May 8, 2009--American Cancer Society Names Planet Cancer Founder Heidi Adams a Lane W. Adams Award Winner!Fifteen outstanding cancer care providers from a variety of backgrounds and regions received this prestigious national prize for cancer caring. The award recognizes individuals who have made a difference through innovation, leadership, and consistent excellence in providing compassionate, skilled care, and counsel to persons living with cancer and their families. Learn more about Heidi's "warm hand of service" here.
To see a helluva speech on young adult cancer from the inside out, click here to watch Heidi's LIVESTRONG award acceptance speech from 2005. She doesn't even throw up from nerves, or trip Lance onstage (although both were close). Check it out!
NEWS & UPDATES
JOIN MY PLANET RIGHT NOW, and invite your friends and family along! Create a blog, post in the forum, share photos and videos, start a group, and find others in your area or around the world who get what you're going through.
WHAT'S HAPPENING AT PLANET CANCER GLOBAL HQ? WHITE HOUSE SPECIAL, June 30, 2009
Planet Cancer in da WHITE HOUSE!! Check out our surreal visit to participate in ABC News' "Prescription for America" forum with President Obama, and then our debrief on just why it was so important to be there. (Apart from pocketing bathroom towels with the White House seal. NOT cool, Ruben!) (Okay, kind of cool. But still.)
EVERYTHING CHANGES: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s dusts the sugarcoating off the young adult cancer experience to uncover gritty and ultra-confessional stories of fear, tenacity, jealousy, frustration, embarrassment, and hope. From sex toys to assisted suicide, and COBRA payments to clubbing during chemo, the unvarnished stories in EVERYTHING CHANGES reveal what most young survivors are thinking but few have the nerve to say.
Emerging from cancer treatment at age 29, choreographer and writer Kairol Rosenthal embarked on a 5-year journey across the country interviewing young men and women living with cancer. From the Bible Belt to the Big Apple and beyond, 25 perfect strangers confessed to her what they would not divulge to their doctors, therapists, friends, lovers, family, or in support groups.
Part travelogue, diary, and investigative reporting, EVERYTHING CHANGES includes an unprecedented compilation of expert advice and extensive resources on young adult cancer topics such as dating and sex, medical insurance and the healthcare system, faith and spirituality, employment and career, fertility, adoption, and parenting, friends and family, clinical trials and alternative medicine, college life and scholarships, and young adult caregiving.
President Obama addressed health care reform and we were invited! Yes PC was in the White House! Check it out here and on ABC.com/episode player "Primetime." Look for Heidi and Courtney at minutes 9 and 19. Woot, Woot!
NEW LINKS! We just posted some great new links here on our links page that offer to help with financial assistance, provide grants and scholarships, give housing help and more for you YA's. Check them out: Bleed Purple, Brenda Mehling Cancer Fund, Rise Above It and SAMFund now!
Wow! CNN and Planet Cancer:
In CNN's recent article about support for cancer patients online they look into the growing use, need and benefit of online support for cancer patients. They even say we're the way to go in the Young Adult world! CNN loves us and we love them! Check it out
Look: Grants and Scholarships through SAMFund:
The Surviving And Moving Forward fund is now accepting appilcations for 2009-10. Had cancer? Finished with active treatment? Between the ages of 17 and 35 and a US citizen? Learn more and apply here!
FEEDBACK NEEDED!
We need your input on what YOU think an institution needs to have in order to claim a true AYA program. To learn more, read Heidi's blog and then comment! We know it takes more than a Wii---tell us what you think that is.
The Challenge of Serving a Unique Population
Read about the five-year experience of McGill University's adolescent and young adult oncology program here.
Friend-of-the-Planet Sage Bolte Needs Your Help With Research...
Dedicated champion of young adult cancer Sage Bolte is working on research that will improve the care and follow-up procedures for all young adult cancer survivors as it relates to their sexual self and overall quality of life. This is important info, folks! Take the survey here.
PC's Own JT in USA Today Article
talking about the portrayal of young adult cancer on Grey's Anatomy! Read here.
Boston College Star Linebacker Diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma
Boston College disclosed today that senior linebacker Mark Herzlich, the ACC Defensive Player of the Year last season, has been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a malignant tumor most often found in bone or soft tissue of children and young adults. Read more here.
Cancer Patients Challenge the Patenting of a Gene
When Genae Girard received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006, she knew she would be facing madical challenges and high expenses. But she did not expect to run into patent problems. Read more here.
Friend-of-the-Planet Glenn Rockowitz's New Memoir, Rodeo in Joliet
is a glimpse into the mind of the author after his cancer diagnosis at 28, when he is diagnosed weeks before the birth of his only son, and given three months to live. Find out more in our Cancertainment section!
Now or Never: Teen Cancer Patients Face Fertility Choices.
"When Janelle Myers was diagnosed with a form of ovarian cancer the summer before her senior year of high school, she was forced to look at her life in a whole new way." Read more about it here.Planet Cancer a 'Hot Nonprofit Web Site'! The Nonprofit Times list of Hot Nonprofit Web Sites includes your favorite, Planet Cancer! Read the list here.
Heidi's Hot Flashes a Top 30 Inspirational Survivor Blog!
MRI Tech's Health Blog includes Planet Cancer Fearless Leader Heidi's 'Hot Flashes' among their top 30! Check it out here.
JOIN THE PLANET
Welcome to Planet Cancer, a community of young adults with cancer. We're glad you're here. (Well, not really. But you know what we mean.) Take a look around at the info and funny stuff on the site. Pop over to our social networking community and talk with other young adults on My Planet. If you feel strangely at home, join Planet Cancer now! We'll keep you current on young adult issues, opportunities, and what's happening on the Planet. Click here to register and enter My Planet.
Questions? Gripes? Suggestions? Praise? Email us anytime at contactus@planetcancer.org or call us at 512.452.9010.
THE PLANET ONLINE
Check out the all NEW ways to stay connected on the Planet. Create a blog, post in the forum, share photos and videos, start a group, and find others in your area or around the world who get what you're going through.
Click here to get started!
GIVE TO THE PLANET
Crazy Sexy Cancer!
Love Crazy, Sexy Cancer? We do! Check out Kris Carr's new site and grab a Crazy Sexy Cancer Goddess shirt: for the rebelliously liberated lady adventuring through the little (annoying) “c”. A great apparel choice while bopping to the oncologist, shimmying through support groups, the grocery store, gym, you name it. A portion of the sales will be donated to Planet Cancer.
