what the brain sees on the scale or in the mirror. It's the difference between plain old smarts and emotional intelligence.

And so I've wondered if we don't over-compensate when we get pregnant. Knowing our tendency to eat poorly, to make an issue of our weight, we fight the urge to diet to the point where we overeat. I've always been pretty open about my bulimic past. When I was diagnosed with the severe morning sickness they call hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy, a small part of me was grateful. I had to smack myself back into reality when I realized that despite the misery, I was happy knowing I wasn't gaining weight. Then I started to feel like this was punishment for years of making myself throw up. Now I literally couldn't help myself.

When the medicines prescribed to chemotherapy patients to help them battle nausea finally took hold, and I began to eat again, I did so with a vengeance. When I swallowed pints of Ben & Jerry's to soothe the heartburn in my throat, I told myself I was doing my baby a favor. I wasn't taking more medicine, and I wasn't denying our two bodies what I would have denied my one. It's no wonder I found myself, B&J in hand, devouring Greek Tragedy blogger Stephanie Klein's new book, Moose, through tears. The book follows her from the day the doctor orders her to pack on 50 pounds to feed the twins growing inside her straight back to fat camp. How could it not? After years of being told NOT to eat, Klein wasn't just being told to eat, she was ordered. And when the order comes from a doctor, when you know you have life inside of you, you do it. And, yes, sometimes you do it to excess.

Because fat or thin at the beginning of pregnancy, the acceptance of "fat" on a pregnant woman brings out what we once were in ways nothing ever will. We will always be the fat girl. As Klein says in one of her blog posts about the book, "While you might be tempted to say when I realize I've outgrown that puffy girl, then I'll be real, you're wrong. Realizing that Moose is who I was, and who I will always fear being again, is who I really am."

So women fear being fat more than they fear getting pregnant. Women who fear getting fat get fatter when they're pregnant. Yes, it all makes sense when you're the fat girl.

Image: Stephanie Klein

Mother's Milk - Good Enough for Ben, but What About Jerry?

Are More Pregnant Women Suddenly Starving Themselves?

Government Seizes Newborn from Mentally Disabled Mom 22 Hours After Birth

Let Them Eat Cake, But Not At School

New Coke: The New Birth Control?

They Say: It Really Is Mom's Fault - But That's Not Always Bad

Putting Swollen Ankles into Perspective

Amy Kuras — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:34:00 GMT

I'm one of those people who firmly believe pregnancy sucks. I've been lucky, both times, to experience mild nausea, major insomnia and swollen ankles and that's about it. And yet, oh did I complain.

Had I read this article in the New York Times on cancer during pregnancy, I hope would have been shamed into shutting right up. Because as uncomfortable and sometimes outright miserable as pregnancy is, the prospect of facing your own mortality, the possibility of harming your baby, and the hell that is cancer treatment all at once is something no one should have to go through.

But they do – as women conceive children later in life they are also running into disease that tend to strike people later, such as cancer, during their pregnancies. Also, the normal life cycle of a woman's childbearing years has changed. It used to be that girls started their periods around 13 to 15 years of age and then went into menopause in their late 30s – now, puberty can begin as early as 9 years old and menopause typically occurs around age 50. Exposure to hormone shifts for longer might be causing more cancer.

Interestingly, while doctors typically suggest therapuetic abortion because it makes the cancer easier to treat aggressively, cancer treatment while pregnant is possible. Even the most pessimistic studies show that chemo causes birth defects in 14 to 19 percent of cases, and other studies show them in only 4 percent.

In any case, it's a terrifying thing to face and the women profiled just amazed me. Anybody who thinks women are weaker just isn’t paying attention.