Stacy Horn

I seem to be on a death-roll! My previous two posts are death-related. I’m not feeling particularly morbid however, I’m feeling brimming with health as a matter of fact. But the Empire State Building was lit in pink last night for breast cancer awareness and it got me thinking. Heart attacks, lung and pancreatic cancer worry me more.

Here are the leading causes of death in women according to the latest CDC data (2010). They lump all the different cancers into one statistic, but on another page they note that more women get breast cancer vs lung cancer, but more women die from lung cancer vs breast cancer. Colorectal cancer comes in third, and pancreatic cancer is not mentioned.

From Cancer.net, “Pancreatic cancer is the ninth most common cancer in women and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women.”

1) Heart disease 23.5%
2) Cancer 22.1%
3) Stroke 6.2%
4) Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.9%
5) Alzheimer’s disease 4.7%
6) Unintentional injuries 3.6%
7) Diabetes 2.7%
8) Influenza and pneumonia 2.1%
9) Kidney disease 2.1%
10) Septicemia 1.5%

Here are the stats for England and Wales (from the Office for National Statistics, 2012). I wonder if the larger percentage of deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer’s is because their data is more current?

1) Dementia and Alzheimer’s 11.50%
2) Heart disease 10.30%
3) Stroke 8.40%
4) Flu/pneumonia 5.80%
5) Emphysema/bronchitis 5.50%
6) Lung cancer 5.20%
7) Breast cancer 4%
8) Bowel cancer 2.50%
9) Urinary disease 2.10%
10) Heart failure 2%

Here is the beautiful pink Empire State Building. Not much of a consolation after that dreary post, but it was spectacular.

That is the title of this Times piece about the difference between the male and the female heart attack. Most of us have known for a while that the symptoms are different, but in every article I’ve read the symptoms listed for a woman’s heart attack are so broad they make it sound like you could be having a heart attack almost daily.

With a few choice sentences here and there this piece manages to communicate the times when you need to react. If you’re female, I highly recommend reading it.

A detail from a wall of graffiti I liked in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I’m participating in a clinical trial at NYU. Their purpose is to identify biomarkers for the early detection of lung cancer. My purpose: the low dose ct scan you get on the 1st visit. Low dose ct scans are recommended for people with a long history of smoking, except they now say if you quit 15 years ago or more you don’t need to get it. I was this close to withdrawing from the study because I quit 25 years ago. But I talked to my doctor, and I was a heavy, heavy, heavy smoker. I’ve decided the radiation exposure is worth the risk. My appointment is this afternoon!

The picture below is of the ceiling inside Grand Central Station. I recently read Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and the main character has a hide out there. Every time I pass through Grand Central Station I look up and search for a possible opening. Much of the history in Winter’s Tale is based in fact and so I’m sure there’s an entrance to that ceiling. (It must be from the catwalk, of course, but I suspect there is an opening in the ceiling.)

A must watch. You will thank me. I now want to re-do my last book proposal after watching this. I love these guys.

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]

Everything is freaking me out today. It didn’t help that I started reading this horrifying article in the Times about a woman trying to get her father out of hospitals and nursing homes so he could die at home. I’d recommend reading this just to know how the system works (and doesn’t work). Which reminds me …

Note to Douglas and Robin and Karen and Peter: That article made me appreciate even more how wonderfully you managed our mother’s (or mother-in-law’s) end of life.

I haven’t read this article yet, about the national panel that found we needed to overhaul our end-of-life care at every level. I will save that for another day.

Now I need to curl up with a pile of cats. I’m writing a new song for my cats by the way. So far it goes: I love you cats, I’d love even if you were bats, but not if you were tarantulas, so it’s really good you’re not.

People watching the People’s Climate March going by.