Erica Curless LMT

Writer Sarah Barness was 35 and had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The warnings came immediately, fast and often: ‘Beware the cancer ghosts.’

She was warned that after cancer, she might find herself with a different community than the one she had before; that, through the experience, she would find out who her real friends were because some would step up and others would step back. People she considered very close might disappear altogether. They would be her “cancer ghosts.”

“Once the hair grew back and people congratulated us for being done, they left,” writes Barness. “The loss of close friendships during cancer is difficult to reconcile, and I might never have clear answers as to why it happened to me.”

In her pursuit for answers, Barness reached out to other survivors to ask if they had been through something similar, if they had an explanation, a theory, anything that could be the why she was looking for. It wasn’t long before their stories poured in. Revisit Barness’s essay, from 2025, about these friendship breakups: https://nymag.visitlink.me/ZgReW1

True. Applies to humans as well.

8 Things That Could Change the Way You Think About Equine Massage

1. Muscle tone is influenced by the nervous system. Something that feels “tight” isn’t automatically a muscle that needs to be loosened. The horse may be actively bracing or protecting.

2. Previous experiences can influence present responses. A horse may anticipate discomfort from touch, girthing, grooming, saddling or movement even when the original problem has improved.

3. The horse’s response gives you information. Tensing, holding the breath, moving away, guarding or becoming watchful is different from softening, breathing more freely, leaning into contact or remaining comfortably engaged.

4. Don’t automatically interpret sensitivity as a knot or restriction. It might reflect soreness, protection, unfamiliarity with being touched there, anticipation, or simply an individual preference.

5. Pleasant touch has value of its own. You don’t always have to find the “problem spot.” Working somewhere the horse enjoys can help settle the nervous system, change overall muscle tone and make subsequent touch elsewhere easier.

6. Pressure isn’t necessarily the answer to resistance. If the nervous system is producing the tension, pushing harder into the tissue can simply give it more reason to protect.

7. Positive experiences can change expectations. Repeated comfortable, predictable touch gives the horse opportunities to learn that contact doesn’t always predict discomfort.

8. This is why massage should be a conversation rather than something you do to the horse. Technique matters, but so do timing, pressure, location and the horse’s response.

https://koperequine.com/beyond-massage-a-progressive-framework-for-understanding-how-horses-actually-change/

Very interesting research on personalized medicine built for one specific patient: Personalized immunotherapy tailored to each person's tumor.
Take a listen to learn more.

Vaccine prevents return of melanoma, according to new trial results from Moderna and Merck Researchers are optimistic that the results could prove effective against other cancers.

Good information about chest numbness after mastectomy.

A woman can get a third-degree burn and not know until she takes off her shirt that night.

Not because she was careless. Because after a mastectomy, the nerves that would have screamed at her to pull away are gone, and nothing warns her at all.

Emily Hansen has spent nearly two decades in health care communication, and for the last eight years she has worked with surgeons and breast cancer survivors on a problem almost nobody talks about: what it means to lose feeling in your chest, often for good.

Here is what she found. In a nationwide survey of women who had a mastectomy, 87 percent reported losing sensation. They can't feel the temperature of their shower water. They can't feel the sun. They can't feel pressure. And 1 in 4 reported an injury or a near miss they never felt happen, a curling iron burn, a cut while cooking, an underwire poking through the skin, discovered later when they undress.

The reason is simple and almost nobody explains it before surgery. Nerves are the body's first line of defense. Touch a hot stove and you pull your hand back before you decide to, because sensation is telling you to be careful. When those nerves are cut and not rebuilt, that warning never comes. The breast can look completely normal on the outside and feel nothing at all.

And there is a second cost women carry in silence. Almost 75 percent reported that intimacy and their s*x lives changed afterward. It rarely gets asked about. Most feel guilty even raising it, because the same surgeons saved their lives, and everyone around them expects them to just be grateful and move on.

Emily's point is that survivorship has to mean more than removing the disease.

She calls it what it is:

"An amputation of the breast."

Listen to the full conversation on The Podcast by KevinMD. Link in the comments.

Fun evening a couple weeks ago talking with Mt. Hope 4H kids about equine bodywork and teaching them how to listen with their hands. Thanks for the invite!

Healing feels a little lighter when you're not carrying it alone.
PEER-LED CANCER SUPPORT GROUP
🗓 JUNE 23RD | 5:30–6:30 PM
📍 Spokane Valley Library
Pull up a chair, share what's on your heart, or just listen. There's no agenda here — only genuine connection and people who get it.
We'd love to see you there.
👉 Details + registration here: https://www.cancercant.com/events

Reporter David Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer and soon learned that one of his drugs sold for almost $1,000 per pill — despite the fact it cost just pennies to make.

What he found out helps explain why our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world.

Listen to this episode and subscribe: https://propub.li/4eC0tVD

💙 June is Men’s Health Month 💙

Breast cancer isn’t just a women’s disease.

While male breast cancer is uncommon (1%), it does happen—and awareness matters.

Unfortunately, some men may delay speaking to their healthcare provider because they feel embarrassed, assume a lump is nothing serious, or don’t realize that a family history of breast cancer can increase their risk.

Signs to watch for may include:
🔹 A lump in the breast or chest area
🔹 Changes to the ni**le or surrounding skin
🔹 Ni**le discharge
🔹 Persistent breast or chest pain

This Men’s Health Month, let’s help break the stigma and encourage conversations about breast health for everyone.

Early detection saves lives. 💙