Loveland Magazine

LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

Without fear or favor

Since 2004

Tag: breast cancer

  • Nurse’s Notes: Preventative Healthcare

    Nurse’s Notes: Preventative Healthcare

    Every month, the staff nurses at the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities share important health updates. This month, their nurses are talking about preventative healthcare!

    Preventive healthcare is key to helping you stay healthy and provides early recognition of potential health problems. Seeking preventative healthcare can help you live a longer, healthier life!

    Preventative care for adults typically includes screening for conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. This also includes counseling and receiving appropriate patient teaching on healthy eating and life habits.

    What are some of the screenings recommended for adults? (Please note that these screenings are recommended based on age and family history).

    • Screenings for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, and prostate cancer: These types of cancers are affecting men and women the most and early detection can stop or slow the spread and allow early treatment.
    • Screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes: These screenings can detect common conditions that can be treated with basic lifestyle changes and or medications. If left untreated or diagnosed, they can lead to serious diseases and early death.
    • Immunizations: Not only children need vaccines, but adults should also stay on top of their vaccines as well.  Annual flu shots, COVID-19 vaccines and any necessary boosters can help you prevent illness and diseases. Visit the CDC for guidelines on vaccines.
    • Preventative Counseling: Preventative counseling and patient teaching is useful to help us make ongoing positive health related changes to promote a healthy lifestyle.
    • Scheduling routine medical and dental visits:  Annual physicals and routine dental care is valuable to maintain general health and ensure necessary recommended screenings are performed.

    Preventive care for children helps protect them from serious illnesses and can include screenings to detect behavioral conditions as well. Preventive healthcare can help children stay healthy when they’re young and promote healthy decision making as they grow older.

    What preventative care is recommended for children?

    • Well-child visits: Routine visits every few months when your child is an infant, and yearly after that.  Routine immunizations and screenings are also conducted during these visits.
    • Vaccinations: Vaccinations for children protect them from serious diseases now and in the future.
    • Behavioral and mental health screenings: Pediatricians routinely screen children for conditions like autism, depression, and developmental delays.
    • Blood tests: Various blood test screenings can be conducted throughout childhood to detect various diseases.

    Why is knowing your family history important?

    Learning that you have a family history of a serious health condition can be discouraging and stressful, but knowledge is power. When you are aware of a health condition that is in your family, you can participate in health screenings that can detect the condition early, so that treatment is more effective and can be started early on. You can also be proactive about engaging in healthy lifestyle choices to prevent these conditions from developing or getting worse.

    One of the best things you can do for your health and well-being is to get screened for any serious conditions before they happen. That’s what preventive health is about, and why medical experts recommend that all adults and children participate in routine tests, screenings, and immunizations.

    If you have any questions about preventive care and what screenings you or your children should get, be sure to talk with your doctor or healthcare professional. Check to see if you are up to date on your preventative care! 

    The Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities supports over 3,700 people to live, work, and learn successfully in their community. Supports and services are available life-long through contracts with partner agencies or directly provided by our Board.
    Please visit the website of the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities often for more great information about the services that they provide, many of which go beyond the walls of their facilities and take place in the greater community.

    Look for, and subscribe to their newsletters!

  • HEALTH CARE POLITICS & GOV Proposed Ohio abortion bills would impose new mandates, spread misinformation

    HEALTH CARE POLITICS & GOV Proposed Ohio abortion bills would impose new mandates, spread misinformation

    BY: and Ohio Capital Journal

    Returning from summer break, the Ohio legislature could review two GOP-led pieces of legislation that would place health mandates on patients considering abortions.

    One of the bills, recently introduced by state Rep. Jennifer Gross, would require physicians to dictate the results of a mandated ultrasound and also provide information about a link between breast cancer that has been disproven by multiple medical organizations.

    State Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester 

    Gross, usually known for and outspoken in her disapproval of health care mandates, introduced the bill this week.

    Patients already have to meet with a physician 24 hours before an abortion, but under this bill, along with hearing about the medical risks of the procedure and the probably gestational age, a patient would be told “the possible increased risk of breast cancer that is associated with women who have undergone an abortion,” along with the “short-term and long-term risk of psychological or emotional harm” from choosing to have an abortion.

    Multiple organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the American College of Gynecologists and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation have denied the link, citing research studies on the relationship between breast cancer and abortion.

    The American Cancer Society said these research studies “have not found a cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer.”

    The Gross bill has not been assigned to a committee for consideration, but it has several sponsors, all Republican.

    Meanwhile, a separate bill seeking to notify abortion patients of possible risks was introduced during the legislature’s summer break, and has been assigned to the House Health Committee.

    House Bill 378  was introduced in July by state Reps. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, and Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, and specifically targets medication abortion, which is done through a two-pill regimen, rather than surgery.

    The bill would require medical professionals to explain a controversial and medically unproven method of “reversing” the abortion by not taking the second of the two-pill regimen and giving additional progesterone to counteract the first pill.

    The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said claims about the “reversal” method “are not based in science and do not meet clinical standards.”

    The bill is a reintroduction of a similar one that passed the Senate in 2019, but didn’t make it through the House.

    Abortion is legal in the state of Ohio up to 20 weeks gestation.

    Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.

  • The spirit of perseverance of LHS cheer coach Emily Christman

    The spirit of perseverance of LHS cheer coach Emily Christman

    By Zach Connor, ESP Media

    Loveland, Ohio – Being a competitive cheer coach is hard work. Being an occupational therapist for special needs children is tough. Fighting cancer takes toughness.  Doing all three at the same time?  Seemingly impossible, yet at Loveland High School, it’s exactly what Varsity Cheerleading Coach Emily Christman has been doing for the past year.

    Loveland High School Varisty Cheer Coach Emily Christman (Photo Provided)

    Emily is a Xavier University grad where she cheered for the Muskies basketball team while working on her Master’s degree for Occupational Therapy.  She made her way to Loveland in 2015 filling in for a cheerleading coach on maternity leave, parlaying into full time coaching status by 2017.  Everything was moving along as planned until October of 2019 when Christman’s life would be forever changed.

    A trip to the doctor and multiple scans and tests would reveal that Emily Christman had cancer in the breast and lymph nodes.  “The entire month of October was just a whirlwind…and by November I was starting chemo.”  Christman would require treatments every three weeks, receiving six of them in total. 

    “I feel very fortunate because I didn’t really have some of the heavy hitting side effects that some people can get.” As if the pandemic wasn’t enough to deal with, fast-forward to March of 2020 when Emily would need a double mastectomy.  The next few months would see more radiation treatments through the month of May, and even now Emily still has to go in for a treatment once every three weeks, which will last until January. 

    This story is re-published with the permission of the Loveland High School Athletic Department where it was first published.

    Never allowing herself to get down about it all she is quick to point out that even these current treatments are not nearly as taxing as they might seem.  “Again, all things considered, it really was probably the best of the worst situation.”

    While one might think a cancer diagnosis would slow someone down, it seemed to have the opposite effect on Emily as she was just recently married in August, so for those of you keeping track, that would be two full time jobs, fighting off cancer, and planning/getting married all happening simultaneously. 

    Her diagnosis hasn’t slowed down the ability to get the best out of Loveland Tigers competitive cheer squad either: 2018 saw the team place 3rd in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference (ECC), and 2019 had them climb up to 2nd place.  “There’s only one spot left to climb and we definitely have the girls to do it…it’s just an awesome group that we have.”

    Emily could not have had a better attitude when I spoke with her about everything she’s been through and she is truly a success story and someone Loveland Athletic Director Brian Conatser is happy to have.  As for the secret behind making the oftentimes chaotic schedule work and the long car rides between jobs?  Emily kept it simple, “that’s what podcasts and E-books are for.”