Leap Spring 2011

A DATE WITH DESTINYChildhood cancer turned Dr. Nigel Brockton into a research rock star

SUPPORT GROUPSDO THEY REALLYHELP?

MAXIMIZE YOUR MEALSLEARN TO LOVE

YOUR GRUB

CANADIAN PUBLICATIONS MAIL PRODUCT AGREEMENT #40020055 Non-deliverable mail should be directed to: 10259 105 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 1E3

What Brett Wilson learned about life, and himself, after cancer

THE SCAREDOWN THERETalking frankly about testicular cancer

Gear up for The Ride of a lifetime!Join The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting the Alberta Cancer Foundation, a fully-supported, 2-day cycling adventure along the majestic Rockies. Thousands of Riders of all abilities will unite to fund breakthrough research to conquer cancer – a disease that affects 1 in 2 Albertans. Space is limited, so be sure to secure your spot in history TODAY!

CONQUERCANCER.CA [888] 624-BIKE [2453]

EPIC RIDE. EPIC IMPACT.

NATIONAL TITLE SPONSOR

into Alberta’s cancer-free movement SPRING 2011

Leap_Spring11_p52-01.indd 3 2/24/11 11:46:14 AM

to the 39 incredible men and one amazing woman who set a new record for the World’s Longest Hockey Game, raising money for a new Linear Accelerator at the Cross Cancer Institute.

To read more about this inspiring feat, visit albertacancer.ca/worldslongestgame


A l b e r t a ’s c a n c e r - f r e e m o v e m e n t

SPRING 2011 • VOL 1 • No. 4CONTENTS

16 THE UNCOMMON MANMen get breast cancer too

19 THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP Three health organizations, one prostate cancer initiative

22 THE SCARE DOWN THEREIt takes balls to talk about testicular cancer

25 TOBACCO TALKSpark up a chat about cigarettes and chewing tobacco

26 CANCER GRADUATEBusiness leader Brett Wilson proves there’s nothing textbook about prostate cancer

43 AN ATHLETE’S MINDHow to keep the competitive fl ame burning during treatment

FEATURES31 RESEARCH ROCKSTAR

Nigel Brockton studies the role of infl ammation in cancer

34 TRIAL AND SUCCESSWhat’s a clinical trial and should you participate?

38 TOP JOBNurse practitioner brings new skills to Red Deer cancer care

41 WHY I DONATEA young Alberta man honours his dad and drives progress

44 CRACK A SMILEA good belly laugh is good for you

46 MR. CANCER, MAN ABOUT TOWNBruce Horak becomes a lumpy guy named ‘Cancer’ at the Fringe Festival

DEPARTMENTS4 OUR LEAP

A message from the Alberta Cancer Foundation

6 FOREFRONTBeautiful berries; What’s an advanced-practice nurse?; Five ways to raise funds; Fish oil for health; Resistance is futile (or, let your wife make you a doctor’s appointment); The antiperspirant go-ahead; TELUS goes pink. And more!

12 BODYMINDCan support groups boost your health?

13 SMART EATSMaximize your mealtime

14 ASK THE EXPERTSWhy do they ask me to number my pain? PLUS: Tamoxifen, cancer and cataracts

48 CORPORATE GIVINGThe generosity of Edmonton’s civic employees

50 MY LEAPCycling for cancer inspires a local artist

SPRING SPOTLIGHTMEN & CANCER:The Challenge of a Lifetime

ON THE COVER: Brett WilsonPHOTO: Colin Way, ILLUSTRATIONS: Lisa Turner

35

31

39

44

22

spring 2011 3

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Each year, nearly 16,000 Albertans embark on a journey they didn’t plan when they’re told, “you have cancer.” For 11 years, I have been privileged to lead the Alberta Cancer Foundation in supporting them on this journey.

I began with an understanding of what it is to love someone with cancer. My daughter survived leukemia and my beloved sister succumbed to breast cancer.

But when I joined the Alberta Cancer Foundation, I learned that cancer is a powerful collective journey. For me, this journey included more than a few blisters gained walking with thousands of participants in our Weekend to End Women’s Cancers. And bruises and scrapes acquired when I learned to ride a road bike—clipped into the pedals!—for our Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer. The journey included the odd silly moment, like trotting through the streets of Edmonton and Calgary in the questionable pink boxer shorts I sewed as my costume for our Underwear Affairs.

Thousands of you were with me. You’ve hosted events, you’ve extended your generosity, and you’ve invited friends and family to join our movement.

More than once, our common journey has brought me to tears as we shared losses, triumphs and progress.

April 30, 2011 will mark my last day as CEO of the Alberta Cancer Foundation. And while May 1st marks the fi rst day of my retirement, it will be a retirement that includes walking with you this summer, cheering you on as you ride, and celebrating every milestone we reach together.

I look forward to continuing the journey, fi rm in the knowledge that we can and will achieve a future free from cancer.

A Journey Forward

ALBERTA CANCER FOUNDATIONmessage /

myleapmagazine.ca

TRUSTEES

Leslie Beard, Edmonton

Angela Boehm, Calgary

Greg Cameron, Edmonton

Heather Culbert, Calgary

Steven Dyck, Lethbridge

Tony Fields, Edmonton

Dianne Kipnes, Edmonton

John J. McDonald, Edmonton

Brent Saik, Sherwood Park

Prem Singhmar, Sherwood Park

Heather Watt, Edmonton

Vern Yu, Calgary

4 spring 2011

Linda Mickelson, CEOAlberta Cancer Foundation

John Osler, Chair Alberta Cancer Foundation

It’s diffi cult to say goodbye to a leader, especially one who has achieved as much as Linda Mickelson has.

When Linda became its CEO in 2000, the Alberta Cancer Foundation invested just $3.5 million in cancer research and programs. In 2010/11, that number is expected to reach $32 million.

Linda’s vision and energy made it possible to establish and sustain a vibrant cancer research community in Alberta. This community now contributes to the global cancer effort and ensures patients here are among the fi rst to benefi t from discoveries.

Linda has inspired more than 200,000 donors to participate and donate. This has made it possible for screening programs to travel province-wide, for patients in need to get fi nancial assistance and psychological and spiritual support along with the highest standard of treatment.

We are deeply indebted to Linda. The Alberta Cancer Foundation is a powerful movement for cancer-free lives. She’s pointed us in the right direction and given us the right tools. In the years ahead, we will honour her legacy and remain true to our shared commitment: For those facing cancer today, in honour of those lost to cancer, and for generations to come, we promise progress.

An Inspiring Legacy


A Journey Forward

w w w . a l b e r t a c a n c e r . c a

The Alberta Cancer Foundation is more than a charity—it’s a

movement for cancer-free lives, today, tomorrow and forever.

It’s a movement of those who know a cancer-free future is possible and who won’t settle for “some day.”

It’s a movement of Albertans who stand with those who have no choice but to stand up to cancer.

It’s a movement of those who know something can be done and are willing to do it.

For those facing cancer today, in honour of those lost to cancer, and for generations to come,

we promise progress.

000LP.Manifest_1-2V_nBL.indd 1 6/21/10 2:13:29 PMA l b e r t a ’s c a n c e r - f r e e m o v e m e n t

SPRING VOL 1 • No. 4

spring 2011 5

An Inspiring Legacy

ALBERTA CANCER FOUNDATIONEDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND PUBLISHER: LEE ELLIOTTASSOCIATE EDITOR: PHOEBE DEY

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEEDR. TONY FIELDSVice-President, Cancer CareAlberta Health ServicesDR. HEATHER BRYANTVice-President, Cancer ControlCanadian Partnership Against CancerDR. STEVE ROBBINSDirector, Southern Alberta Cancer Research InstituteAssociate Director, Research, Alberta Health Services, Cancer CareCHRISTINE MCIVERCEO, Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta

VENTURE PUBLISHING INC.PUBLISHER: RUTH KELLYASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: JOYCE BYRNEEDITOR: MIFI PURVISART DIRECTOR: CHARLES BURKEASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR: COLIN SPENCEPRODUCTION COORDINATOR: BETTY-LOU SMITHDISTRIBUTION: NICK JAMISON

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Linda Carlson, Sandra Christianson, Caitlin Crawshaw, Liz Crompton, Marcello Di Cinto, Annalise Klingbeil, Scaachi Koul, Jesse Lipscombe, Craille Maguire Gilles, David Parker, Janice Paskey, Mifi Purvis, Tricia Radison

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORS: Brian Bookstrucker, Trudi Lee, Heff O’Reilly, Kelly Redinger, Raymond Reid, Chris Tait, Colin Way

ABOUT THE ALBERTA CANCER FOUNDATIONThe Alberta Cancer Foundation is Alberta’s own, established to advance cancer research, prevention and care and serve as the charitable foundation for the Cross Cancer Institute, Tom Baker Cancer Centre and Alberta’s 15 other cancer centres. At the Alberta Cancer Foundation, we believe a cancer-free future is possible. When we get there depends on the focus and energy we put to it today.

Leap is published for the Alberta Cancer Foundation by Venture Publishing Inc., 10259-105 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 1E3Tel: 780-990-0839, Fax: 780-425-4921, Toll-free: [email protected]

The information in this publication is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek advice from your physician or other qualifi ed health provider regarding any medical condition or treatment.

Printed in Canada by Transcontinental LGM. Leap is printed on Forest Stewardship Certifi ed paper. Publications Agreement #40020055 • ISSN #1923-6131Content may not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Alberta Cancer Foundation.

Cert no. SW-COC-000952


forefront / PREVENT, TREAT, CURE

Advanced Care Oncology Nurse

The Alberta Cancer Foundation is the recipient of a $500,000 corporate donation. TELUS’ Go Pink campaign raised the money to help the foundation purchase digital mammography equipment. Nationally, the Go Pink campaign has raised more than $2.45 million in support of women’s breast health.

Some of that money was raised through the sale of pink Blackberry devices. The company donated $25 for each unit sold in Canada, equipping regional hospitals with new digital mammography machines. Employee and corporate donations also supported the Go Pink initiative.

“Our friends at TELUS have helped us complete our $11 million commitment to purchase digital mammography equipment for fi xed screening centres in Edmonton and Calgary as well as two complete mobile screening clinics,” said Linda Mickelson, CEO of the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

She added that mammography is still the most effective tool for diagnosing breast cancer at its earliest, most treatable stage. “This gift has an impact across the province,” she says. “The mobile units will visit 100 communities each year making it possible for 25,000 women to have access to this life-saving test and new technology close to home. The TELUS gift provides a fi nal boost to thousands of walkers in our Weekend to End Women’s Cancers over six years, who raised money for this project.”

The state-of-the-art digital machines replace older analog mammography machines and can detect cancers when they are smaller. Tests are clearer and prevent the need for some retesting and waiting for new tests.

TELUS has been a long-time supporter of charities that advance cancer research, awareness and detection. Since 2000, TELUS, its team members and retirees have contributed $12.4 million towards finding a cure for cancer, and continue to raise funds and awareness for early detection.

Specialized nursing is critical, and nurse practitioners are becoming integral to some oncology teams. According to NPCanada.ca, a site for advanced practice nursing and nurse practitioners, in the last 10 years legislation has allowed nurses who have a high level of education (Masters of Nursing in Advanced Practice) to become nurse practitioners in a variety of settings. Nurse practitioners are able to diagnose and manage many conditions, prescribe medications, order tests and refer patients to specialists.

In the cancer continuum, they are involved at all points, from prevention to care. For example, an NP could be involved in cancer screening or healthy lifestyle prevention efforts, or she might be involved in end-of-life care, working in concert with an oncologist to order tests and administer advanced treatment. An NP can have responsibilities for improving the delivery of cancer care through education, research, patient management and case leadership. As cancer care becomes more complicated and patients more numerous, many people in the health care fi eld expect the role of the NP in cancer care to grow.

BY MIFI PURVIS

myleapmagazine.ca

TELUS Goes Pink

6 spring 2011


3

A l b e r t a ’s c a n c e r - f r e e m o v e m e n t spring 2011 7

A Flesh Wound?For some people, writing a cheque is the most expedient way to support the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Others might not have the cash, or they might want to cast the net wider, sometimes honouring a loved one. Here are a few ideas.

1. Start a Friday 50-50 pool at your offi ce. Everyone chips in a few bucks, then you draw a winner who keeps half the money and donates the other half.

2. Two bucks to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. The winner keeps the candy and the money goes to donation.

3. Stage a pre-holiday silent auction. Everyone brings an item or offers a service. People bid on the offerings and the cash goes to charity.

4. Start a pool that predicts the warmest day of summer or the coldest day of winter. Winner keeps half, the remaining cash is donated.

5. Team up with a local service provider. You sell the tickets, the service is donated and the proceeds go to the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Ideas: a lawn maintenance company could offer a spring yard cleanup, a salon could offer a free cut or yoga studio could offer free passes.

1Start a 1Start a Friday 50-50 pool 1Friday 50-50 pool Everyone chips in a few bucks, then you draw 1Everyone chips in a few bucks, then you draw a winner who keeps half the money and 1a winner who keeps half the money and donates the other half.1donates the other half.

2guess the number of jelly

2guess the number of jelly

in a jar. The winner keeps the candy 2 in a jar. The winner keeps the candy and the money goes to donation.2and the money goes to donation.22

5proceeds go to the Alberta

5proceeds go to the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Ideas: 5Cancer Foundation. Ideas: a lawn maintenance 5a lawn maintenance company could offer a 5company could offer a spring yard cleanup, a 5spring yard cleanup, a salon could offer a free cut 5salon could offer a free cut or yoga studio could offer 5or yoga studio could offer

4of winter. Winner keeps

4of winter. Winner keeps half, the remaining cash is 4half, the remaining cash is 4

Remember the scene from the British comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), where King Arthur encounters the Black Knight, famed for his toughness? The two draw swords and King Arthur bests the Black Knight. Not admitting that he’s been beaten, the Black Knight, mortally wounded and unable to move, comes up with the famous line: “Come on then, it’s only a fl esh wound.”

Anyone who has tried to convince a stubborn loved one to see the doctor has a basic understanding of what it might be like to square off with the Black Knight. And the folks at the British Columbia Men’s Health Initiative would be the fi rst to tell you that if anyone is minimizing a health concern, it’s likely to be the man of the house.

An interdisciplinary project aimed at bettering men’s health outcomes, the Men’s Health Initiative is, in part, a response to that attitude. Phase one of the project is an interactive website meant to educate the public and also the practitioners who care for men.

If you know a man who knows more about hockey stats than he does about his health, this website is a good place to start on the road to taking charge of their health: www.aboutmen.ca. Sometimes it’s more than a fl esh wound.

Put the Stink on CancerBreast cancer treatment is diffi cult on a number of counts, not the least of which is nausea, appetite-and-weight change, fatigue and hair loss. Well, at least it can smell a little sweeter now.

Breast cancer patients have long been instructed to avoid antiperspi-rant, the wisdom being it could increase damage to the skin caused by radiation therapy. Donna Gies, a radiation oncology nurse at the Tom

Baker Centre in Calgary decided to look into it further.

She led a study that concluded in 2010, monitoring nearly 200 breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy – half used antiperspirant and nurses monitoring their skin found no difference between the two groups.

It’s a study that’s strong enough for a man.

5 Fundraising Finds


Sweet Berries, Strong MedicineBerries, strictly speaking, are not medicine. But their dewy, plump sweetness belies the fact that they pack a hefty nutritional punch. Berry season is coming, so think about grabbing the sunscreen and a water bottle and hitting a U-pick farm. It’s a great way to get a little exercise, and you come home with a pail of fi eld-fresh goodness.

Most people are familiar with the fact that berries are chock full of vitamin C and are a good source of fi bre. But the wonders only increase.

Berries, with their royal red, blue and purple colours, are packed with polyphenols, notably anthocyanidin, ellagic acid and proanthocyanidin. The role of antioxidants in cancer development and suppression is not well understood, but antioxidants can remove damage-causing free radicals from the body. Polyphenols also have other tumour-fi ghting properties, possibly derived from their ability to thwart angiogenesis, meaning the ability of cancer cells to build a network of blood vessels that encourage tumour development. Other studies suggest that some polyphenols can help synthesize hormones, preventing the elevated levels that could encourage hormone-sensitive tumours to grow.

Basically, all berries are good for you and they are about as versatile as they are tasty. Freeze berries of any kind to have them on hand for a multitude of culinary reasons. Toss some blackberries on a leafy green salad with a crisp vinaigrette. Nothing beats strawberries over vanilla ice cream. Saskatoons make a great addition to muffi ns or in a sauce for meat.

Get to know your favourites a little better:

STRAWBERRIES: With a pulp rich in ellagic acid, strawberry extracts have been able to counter the growth of tumour cells in a lab.

BLUEBERRIES: Their high in anthocyanidin count – they have more than any other fruit or veg – is what may give blueberries their antioxidant potential.

CRANBERRIES: Aside from chocolate and cinnamon, cranberries and blueberries among the foods most densely packed with proanthocyanidins, another potent antioxidant and anti-angiogenic. But eat them – dried is fi ne –rather than reaching for the juice. The benefi ts are largely lost in juice form.

8 spring 2011 myleapmagazine .ca

SOURCE: FOODS THAT FIGHT CANCER: PREVENTING CANCER THROUGH DIET

You have a new car and your old baby, whileit runs OK, is just taking up space. It wasn’t worth the trade-in and putting it on Kijiji seems like more effort than it’s worth. Now you can invest it in a great cause, the Alberta Cancer Foundation, with just a click of a mouse. Visit Donate a Car Canada www.donatecar.ca and fi ll out the online form, selecting the Alberta Cancer Foundation as the benefi ciary of your generosity. Pretty soon, someone will take the car off your hands and issue you a tax-deductible receipt.

Car-free Donations

Leap_Spring11_p6-11.indd 8 2/24/11 12:03:45 PM

Research SpotlightDr. Catherine Field, professor of nutrition at the University of Alberta Institute for Human Nutrition, has been looking at an oily solution to tumour growth: long-chain DHA, an essential fatty acid found in cold-water fi sh, such as Arctic char, herring and salmon. Her team has been studying how DHA aff ects tumours at the cellular level.

In the lab, DHA has been shown to slow the growth of tumours from a human breast cancer cell line, while it has no eff ect on a healthy human cell line. “There are many possible mechanisms,” Field says. First, DHA may discourage infl ammation at the cellular level, preventing tumour growth. Second, the fatty acids may penetrate the cancer cells’ walls, encouraging cancer cell death, unbridled growth being key to tumour development.

“We are looking at treatment with DHA supplements as an adjunct to chemotherapy,” Field says. “Our research is aimed at synergy, improving the effi ciency of cancer treatment.”

In September of 2005, Elma Spady and 30 friends celebrated a tugboat launch in Pigeon Lake Alberta.

The day celebrated friendship and the vibrancy of 63-year-old Elma, a lawyer, who had built the replica of New York Harbour tugs by hand in her garage.

Elma’s friends gathered with her again just three months later as she died of pancreatic cancer. But her ability to push through challenges continues. Elma funds cancer research with her legacy. She knew that if one small woman can build a boat, together, we can build a future without cancer.

To learn more about leaving a legacy to a cancer-free future, please contact: Derek Michael, 780 643 4662, 1 866 412 4222 or email [email protected]

Elma Spady

Research Spotlight

The new website of the B.C. Men’s Health Initiative,www.aboutmen.ca,lets men navigate their health by age. It also declares these maladies, some of them preventable, to be the top 10 lifetime health risks for men.

1.Heart attack and cardiac arrest

2.High blood pressure

3.High cholesterol

4.Stroke

5.Diabetes

6.Lung cancer

7.Colorectal cancer

8.Prostate disease and cancer

9.Testicular disease and cancer

10.Depression

2.High blood pressure

4.Stroke

6.Lung cancer

8.Prostate disease and cancer

10.Depression

Top 10 Men’s MaladiesTop 10 Men’s Maladies


7 Days, 7 Ways to Better HealthForget making resolutions or pledging yourself to a wholesale lifestyle change. Instead, make small improvements to your health week-by-week. Make one small change every day and build from there.

In 2007, when Wayne Scott told his family he had cancer, he asked, “What positive can we take away and learn from this experience?”

Although he died in January 2010, today, he’s building a cancer-free future with a gift from his estate

supporting cancer research chairs at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

What positive can we take away and learn from this experience?

To learn more about leaving a legacy to a cancer-free future, please contact: Derek Michael, 780 643 4662, 1 866 412 4222 or email [email protected]

Wayne Scott

Chickpea Stew1 tbsp canola oil

1 large onion, diced

2-3 large tomatoes, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced

2 whole cloves

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground turmeric

2 cans (475-ml or 15-oz) chickpeas, strained and rinsed

1 cup water, veggie stock or tomato juice

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

DirectionsHeat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, and fry onions until tender.Stir in tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly. Add chickpeas. Turn burner to low and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, adding water, stock or juice a little at a time if mixture gets too dry. Discard cloves, garnish with cilantro, serve with rice.

MONDAY. Incorporate some exercise. Set your clock 15 minutes early, go about your usual morning routine, but take a 15-minute walk before you head to work. At lunch, walk the stairs for 15 minutes. Before dinner, add another 15-minute walk. It’s easier than trying to fi nd 45 minutes at a stretch.

TUESDAY. Eat an amazing breakfast. Toast some whole-wheat bread and make a fast fruit salad of oranges and bananas. Top it with salt-free cashews, a teaspoon of fl axseed and a dollop of yoghurt. Toss a bag of nuts and dried fruit in your briefcase to get you through your morning meeting.

WEDNESDAY. Take your kids to the pool or meet a pal there. You don’t have to swim lengths to benefi t.

THURSDAY. It’s veggie night. For dinner, serve an easy chickpea stew with rice. (See recipe.) Include a leafy green salad on the side.

FRIDAY. Repeat your Monday walking routine. Add another of Tuesday’s amazing breakfasts.

SATURDAY. Meeting friends for brunch? Don a helmet and jump on your bike to get there.

SUNDAY. Spend 25 minutes walking, skating or shooting hoops. Or try 25 minutes on a one-minute, two-minute run/walk. Before you go shopping, make a list of healthy foods. Include: apples, oranges, legumes, green leafy veggies, broccoli, tomatoes, onion, garlic, ginger, sweet potatoes, whole-wheat products, turmeric, nuts and berries.

MONDAY. Incorporate some exercise. Set your clock 15 minutes early, go about your usual morning routine, but take a 15-minute walk before you head to work. At lunch, walk the stairs for 15 minutes. Before dinner, add another 15-minute walk. It’s easier than trying to fi nd 45 minutes at a stretch.

WEDNESDAY. Take your kids to the pool or meet a pal there. You don’t have to swim lengths to benefi t.

FRIDAY. Repeat your Monday walking routine. Add another of Tuesday’s amazing breakfasts.

SUNDAY. Spend 25 minutes walking, skating or shooting hoops. Or try 25 minutes on a one-minute, two-minute run/walk. Before you go shopping, make a list of healthy foods. Include: apples, oranges, legumes, green leafy veggies, broccoli, tomatoes, onion, garlic, ginger, sweet potatoes, whole-wheat products, turmeric, nuts and berries. 10K RUN 5K WALK5K WALK5K WALK

The Underwear Affair ®

Fight C

ancers Below the Waist

Calgary June 4, 2011 403/269/3337Edmonton June 18, 2011 780/423/2220

uncoverthecure.org Register Today

Get caught with your pants down at the Alberta Cancer Foundation’s Underwear Affair and help uncover the cure for critical below-the-waist cancers like prostate, colorectal, bladder and ovarian. Come undressed to impress as you compete for placement in the time-chipped 10K Run, or enjoy a fun 5K Walk with family and friends.

Awards for Best Times, Costumes and Fundraisers // Awesome After Par ty // 2011 Finisher Tees

Bring Awareness to Down There-ness

Underwear_FP.indd 1 2/22/11 4:10:53 PMLeap_Spring11_p6-11.indd 10 2/24/11 12:15:13 PM


10K RUN 5K WALK5K WALK5K WALK

The Underwear Affair ®

Fight C

ancers Below the Waist

Calgary June 4, 2011 403/269/3337Edmonton June 18, 2011 780/423/2220

uncoverthecure.org Register Today

Get caught with your pants down at the Alberta Cancer Foundation’s Underwear Affair and help uncover the cure for critical below-the-waist cancers like prostate, colorectal, bladder and ovarian. Come undressed to impress as you compete for placement in the time-chipped 10K Run, or enjoy a fun 5K Walk with family and friends.

Awards for Best Times, Costumes and Fundraisers // Awesome After Par ty // 2011 Finisher Tees

Bring Awareness to Down There-ness

Underwear_FP.indd 1 2/22/11 4:10:53 PMLeap_Spring11_p6-11.indd 11 2/24/11 11:55:43 AM

myleapmagazine .ca

Support groups for people going through cancer are so commonplace these days it may be hard to imagine a time when they weren’t available. But it wasn’t always that way, and it turns out that social support affects not only mood and quality of life, but potentially also cancer survival.

Support groups are accepted as a helpful part of treatment for a number of reasons. First, you can meet other people who understand what it’s like to go through a cancer diagnosis and treatment. Second, you can learn how people managed the diffi culties you may now be encountering. Third, it’s a safe place to talk openly about the things that your family and friends might be tired of hearing or are too scared to discuss.

But rewind 25 years and support groups were rare. When Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist from Stanford University, spearheaded a study of Supportive-Expressive Group Therapy for women with advanced breast cancer, many people considered him quite misguided, if not completely crazy. In these groups people with metastatic cancer got together weekly to express their feelings and thoughts. Inevitably some would fall ill and die – how could that be helpful, people asked, to see your close friends dying from the same disease you have? Wouldn’t it just be too traumatic?

It turns out that having a safe place to express your feelings, the dark ones and the sunny ones, is benefi cial. People in these groups fared better in a number of ways than their counterparts who didn’t attend groups. The most well-publicized was that they not only felt better, but they lived longer. This fi nding is controversial and several replication studies have found confl icting results, but the bottom line is this: Professionally-led support groups do more good than harm.

This is great news, as what could be easier than getting a bunch of people who are all living through a cancer diagnosis together to talk about it all? True, but if the discussion isn’t directed by a skilled professional counsellor with experience in oncology, the benefi ts aren’t as strong. It’s not enough simply to express emotions, but also to process them and make sense of the disease in the context of your own life. A therapist

can help you “detoxify” fears of death and dying and address the frightening parts of the disease head-on, with caring and support from the therapist as well as other group members.

Women have been historically more open to attending support groups, but men also benefi t from the opportunity to connect with peers. For example, the Prostate Cancer Canada Network Calgary (www.pccncalgary.org) meets monthly and uses a discussion and informational format to introduce issues of concern to these

patients, such as side-effects of treatment, family issues and work problems. They host speakers and have a peer support format that opens the fl oor to discussion. Similar professionally-led groups exist in Alberta for survivors of leukemia and lymphoma to give patients, survivors and families a forum where information and emotions can be shared in a caring environment.

Some problems can’t be fi xed, but people can be healed psychologically even if their disease is not cured. More than anything else, that’s what groups offer. A chance for some

healing. The possibility of a peaceful death, if that’s the outcome. Or the chance to live a more genuine life in accordance with your own deepest values.

Dr. Linda Carlson is the Enbridge Chair in Psychosocial Oncology at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, a professor and a clinical psychologist at the University of Calgary and co-author of Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery: A Mbsr Approach to Help You Cope With Treatment and Reclaim Your Life. Learn more at lindacarlson.ca.

As it turns out, having a safe place to express your feelings, the dark ones and the sunny ones, is immensely beneficial.

BY LINDA E. CARLSON

The Power of Support Groups

12 spring 2011

CONTACT: Find out about support groups by calling the Department of Psychosocial Resources. In Calgary, call the Tom Baker Cancer Centre at 403-355-3207. In Edmonton, try the Cross Cancer Institute at 780-643-4303. In other communities in the province, call your local Community Cancer Centre.

MAKING POSITIVE CONNECTIONSbodymind /


There is a trend in research to identify foods that mayimpact cancer while a person has the disease. One area of research is the effect of dietary soy on breast cancer. Natural compounds in soy called isofl avones behave like estrogen. About two-thirds of women with breast cancer are known to have these estrogen-sensi-tive tumours and, in theory, these isofl avones could pose a risk to women with breast cancer. Animal studies show that these compounds may stimulate the growth of estrogen-sensitive breast tumours. As well, genistein, one type of isofl avone in soy, may reduce the effectiveness of Tamoxifen, a drug used in breast cancer treatment.

Some studies seem to show that soy is protective, while others demonstrate harmful effects. More research is needed, but the data suggest that isofl a-vone intake in amounts similar to that of a typical Asian diet likely does not result in harmful effects on breast tissue. This amount is equivalent to up to three serv-ings per day of soy foods, such as tofu and soy milk. The American Cancer Society recommends that it may be wise to “avoid high doses of soy and soy isofl avones that are provided by more concentrated sources such as soy powders and isofl avone supplements.” Research on avoiding other foods or food isolates in relation to other cancers is limited.

If you’re in doubt, check with your doctor or dietitian. Likewise, if your appetite is very poor or you are very nauseated, be sure to mention it. There may be medication or strategies that can help.

BY SANDRA CHRISTIANSEN

A Bit PeckishTips to help with changes in taste and smell during cancer treatment:

Food tastes too sweet

Add something sour to your food such as lemon juice or vinegar

Add instant coffee, nutmeg, cinnamon or cocoa powder to sweet foods such as pudding, nutrition supplement drinks or canned fruit

Dilute drinks that are too sweet

Food tastes too salty

Cook without salt or salty seasonings. Try herbs and spices such as basil, rosemary, mint, lemon and

black pepper

Look for sodium-reduced products

Rinse canned food to decrease salt content

Food tastes too bitter

Marinate meat in sweet-and-sour or barbecue sauce, wine or vinegar

Cook foods to help reduce the bitter taste

Add cream, oil, margarine or butter

Food tastes too bland

Include a variety of textures at each meal

Take alternating bites of different foods

Increase the fl avour by adding herbs, spices, fresh garlic, marinades, sauces

Metallic tastein mouth

Use glass pans for cooking

Mix meats into casseroles and stews to lessen their taste

Try serving meat with sauces or marinades

Smells are bothersome

Eat cold or room-temperature foods

Choose foods that don’t require cooking, such as sandwiches

Drink beverages out of a straw or use a cup with a lid

What’s bugging your taste buds? Try these tips

Drink beverages out of a straw or use a cup with a lid

Blend all ingredients. Refrigerate until set. Makes four ½ cup (125 mL) servings. Each serving has 250 calories and 8 grams of protein.

1 package instant pudding (choose a fl avour that you enjoy)

2 cups (500 ml) evaporated milk

2 tbsp (30 ml) oil

2 tbsp (30 ml) skim milk powder

Super Pudding

Sandra Christiansen is a dietitian with Alberta Health Services. She works in Nutrition Education Resources.

spring 2011 13A l b e r t a ’s c a n c e r - f r e e m o v e m e n t

Is there anything you should avoid when you’re trying to maximize meals?

FOOD FOR LIFEcookingsmart /


asktheexpert /

YOU’VE GOT QUESTIONSIf you have been treated for cancer or know someone who has, you may have asked or heard these questions.

Cancer care professionals ask patients to ascribe a number between one and 10 to their pain: one being very little pain, 10 being the most severe pain they can imagine. This question is right up there with “have you passed gas today?” and “when was your last bowel movement?” at the top of the list for questions that cancer patients don’t like. People who have been dealing with cancer for a long time have been answering that question for just as long – they’re sick of it.

Nurse practitioner Krista Rawson at the Central Alberta Community Cancer Centre in Red Deer says that answers to this one, and all the tiresome and embarrassing questions, can give cancer care team members useful knowledge. A rise in the patient’s self-reported pain level can indicate a progression of the cancer. “It’s a very annoying question for chronic pain sufferers,” Rawson agrees. “But I tell patients I’m going on a fi shing trip for information.” A change in the location of the pain can also indi-cate a progression of the disease. “Generally, I am hoping for stability in pain,” she says. “Nothing new is a good sign.”

Increased self-reported pain can also be a sign that the pain killers are not working well anymore. This can sometimes happen if a patient has been on a painkiller for long periods. In this case the pain can be dealt with through medication or dosage chang-es. “Either way, we need to address increases in pain,” says Rawson, noting that quality of life suffers as pain increases.

A RESOURCE FOR YOU

myleapmagazine.ca14 spring 2011

I have metastatic breast cancer and every time I see my doctor or nurse they ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to 10. I get so sick of this question. Why do they ask me to number my pain?

one

three

five

seven

nine

two

four

six

eight

ten

the most severe pain they can imagine

very little pain

Ask the Expert is an opportunity to have your questions regarding cancer prevention and treatment answered. We’ll answerdifferent reader-submitted questions in each issue of Leap; please submit them via email to [email protected], the advice below is never a substitute for talking directly to yourfamily doctor.



“I often get these questions,” says Rawson. In fact,the risk of either uterine cancer or the development of cataracts is very small. “I tell patients to weigh these risks against the chance of a recurrence of their breast cancer,” she says. “That is the biggest risk to their health.”

The risk of uterine cancer occurring in post-meno-pausal women who have never been treated with Tamoxifen is about half of one percent. The risk for post menopausal women who have used Tamoxifen? Higher, but still less than one per cent. The increased risk is so small that most health professionals don’t recommend routine scanning for uterine cancer in Tamoxifen users. “Studies have shown that it’s not particularly useful,” says Rawson. Instead she advises post menopausal women, especially former Tamoxifen users, to see their doctors right away if they have unexplained vaginal spotting or bleeding. Women, who want to avoid uterine (and other) can-cers, whether or not they have been treated for breast cancer, should concentrate on maintaining a lean body weight and if they smoke they should stop.

The reference to eye problems is likely a legacy issue from the early days of Tamoxifen treatment. “There was a link to cataract development when doses of Tamoxifen were much higher,” Rawson says. “Now patients generally take about 20 milligrams a day.” The risk of cataract development is so rare that clinicians seldom even bring it up. “There are rare cases of acceleration of cataracts,” Rawson says. “We don’t fully understand the relationship, but if a woman has already been diagnosed with cataracts, we would discuss this as a potential side effect.” Luckily, having cataracts does not disqualify you from Tamoxifen treatment. Cataracts are generally easily dealt with surgically.

Instead of these relatively rare possible side effects, Rawson concentrates on preparing patients for the likelihood of the far more common ones. Patients new to the drug can experience nausea and headaches, which usually resolve over time. Then there are the sweats.

“The symptoms of menopause are the ones we most typically see,” she says. Tamoxifen lowers estrogens in the body as a defence against hormone-sensitive tumours, increasing the likelihood of meno-pause-like symptoms. While a comprehensive list of menopause symptoms might number more than 100 items, the biggies are hot fl ashes, night sweats, vagi-

spring 2011 15

I am taking a fi ve-year course of Tamoxifen in hopes my breast cancer won’t come back. But I have heard it can cause other cancers and eye problems. Is this true?

nal dryness and changes to sexuality, which could be a combination of physical and psychological responses to breast cancer treatment. “Women often com-plain that their sex drive is suppressed and that intercourse can be painful due to vaginal dryness.” When that happens, she recommends a lubricant such as Replens.

Another menopause-like symptom that Tamoxifen (and menopause) brings is pain. “I call it the travelling aches and pains,” Rawson says. Mainly involving mus-cles and joints, as many as a quarter of women being treated will experience it. “One day it’s your shoulder, the next it’s your back,” she says. For the most part, this kind of pain is not severe or serious. Still, it’s important to report this and all pain to your cancer care provider. A new pain, especially one that doesn’t go away, could be a sign of something more serious, such as a recurrence of cancer or a blood clot.

“The risk of developing a clot increases slightly,” Rawson says. Women using Tamoxifen have a one to two per cent risk of developing a clot. This could present as a deep vein thrombosis (in the leg), a pulmonary embolism (in the lung) or a stroke (in the head). “I tell patients that if there are 100 women in a room, one or two of them might suffer from a clot,” says Rawson. “Again, you have to weigh that against the possibility of a recurrence of cancer, which is your most pressing health concern.”

“Regular Pap testing can help prevent up to 90 per cent of cervical cancer.”

the most severe pain

Got a question? Submit it to:[email protected]


m y l e a p m a g a z i n e . c a16 spring 2011

Men & Cancer: the challenge of a lifetime


Male breast cancer is notably rare. In 2010, 180 men in Canada had the disease: meet one of them

By MarcÉllo Di cinto / illustration By rayMonD reiD

t his year, 50 men in canada will die of breast cancer. Brian crookes hopes he won’t be one of them.Crookes first noticed a small bulge in his breast in 2002. The lump pushed out his nipple and rubbed against his shirt. It was uncomfortable,

but his doctor told him not to worry. Crookes didn’t even mention the lump to his wife until two years and three physicals later, when he finally decided to have a biopsy performed and the lump removed. “I thought that was the end of it all,” he said. “Then two weeks later, I get a phone call from the plastic surgeon who told me I have Stage 2 invasive duct carcinoma.” Crookes was shocked. He didn’t know men could get breast cancer.

Few men ever do. The most recent statistics (2007) showed 15 Alberta men diagnosed with breast cancer compared with 1,994 women the same year. This is why breast cancer diagnoses in men, just as in Crookes’ case, are often delayed. People simply aren’t considering the possibility.

Surgeons performed a mastectomy on Crookes that carved a line through to his armpit – the cancer had migrated to the lymph node under his arm. Crookes’ mother and an aunt had both had breast cancer, and his doctor advised removing his other breast as a preventive measure. (Later, genetic testing, which is done if the patient has a close relative who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, indicated Crookes carried no heredity risk.) His surgeries left Crookes without nipples but with significant scars. He decided against reconstructive surgery; the scars simply did not matter much to him. When people see him shirtless – at the

pool, say, or in the locker room at the gym – their eyes widen. If they ask, Crookes jokes that he was bitten by a shark. “Besides,” he says, “having a scar reminds you that you are still alive. It is kind of a good thing.”

Crookes believes that a mastectomy is a far more distressing experience for a woman. “It is not a big deal for a man to remove a breast. It is not as traumatic,” he says.

“I don’t know what it would be like to have breasts as a woman and then not have them.” Still, many male patients suffer unique emotional difficulties in relation to their cancer. They feel their surgery-ravaged

chests demean their sense of toughness and masculinity.

Fred Coles was a community builder and industry titan in Calgary. He was also a leader in building support for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

Fred died in May of 2008, but his leadership continues. Today, he’s training the next generation of cancer researchers and doctors

through the bequest he left to the fellowship program at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

And as in life, others follow his lead. Every year, family and friends boost Fred’s legacy with the proceeds from a golf tournament held in his honour.

To learn more about leaving a legacy to a cancer-free future, please contact Derek Michael, 780 643 4400, 1 866 412 4222 or email [email protected]

According to a 2004 study conducted by nurse practitioner Edith Pituskin at Edmonton’s Cross Cancer Institute, some male breast cancer patients feel reluctant to disclose their condition at all. They feel the stigma of having what the general population considers a “woman’s disease.” Crookes never felt this way. “You can’t say it’s a female disease because I have it,” he says. However, he understands that breast cancer treatment is based entirely on research done with female patients. There is very little breast cancer information specific to men. After his surgery, a physiotherapist handed him a stack of brochures on post-operative care. Every single pamphlet was pink.

After his mastectomy, and the chemotherapy that followed, Crookes appeared to be cancer-free. Now a “survivor,” Crookes found himself in demand as a public spokesperson for the cause. He retired from his job in the energy tubular goods business and committed himself to raising awareness of breast cancer in general. He joined national and local organizations, volunteered for fundraising activities and spoke about the disease in front of crowds. “I wanted to give back,” he said. “People are tired of hearing about breast cancer. But when they hear a man has it, they suddenly pay more attention. It stirs the pot again. A man standing there in a pink shirt is an awful lot different than a woman.”

In 2010, Crookes began to suffer intense nausea and stomach problems. He worried his cancer had returned. But his doctor and others said that when breast cancer cells metastasize elsewhere in the body, the cancer usually presents as tumours in the lungs, brain, bones or liver. Not the stomach. “It didn’t make any sense,” Crookes said of his symptoms. Then, his stomach pains grew so intense that he wound up in a Calgary emergency ward. A CT scan revealed the tumours covering his stomach. His doctor suggested he might have 18 months to live. The last time he’d left his doctor’s office was after his mastectomy when he thought he was cured.

Crookes discovered that there was little formal support for male breast cancer patients. One support group paired him with a man whose cancer was diagnosed early and whose successful mastectomy rendered him cancer-free. He wasn’t living with the disease and Crookes could barely relate to him. So, Crookes began to attend women’s breast cancer support groups. Crookes tried to use his sense of humour to endear himself to his co-afflicted – “saying, ‘Come on ladies, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’” – but he never felt like he belonged. “I was a novelty.”

In the wake of his prognosis, Crookes left his cancer spokesperson

position. He rarely does public events anymore. “I’m so sick and tired of being The Cancer Guy. I’m known as ‘that guy with breast cancer.’ It is not the identity that I want.” After years of being a spokesman, Crookes cannot help but feel bitter that the cancer he thought was cured will eventually claim him. “I was a success,” Crookes says. “I helped raise lots of money and I spent lots of time on it. Now, I suddenly realize that nothing I did can help me personally.” There is a certain irony.

Crookes still wants his story told, to continue to “stir the pot and wave the flag.” His experience illustrates the importance of detecting cancer early. Lumps cannot be discounted just because male breast cancer appears so rarely. A simple biopsy can get a diagnosis that leads to earlier treatment, or rule out cancer altogether.

Crookes speaks matter-of-factly about his cancer, but tears come when he speaks of his two daughters, aged 16 and 20. The elder has taken time off from her university studies to be with her father. “My daughters look at me and say ‘You are doing good today,’ and that’s good.” And it’s hard to reconcile Crookes’ prognosis; he still appears fit and handsome. Once a week he pilots his Cessna 340 into Calgary’s sky and, often, flies the plane over the Rocky Mountains to the Okanagan Valley. Crookes knows the reality of his disease, but he is hardly the type for self-pity. “You have to live every day,” he says. “You have to survive every day.”

Breast CanCer Mans UpAs a graduate student in 2004, Edith Pituskin conducted a study about how men experience breast cancer. At the time, there were 125 Albertan men living with breast cancer as identified by Alberta’s Cancer Registry. Twenty of them were involved in her study.

Now PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta, Pituskin’s study found that men’s experiences ran the gamut. Some didn’t want to tell anyone about their diagnosis; others, like Brian Crookes, were inspired to become advocates.

Pituskin’s study helped draw attention to the possibility of male breast cancer, alerting men, their wives and health care practitioners.

Men & Cancer: the challenge of a lifetime

Men & Cancer: THE CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME

Edmonton’s three largest health-based charities are teaming up to improve the health of Alberta men. Meet one of the initiative’s biggest supporters

BY CAITLIN CRAWSHAW

hough it often fl ies under the radar, prostatecancer aff ects more men than any other cancer. One in seven Alberta men will be diagnosed in their lifetime. The good news is that it’s a highly curable

disease if it’s detected early.For prostate cancer survivor Frank Sojonky, the only thing

more shocking than these statistics was discovering the lack of research in Alberta. “I couldn’t believe the richest province in Canada didn’t have a formal prostate cancer research pro-gram,” he says.

Diagnosed 22 years ago in Vancouver, Sojonky moved to Edmonton a decade ago and continued his treatment at Edmonton’s Cross Cancer Institute. He didn’t set out to become an advocate for prostate cancer research, but now he’s one of six members of the leadership team for the Campaign for Prostate Health, which includes Irving Kipnes, John Day, Bob Bentley, C.J. Woods, and Ron Hodgson. The campaign combines the eff orts of three Edmonton founda-tions: the Alberta Cancer Foundation, the University Hospital Foundation and the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation. The three organizations aim to raise $30 million for a prostate

T health centre and research initiative; to date, they’ve raised $24 million.

Sojonky’s focus is prostate cancer research in particular and so far, he’s raised millions for the Alberta Cancer Foundation. It all began on New Year’s Eve six years ago when Sojonky found himself writing a $1,000 cheque to the Cross Cancer Institute out of appreciation for the care he’d received there.

As he put pen to paper, it dawned on him that with his business acumen and connections, he could do even more. So, he contacted the Alberta Cancer Foundation directly to ask what they needed. “I found out there was a new 3-D ultrasound machine that had just been invented in Montreal,” he says. “It was specifi c for prostate cancer and the Cross didn’t have one.”

The $275,000 price tag was no deterrent for Sojonky. He fi gured he could raise the funds by selling a piece of land he’d invested in with several other business people. All but one of the investors agreed to donate their profi ts, helping Sojonky raise $400,000.

After this success, Sojonky was inspired to keep going.


ProstateHEALTH

PARTNERINGfor



20 spring 2011 myleapmagazine.ca

He asked his oncologist, Dr. Peter Venner, what he could do to advance prostate cancer research. “The suggestion was to endow a prostate cancer research chair at the Cross Cancer Institute, in association with the University of Alberta,” he says.

So, with some help from a few friends (nick-named “The Bird Dogs” after their shared love of hunting), Sojonky set forth on a new fundraising quest. This time, he gave lunch-hour presentations about prostate cancer and managed to raise $3 million by December 2008, nearly a year after writ-ing that $1,000 cheque.

The Alberta Cancer Foundation matched his eff orts to establish a $5 million endowment but Sojonky didn’t stop there. When he learned that additional funds would be needed to cover the chair’s research expenses, he went a little further, committing to raise an additional $3 million to equip the chair with ample research funds. The result of his eff orts is the Frank and Carla Sojonky Chair in Prostate Cancer Research and funding to launch a prostate cancer research program in Edmonton.

Though he’s fi nally taking a bit of a breather from fund-raising – Sojonky is 82 – he still continues to volunteer for the Campaign for Prostate Health. The initiative focuses on four main areas: The Alberta Prostate Cancer Research Initiative (including the research chair Sojonky helped cre-ate), robotic surgery facilities at the University of Alberta Hospital and Royal Alexandra Hospital, the Innovation and Research Fund to support continued advancements in research and prostate care and a new prostate health clinic, dedicated to diagnosing and treatment of prostate health. This will be the fi rst of its kind in Edmonton.

“We decided to really pool our resources and join forces to make it a unifi ed campaign,” explains campaign co-chair John Day, a spokesperson for the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation. “It allows us to accomplish more.”

All of the campaign’s projects complement each other and will have tangible benefi ts for patients. State-of-the-art robotic surgical equipment at both hospitals will provide the latest evolution in surgical treatment – an alternative to more invasive surgeries, explains Joyce Mallman Law, president of the University Hospital Foundation. Robotic surgery involves smaller incisions than traditional surgery, which decreases risk of infection, minimizes blood loss and scarring. Patients may recover faster and thereby spend less time in hospital.

The $10-million Rapid Access Prostate Health Clinic will be located in the Urology Centre of the Edmonton Clinic, a soon-to-open facility at the University of Alberta Hospital site, one that’s expected to transform the delivery of health services and health science learning in the prov-ince. The Prostate Clinic will help patients receive care immediately. At the moment, people can wait as long as

eight months for surgery, explains Day.Organizers are hopeful that the campaign will increase pub-

lic focus on prostate health – and prostate cancer – in Alberta. “The fact that we’ve united these three organizations under one banner will raise the profi le,” says Day. He’s hopeful that

having better resources, such as the new clinic, will encourage men to keep their prostate health top of mind.

Although the statistics about prostate cancer aren’t positive, Sojonky is. He’s confi dent that a cure for prostate cancer is around the corner. In the meantime, he’s delighted to have had a hand in improving the health of Alberta men. “If you’re lucky

to save or positively aff ect a person’s life – that’s more than one person could ever hope for.”

000L.School_FP_wBL.indd 1 9/7/10 11:31:14 AM

having better resources, such as the new clinic, will encourage men to keep their prostate health top of mind.

Although the statistics about prostate cancer aren’t positive, Sojonky is. He’s confi dent that a cure for prostate cancer is around the corner. In the meantime, he’s delighted to have had a hand in improving the health of Alberta men. “If you’re lucky

Together with the Alberta Cancer Foundation, the University of Alberta

Hospital Foundation and the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation aim to

raise $30 million.

PROSTATE CANCER BY THE NUMBERS

2,715

420

ONE IN SEVEN

MORE THAN 90

ZERO

4,568

50

40

Number of men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in Alberta this year

Number of men expected to die of the disease this year

Number of Albertan men who will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime

Percentage of prostate cancer cases considered curable if detected and treated early

The number of symptoms many men experience at the earliest, most curable stage of the disease

The number of British men who participated in a study whose results suggest the length of a man’s index fi nger in relation to his ring fi nger may be a marker of his prostate cancer risk.

The age at which men should start having yearly digital rectal exams and prostate-specifi c antigen (PSA) tests.

The age at which men should discuss prostate cancer risk their doctors. Doctors may suggest men with a relative who has had the disease should begin yearly screening at 40.

TAKEAWAY: The $30 million Campaign for Prostate Health focuses on four main areas: 1. The Alberta Prostate Cancer Research Initiative (including the $5 million research chair Sojonky helped create.) Goal: $10 million2. The Innovation and Research Fund to ensure that the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the University of Alberta Hospital have the necessary resources to attract and retain world-class health professionals to support advancements in prostate research and patient care. Goal: $6 million3. Robotic surgery facilities at both the University of Alberta and Royal Alexandra Hospitals. Goal: $4 million4. A new prostate health clinic, dedicated to diagnosing and treating prostate health issues, the fi rst of its kind in Edmonton. Goal $10 million


000L.School_FP_wBL.indd 1 9/7/10 11:31:14 AMLeap_Spring11_p19-21.indd 21 2/24/11 12:09:05 PM





Young men don’t want to hear about it, even if there’s something wrong down south. But talking about testicular cancer takes balls

BY ANNALISE KLINGBEIL / ILLUSTRATION BY HEFF O’REILLY

y the time Mike Metcalfe was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 24, he was in extreme pain and could barely walk fi ve feet. “At work they threatened to fi re me, jokingly, if I didn’t go to emergency. I went to emergency and they took two days to

diagnosis me with the most advanced form of testicular cancer,” says Metcalfe.What the athletic Metcalfe thought was a pulled abdominal muscle turned out to be a

pinhead-sized tumour on his testicle that had spread into his abdominal region. Metcalfe’s testicle was removed and he underwent aggressive treatment that included more than 500 hours of chemotherapy in seven months, a stem cell transplant and a rare procedure to remove abdominal lymph nodes, known as a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. Now 32, Metcalfe is cancer-free.

When Metcalfe’s brother was diagnosed with testicular cancer two years later, his testicle was removed but, unlike Metcalfe, he didn’t need difficult chemotherapy. “He said his left testicle felt a little weird” and he went to his doctor right away, says Metcalfe. “He did not have to have chemo because he was proactive.”

Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men aged 15 to 35 and, if caught early, it can be cured with surgery alone. “It usually presents as a lump in the testicles, the patient goes for an ultrasound, it’s confi rmed and then we take it out with surgery,” says Dr. Daniel Heng, a medical oncologist and co-director of the testicular cancer clinic at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary.

“With one testicle, people can function completely normally,” says Heng. The testicles produce testosterone (and other hormones) as well as sperm. One testicle alone will still produce sperm and testosterone. Testicular cancer can, however, have an impact on fertility. Heng says even if patients don’t have chemotherapy, the chance they will be infertile is 50 per cent. (Some patients opt to bank sperm before surgery in case their fertility is negatively aff ected by treatment.)

In some cases, the cancer has metastasized to other organs and chemotherapy is used as a treatment. “We have noted that testicular cancer is very chemotherapy-sensitive, so, even if

B

The

Down


Jim and Deanna Henderson planned to donate half the money they received from their wedding to the Alberta Cancer Foundation and use the other half on a honeymoon.

But when Jim died of colorectal cancer four days after their

mountaintop ceremony – pushed forward after a grim prognosis – Deanna created a fund in his memory instead.

Jim continues to fund cancer research with donations made in his honour, building a cancer-free future for Deanna and her daughter.

To learn more about making a memorial donation towards a cancer-free future, please contact Kristin Houle, 780-643-4400, 1866 412 4222 or email [email protected]

WeddingAd.indd 1 2/23/11 10:31:34 AM

it has spread to other organs, chemotherapy can wipe out the testicular cancer in most sit-uations,” says Heng. It’s the situations where chemotherapy doesn’t eradicate the cancer that Heng says need further research. “There’s a gap we need to fi ll in with research to fi nd better treatment.”

Jason Baker is an advocate and fundraiser for testicular cancer research. He aims to educate young men and promote early diagnosis of this disease. Dr. Heng works closely on Baker’s fundraising initiative as his medical director. They aim to raise $1 million over the next fi ve years.

Baker was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 29, in fall 2008. Baker’s testicle was removed and he was cancer-free for almost a year before fi nding out the cancer had spread. He underwent chemotherapy while his wife was eight months pregnant with their fi rst child. “We were a circus together. She was a pregnant little ball and I was bald and white and we defi nitely looked pretty alarming to people,” says Baker.

Baker’s chemotherapy was ultimately successful and today he delivers presentations about his experience to medical stu-dents, oncologists and high school students. “I didn’t think that cancer could aff ect somebody as young and healthy as I was,” says Baker.

Age is a consideration for testicular cancer: “If you are between the ages of 15 and 35, that’s the biggest risk factor,” says Heng. Other risk factors include having a family history of testic-ular cancer and having an undescended testicle (known as crypt-orchidism). But it can strike any male and Heng says there’s never an age where men can stop worrying about the disease.

Testicular cancer aff ects a young population on a part of the body with which a young guy just doesn’t want anything going wrong. It makes an open discussion of the disease rare. “These are young people,” says Heng, “and usually young people don’t like to talk about illness, so this advocacy group is small.”

Clothed, even in a swimsuit, it would be hard to tell if a man were missing one testicle. But if the guy were naked and an observer were looking in the right spot, it would be noticeable. For patients who have had one removed, there is an option for a cosmetic prosthetic – a small, silicone fi lled sac can be surgically implanted to make it look like there


Asking questions during a routine check-up can be embarrassing for guys, especial-ly when those questions have to do with their junk. Many young men don’t know what their doctor is looking for when he holds their testicles and tells them to cough. This is actually a simple test used to check for hernias, not testicular cancer.

“When we do a testicular exam, we don’t ask patients to cough,” explains Dr. Daniel Heng of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary. To check for testicular cancer, doctors will put on gloves and hold and feel around the testicle. They want to make sure each testicle is still smooth and there are no lumps, bumps or masses around it. If a patient notices discomfort, a lump, pain, hardness or aches in one or both of their testicles, he should consult his doctor right away.

WHAT’S WITH THE COUGH?

is still a pair. It’s not for everyone.

Baker says when he found out a prosthesis was an option he “laughed and said ‘they make those?’” He estimates he spends “.001 per cent” of his

time thinking about the fact he has one testicle. “For me, there are no psychological impacts associated at all with having one testicle,” he says.He plays a lot of hockey and, if he gets a questioning look in the dressing room, he takes it as an opportunity to share his story and teach the importance of checking oneself for the disease.

Through speaking out and fundraising initiatives, Baker and Metcalfe are getting men to talk about testicular cancer. While still undergoing treatment, Metcalfe’s friends and teammates started a soccer marathon in his honour. In seven years, the annual event has raised more than $350,000 toward the purchase of cancer-related diagnostic and treatment equipment.

Metcalfe, 32, is open about his story and encourages others to be proactive if they notice something amiss. “Make sure when you’re in the shower, check yourself, look for little pinhead-sized abnormalities. It doesn’t have to be huge. A lot of people think your ball grows to the size of a grapefruit and that’s how you know and that’s not the case every time.”

Metcalfe says his mindset at age 24 was to write everything off to an athletic injury and avoid the doctor at all costs. “When it came down to the symptoms of cancer, I ignored it. You feel like you’re young, you’re going to heal.”

Today Metcalfe encourages males to be proactive like his brother was, to not procras-tinate, and to visit their doctor. “You never know what it’s going to be so make sure you get yourself checked.”

Metcalfe’s brother avoided chemo by being proactive. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men aged 15 to 35 and, if caught early, it can be cured with surgery alone.



here’s no easy way to quit smoking. While the rate of Canadians who still smoke is on the decline, men between the ages of 25 and 29 have the highest prevalence of smoking out of any sample group.

For some, nicotine patches or inhalers are helping curb their nicotine addiction, but for others, chewing tobacco is their new crutch.

“There is no safe form of tobacco,” says Dr. Charles Butts, a senior medical oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. “Smoking has a lot of cardiovascular issues related to it, such as lung cancer, but chewing tobacco has some signifi cant problems too. There’s some per-ception that chewing is less harmful.” They are both addictive and both can cause disease.

One of the biggest diff erences between the two forms of tobacco may be public awareness. While the federal government has recently revamped cigarette packaging to cover 75 per cent of the package with pic-tures and captions of people harmed by smoking, there’s little advertising regulation when it comes to chewing tobacco.

Another diff erence is who uses it. Few women chew tobacco. “And smokeless tobacco tends to be more culturally related,” says Dr. Butts. He says that chewing tobacco has cultural links to First Nations, where tobacco has long been used in traditional ceremonies. But there’s a diff er-ence between the ceremonial use of tobacco, and the habitual, daily use.

Chewing tobacco is called “smokeless tobacco.” While it doesn’t have the exact same physical eff ects that cigarettes have, chewing can cause myriad health problems for the user. Most people think of mouth cancer when it comes to chewing tobacco, but users can also develop other cancers of the head and neck, heart disease, and major dental changes, gum disease, and tooth wear and decay.

“All forms of tobacco have chemicals that are considered cancer-caus-ing agents or potential carcinogens,” says Dr. Butts. He says that one in nine smokers will get cancer. But in 2005 alone, there were 1,050 deaths from oral cancer due to smokeless tobacco. Nearly a third of all oral cancer cases are fatal.

Strategies for quitting smokeless tobacco are as varied as those for cigarettes, and depend on the smoker. “The strategy should be individual-ized,” says Dr. Butts. Some people can taper off , others fi nd cold turkey more eff ective. As with smokers, tobacco chewers typically make a few attempts at quitting before they meet with success.

Smokeless tobacco should never be used as a replacement for ciga-rettes under the delusion that it’s better for your body. “It’s a strategy used in some other countries, but it’s substituting one harmful substance with another,” says Dr. Butts. He says that more education is needed to prevent future chewers from starting. “The message has to be consistent that it’s not a safe tobacco,” he says. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

TBY SCAACHI KOUL

TobaccotheWhack

Many tobacco users have turned to medicinal products to quit smoking or chewing. Brands such as Nicorette offer consumers patches, inhalers and gums to help curb their addictions. These products replace the nicotine that the body and brain have been getting from tobacco, while gradually reducing those levels until the consumer no longer needs it. This method of nicotine uptake is slower and longer than tobacco, and allows your body to adjust to the levels it gives. It also reduces symptoms of withdrawal after quitting, and the gum offers an oral gratifi cation that helps replace the ritual of smoking.

But is it possible to be dependent on these products for too long? “Those delivery agents are relatively pure nicotine so they don’t have the associated carcinogens that tobacco has,” says Dr. Butts. “They only deliver nicotine.” Tobacco replacement agents programs can help break the habit.

Still, it doesn’t mean spending years on these products is good for you. Their purpose is to wean you off of your reliance on the ciga-rettes or chewing tobacco. “It’s been relatively successful for smok-ing,” he says. “You want to reduce the dependence on the nicotine.” Talk to your doctor about using these or other prescription products to help you ditch the weed.TOP TIP: Don’t forget that most experts also advise changing your behaviour to encourage success. Avoid the usual triggers. Go for a walk at coffee break or after dinner. Keep a stock of crunchy veggies, pretzels and gum (nicotine or otherwise) on hand. Get more exer-cise and drink lots of water.

WHAT’S WITH THE PATCH?

It’s never a great idea to replace your smokes with chewing tobacco.

You’re still going to have to kick the habit eventually


myleapmagazine.ca


26 spring 2011



BY JANICE PASKEY / PHOTOGRAPHED BY COLIN WAY

ou’re spending a lot of time there,” Brett Wilson

said over his shoulder to his doctor. After all, Wilson was a

man who lived like he was late for a bus or, more appropriately, a

runaway Mercedes. And rectal exams to check for prostate cancer

are something most men want over with much sooner than later.

Wilson is one of Calgary’s best known entrepreneurs. By age 44,

he’d made a stunning amount of money as an investment banker

doing energy deals. He ran with a similar crowd. He and a group of

his Calgary buddies were at Scripps Center for Executive Health

in San Diego getting CT scans, blood work and prostate checks.

Entrepreneur,

philanthropist, father, TV personality.

Brett Wilson is all of these. But it’s the role of cancer graduate that unleashed

the rollicking oil patch prince toward a new

spirit of advocacy

The


myleapmagazine.ca


28 spring 2011

It was Friday afternoon; the group was anxious to fl y to Phoenix – they had planned a round of golf at one of Arizona’s famous courses. Wilson was the last to give blood for a PSA (prostate-specifi c antigen) test, a key indica-tor of prostate cancer. After the blood test was the physical exam, which included a rectal exam. It’s the kind of examination most men dread. Wilson thought the doctor was taking longer than normal, and called him on it. The other guys already had their blood work back – all normal. Last on the list, Wilson’s results wouldn’t come until Monday.

By Monday, Wilson was back in Calgary after 18 holes in the Arizona sun. His doctor called from San Diego: “Brett, I want you to have a biopsy immediately.” Wilson’s PSA was up from .7 to 7.6, and the doctor felt a lot of smooth tissue around the prostate gland: not good. Brett Wilson – newly divorced, 12 kilograms over-weight, and master of his universe – had cancer. Worse, it was late stage, and had spread to the outside of the gland.

“You’ve met Brett?” asks Peter Denhamer, friend and board member for the Calgary Prostate Network. “Then you know he’s larger than life.” Wilson’s reaction to that cancer diagnosis nine years ago was “absolute shock,” Denhamer says. “His late stage detection scared him tremendously.”

When Wilson comes in for a photo shoot today, he arrives with another moniker. “I don’t call myself a cancer survivor; I call myself a cancer graduate. If you don’t graduate you’re dead.”

Ah, that candor. He is now 52, and shows the photographer three shirts he’s brought for the shoot. They decide on the bright orange one. The photographer points to a washroom where Wilson can change. “I can change here,” he says. He strips off the red-striped shirt with embroidered cars for the intricate orange paisley one; he turns up the cuff s, royal blue.

The stripping down – part unnerving, part refreshing – refl ects the unabashed way Wilson dealt with cancer. “Cancer gave me the right to say eff -you to everybody. I was working in a work world where you have clients, you have partners, you have family, and there’s demands on your time from everybody, but all of a sudden cancer comes into your life and you can say ‘no.’”

His three kids came fi rst. “The opportunity came to reprioritize time with my chil-dren. I let them know I was indeed their father. Before, I could go weeks without spend-ing any meaningful time with them, because the demands of the offi ce.” His divorce meant he had the kids “50-50 instead of 98-2.” Now, he had to marshal three children to three diff erent schools. And his kids were with him the week of his diagnosis. First he made his funeral plan, and then he drove the kids to their B.C. country place where he began his research. It was July 1, his 44th birthday. Importantly, he also wrote down a new plan for living.

And he called his dad. Wilson’s father was a prostate cancer graduate: He’d had sur-gery nearly 10 years earlier at age 67. Now Brett had to choose his own treatment. “Prostate cancer is a disease that, if caught early, has many treatment options,” Wilson says. “If it’s not caught early it’s an incredibly challenging disease.” His was the chal-lenging type. That smooth tissue that his physician had felt during the rectal exam was actually the surface of tumours that had grown outwards and together. (Earlier-stage prostate cancer can feel bumpy to a physician.) Wilson went to the Dattoli Medical Center in Florida and underwent external beam radiation therapy and brachytheraphy, a process in which radiation therapists place seeds of radioactive material internally at the tumour site to kill the cancer. It was no picnic.

Five years later, Wilson experienced some serious side eff ects from the radiation: bleeding from his intestines and bladder, but he’s come through, and has been cancer- free for nine years.

Since then, he’s helped fi nance the Southern Alberta Institute for Urology Centre in

Calgary with Daryl “Doc” Seaman, fel-low Calgarian and part-owner of

the Calgary Flames. Each man contributed $5 million. (Also a

prostate cancer patient, Seaman died in 2009 at age 86.) And Wilson has advocated for early screening for men in their 40s. (“PSA tests cost $30, if you

don’t have the money, I’ll chip in half,” he declares. It’s a fre-

quent refrain, but he says that, to date, no one has taken him up on it.)

And he’s done more priority setting. “Whereas deals, and money and travel, and

art and new cars were priorities, suddenly my health, my relationships with family, and my relationships with friends became priorities.”

Cancer, observes Peter Denhamer, seems to have galvanized Wilson as an advocate for dozens of charities. “He leads with his wallet.” And he expects others to do the same. Find a beautiful wreath on your door? It’s from Wilson with an envelope asking for a donation for the Calgary Urban Project Society. Go to one of his fancy parties? It’s all free, but be prepared to donate to the cause of the night. It’s not an approach that everybody favours, but Wilson is a man unleashed. And he’s out there. Literally.

Denhamer recounts the time his daughter Julie looked out the window of her Calgary food shop last November to see Wilson entering a clothing store across the street in nothing but his boxers for an event to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer: The clothing store owner dressed Wilson and friends, and each man donated the cost of the clothing money to charity.

He does a lot of behind the scenes handholding, too. So when Denhamer was diagnosed with early-stage pros-tate cancer in his 40s (“My wife asked me three times a day: have you been tested?” he says.) Wilson was there. “He gave me an ear; he was very private, and he set the tracks for me in terms of my options and maintaining a positive attitude.” And he’s done that for strangers, as well. Wilson replies to a post on a cancer support blog: “Contact me so we can discuss our mutual challenges.”

After the photo shoot, Wilson sits on a white canvas couch to talk about his life post-cancer. After cancer is when he started his holding company, Prairie Merchant. It’s also when he famously beat out several hundred others for a spot on Dragons’ Den, the CBC show where average Canadians pitch ideas to investors. (“Dragons’ Den is a small part of what I’ve done, but a big part of how I’m perceived.”)

“Suddenly my health, my

relationships with family and my relationships

with friends became priorities.”

– Brett Wilson



He also supports various cancer foundations and organizations through donations and time. Bob Shiell, the Calgary-based vice-president of one such organization, says, “He’s been very generous to our sup-port group, so he’s enhanced our support group, but even more important, in being open about his own journey, Brett has raised the profi le of prostate cancer tremendously.

“Men don’t like to talk about anything below the belt,” Shiell continues. “But the more men will go out and get themselves tested, the better.”

In a startlingly candid presentation to a cancer sup-port group, Brett Wilson is fi lmed talking to men with prostate cancer in Calgary. He begins with talking about the layman’s challenge to understanding treatment options.

One section didn’t make the recording, he says, since the videographers were changing a tape. “There’s a room full of guys, most of them in their 60s and 70s, most of them with their spouses. I decided to just be open and walk through my journey, this is my journey, if you learn something from it, great.

“And I said: ‘Let’s have a conversation about erectile function’….then I said, ‘OK, everyone can look up now,’ because their heads just fell. And I off ered, ‘Let’s be blunt. It doesn’t work very well after you get treated, it doesn’t matter what your treatment protocol is. So let’s just get that out there, it’s not going to work as well.’ Then I talked about the fact that with patience, time and some drugs, things can get better.”

The fear of cancer’s reprise doesn’t daunt him. “The small-c is kind of up over my shoulder looking at me, but I don’t look back at it at all. Some people who have been treated still die of prostate cancer, but I can’t live worry-ing about it. I could be hit by a bus before the cancer comes back.”

And then it’s time to go. Brett Wilson grabs his suit bag, shakes the hands of the photo crew, strides out.He’s heading to Toronto for meetings, and then jetting off to the Caribbean.

TO CATCH A KILLER Dr. Don Morris has been working hard to infect prostate cancer cells with a reovirus that, while it has no impact on healthy tissues, is killing cancer cells.

Morris’s work builds on that of Dr. Patrick Lee, who fi rst published the encouraging results of his Calgary lab’s work with cancer and reoviruses in Nature magazine 12 years ago. “Since then, there’s been a world of oncolytic virus work occurring in labs,” Morris says.

Other labs have been using a variety of viruses, such as polio and measles, against cancer. These killer viruses have to be manipulated in the lab to render them harmless to people. Reoviruses need no such treatment as they produce no clinical symptoms in the humans they infect. “But they have high activity against cancer cells,” Morris says.

First, they undertook a small trial of six men. “We examined the prostate gland after prostatectomy. Against their prostate cancer, we saw a robust immune response [that killed cancer cells] where we had injected reovirus into a cancer lesion three weeks earlier,” he says. The limitation: “Other lesions on the same gland were not affected due to the body’s immune response.”

To get around the conundrum, Morris and his team developed a way to use t-cells to trick the immune system into recognizing the virus attached to a cancer cell, killing the cell at the same time as clearing the virus. The team |has seen some good results in animal models and Morris is submitting his latest research for review in Cancer Research magazine.


alber tacancer foundat ion.ca30 spring 2011

Research Rockstar


alber tacancer foundat ion.ca spring 2011 31

BY TRICIA RADISON / PHOTOS BY BRIAN BOOKSTRUCKER

Dr. Nigel Brockton looks at how much control we have over whether cancer spreads

DateA

colorectal cancer. Studies are also showing that people who take anti-inflammatory drugs like Aspirin and ibuprofen are showing increased rates of survival after a cancer diagnosis.

In fact, eating well, exercising and maintaining a healthy body weight may help cancer prevention in that it keeps the level of infl ammation in the body down. Obesity is a low-grade infl ammatory state.

“We know that infl ammatory syndromes of all sorts increase the risk of cancer,” says Brockton. He adds that understanding the role of infl ammation in cancer could increase the understanding of “all of the big chronic diseases.”

“I’m interested in things that patients can do that are not part of their treatment – exercise, vitamin D, anti-infl ammatory drugs, having a healthy body weight – all things that could impact infl ammation and might reduce the risk of the spread of cancer,” says Brockton.

o what extent can cancer patients be incharge of their own destiny? That’s the big question that tugs at Dr. Nigel Brockton, a

research scientist in cancer epidemiology in the Population Health Research department of Alberta Health Services – Cancer Care.

Brockton is heading up studies that are trying to identify what patients can do to increase their chances of survival after a cancer diagnosis. In particular, he’s interested in whether reducing infl ammation in the body through lifestyle and medication can prevent cancer from spreading.

“It’s metastasis that kills the vast majority of cancer patients,” says Brockton. “If we could intervene in the spread of cancer, we would have a much better chance of impacting the burden of cancer.”

Infl ammation is known to play a role in increasing the risk of getting some types of cancer, particularly

T

DESTINYWith



Brockton’s boss, Dr. Christine Friedenreich, explains that the research Brockton is conducting is a step beyond what’s been done in the past in both breadth and scope. “He is one of two molecular cancer epidemiologists that we recruited to Alberta in 2007. Since his arrival, he has created large multidisciplinary teams of researchers working collaboratively on breast, colon and head-and-neck cancers,” she says.

Brockton’s interest in cancer research began after a Ewing’s sarcoma (a cancer of the bone that typically strikes children and adolescents) that originally developed when he was a teenager recurred while he was in his third year of university. At that time, he was pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist. Interested in fi nding out more about what was happening to him, Brockton found himself in the university library – this was before the Internet – poring over textbooks.

“If we could intervene in the spread of cancer, we have a much better chance of impacting the burden of cancer.”

Q: What do you like about living in Alberta?A: Just about everything! But particularly the mountains, the “family-friendliness” and the opportunities for research.Q: Who inspires you?A: Many ordinary people doing extraordinary things.Q: You’re 40 years old now. Why are you getting back into ski racing?A: Mostly because I can. I’ve been training and I’m in good shape. I wanted to do it again before all the guys I raced with leave the sport. Q: What’s the last book you read?A: Something to my children – they’re 2 and 4. Otherwise, all of my reading is scientifi c.Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?A: “Everything in moderation.” This is advice given by Dr. J. Duffus, a toxicology lecturer, but it’s relevant to life in general, I think.

Q&A WITH DR. NIGEL BROCKTON


alber tacancer foundat ion.ca spring 2011 33

OLD DRUG, NEW TRICKSDr. Nigel Brockton and his colleagues found that some head-and-neck tumours responded well to traditional therapy, others not so much. They went looking for the reason why. They found that the tumours that were related to infection with HPV (about 40 per cent) were the ones that responded well to standard treatment. So they looked for other differences between the two tumour groups.

They found that the non-HPV-related tumours often featured a protein called carbonic anhydrase IX, or CAIX. It keeps the acidity inside a cancer cell at a manageable level by pumping the acid out of the cell. This acidifi es the environment outside of the cell, which leads to the membranes dissolving and the tumour spreading.

“We found that if you have a high level of this CAIX, you have a poorer prognosis,” says Brockton. But it turns out there is an old class of drugs, CAIX inhibitors that have been used as diuretics and as treatment for alti-tude sickness. “They could potentially be used with existing treatments to stop the tumour from spreading.”

Information like this could lead to more targeted treatment regimens depending on the characteristics of the tumour. Ultimately, says Brockton, doctors might be able to tell from the biopsy at diagnosis whether a full neck dissection is necessary or whether just the primary tumour needs to be excised.

“Even when I graduated I thought I would do marine biology related to cancer. But that meant collecting marine organisms and mushing them up and pouring them on cells, and that didn’t seem that interesting a life for me,” he says with a laugh.

Instead, Brockton took three years off to, as he puts it, “go skiing.” In fact, he broke the British record for speed skiing twice and won an FIS World Cup Race.

Eventually, Brockton decided to head back to higher learning and undertake his Ph.D. He applied for everything he could fi nd related to cancer research. “I realized I was in the position to contribute,” he says, “and that became important.” But he never gave up skiing. After 17 years of racing, Brockton sat out for three seasons when he moved to Canada in 2007. In March of this year he’ll be back at it, racing for the British team (he’s not a Canadian citizen yet) in the World Cup at Sun Peaks in British Columbia.

Now settled in Calgary, Brockton and two colleagues are conducting two prospective studies, one on breast cancer and one on colorectal cancer. The researchers will follow hundreds of patients in each group in an attempt to discover if there are specific factors that impact whether the cancer spreads.

Brockton is excited about the potential benefi ts of the research. Discovering what patients can do after they’ve been diagnosed to improve outcomes could save more lives, in the short term, than discovering what they can do to prevent getting cancer in the fi rst place.

“We know how to reduce about 40 per cent of cancers,” he says, citing the usual don’t smoke, drink less alcohol, get active and eat healthfully. “But look around. A lot of people don’t follow those guidelines. Whereas when someone is diagnosed with cancer, they are pretty receptive to what they can do as an individual to increase their chances.”

The prospective studies are long-term. Colorectal cancer patients will be followed for five to six years and breast cancer patients will be followed for seven to eight years.

In the meantime, Brockton is conducting retrospective studies, looking at Albertans who have been diagnosed and treated in the last 10 years.

“We know their outcomes. We’re asking if there are any characteristics of their tumours that might have predicted their

outcome. And from those characteristics, we hope to be able to predict the disease course of patients diagnosed now and to work out whether there are any targets that are amenable to any kind of therapeutic intervention.”





n November 2008, Barrie Callaway and his wife, Coralie, headed to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. Once there, he weighed in and went through a battery of tests – CT scans, bone scans, blood tests, the usual. At the end, his doctor gave him

a prescription for a new drug – abiraterone – and sent him home.Callaway, a retired teacher, had already lived with prostate cancer since 1998 and had

been through numerous treatments. His fi rst course of treatment was supposed to be a prostatectomy. But doctors discovered on the operating table that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. “In those days,” Callaway recalls, “they didn’t remove the prostate gland if they found that the cancer had spread.” So they stitched him up and in the intervening years he went through surgery, radiation and various types of hormone therapy and chemotherapy. His treatments in the past decade had suppressed the cancer for a few months at a time – even a couple years – but now his oncologist, Dr. Bernie Eigl, had little more to off er. Abiraterone was one of his last options.

Though people with prostate cancer can, like Callaway, live with the disease for years, in 2008 his PSA levels were doubling every six weeks, signalling advancing cancer. Prostate-specifi c antigen is a marker in the blood that helps doctors detect and monitor the cancer. PSA increases with age, but for a healthy 45-year-old, it’s generally below three and for a 75-year-old, below seven. Before he’d gone on the new drug regimen, Callaway’s PSA had rocketed to an alarming 39.7 points.

“I was scared,” Callaway says. “I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve tried these hormone treatments and nothing’s working.’”

A month after starting abiraterone, he went back to the clinic for follow-up tests. “When I phoned up for results,” he recalls, “the nurse said that my PSA was 3.86.” He was pleasantly

Clinical trials offer the chance to test out new treatments. Find out if a trial is right for you

I

BY CRAILLE MAGUIRE GILLIES / ILLUSTRATION BY COLIN SPENCE

TimeTry

TimeATryTO



stunned with the new results: “I thought she’d missed a decimal point.”

There’s another story here. When Barrie Callaway checked into the Tom Baker Cancer Centre that November day two years ago, he was also checking in on his fi rst day as a participant in a Phase III clinical trial. Discovered at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, England, the new drug abiraterone blocks an enzyme that plays a key role in producing testosterone, which drives the growth of prostate tumours.

The drug had gone through Phase I of clinical testing (when a handful of subjects try it to determine if there is clinical effi cacy), and Phase II (when researchers study the eff ectiveness, dosage and safety of the drug on a particular form of cancer in a larger group). Now the drug was ready for Phase III, in which hundreds or possibly thousands of people would take the drug, with researchers comparing outcomes against those of standard treatment,

looking also at side eff ects and costs. This is the last phase of the study before a drug can be produced and marketed.

In Alberta, there are currently more than 550 clinical trials for cancer treatment. Of that number, roughly 100 are open to accrual, which means that new patients can join after the study has started. “Clinical trials have become a standard of care, especially in oncology,” says Dr. Bernie Eigl, medical director of the Alberta Clinical Cancer Research Unit, funded by the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

Trials are diffi cult to fi nd.FALSE. In Alberta, there are more than 150 studies recruiting subjects. Alberta Health Services’ www.alberta.canadiancancertrials.ca lets you search for potential trials based on factors such as the type of cancer and location of the trial. (You can sign up for email alerts about the latest trials). Find trials in other parts of Canada at www.canadiancancertrials.ca.

Patients on trials get a better quality of care.FALSE. “I often have patients who are sad because they didn’t qualify for a trial or we didn’t have a trial to offer them,” says Dr. Bernie Eigl. “It’s important for them to remember that a trial is unproven. They could have derived no benefi t or they could have been harmed by participating.”

Placebos are rarely used. TRUE. Randomized trials often give half the study subjects their old treatments and half the new treatments.

There are many kinds of trials.TRUE. There are trials using everything from gene therapy (manipulating a gene to encourage the body to mount a defence against the cancer cells) to angiogenesis inhibitors (a drug that blocks the creation of new blood vessels to the tumour, effec-tively starving it).

Once a trial has started, it won’t take new patients.FALSE. Many trials are open to accrual, meaning they are still accumulating data and adding subjects.

DEBUNKING THE MYTHS ABOUT CLINICAL TRIALS

“Trials are a vitally important part of improving care, survival and the quality of life for people with cancer.” Dr. Eigl says. “Prostate cancer is undergoing an exciting phase. We’re learning more about what pathways drive the cancer, and new drugs that have been designed to target those pathways are now in the late stages of clinical trial development.” There are new options for a disease that once had very few.

Trials can test the efficacy of hormone therapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, look at combinations of treatments and test new methods of surgery that are less invasive. They can take months or years and, if the trial is successful, patients sometimes continue on the therapy.

Such patient-based research is one of the most important areas of investigation into how to treat forms of cancer, and to learn how cancer progresses. In the abiraterone trial, for instance, scrutiny of the disease process meant doctors discovered that the cancer was mutating in a way they hadn’t seen before. This multi-level approach can lead to understanding how an illness functions and, hopefully, to lowering mortality rates.

Before each trial, researchers assess a patient to see if he or she qualifi es. Health problems, such as other cancers or diseases, might disqualify a potential participant.

For patients, the next step is reviewing the risks. Dr. Eigl sent Callaway home with a lengthy contract to review. Patients are warned of the possibility that drug won’t work or that it will have side eff ects. For example, one man on Callaway’s study had an allergic reaction to the drug and had to withdraw. “It doesn’t matter to me if you choose the trial,” says Dr. Eigl, “but that I have treatment options to off er you.” Most trials off er some of the participants the trial drugs, while others receive standard therapy, which amounts to the current best standard of clinical care for their disease.

There are other benefi ts to participation. Trial subjects are tracked closely, and receive numerous and frequent

“Trials are a vitally important part of improving care, survival and the quality of life for people with cancer.”



blood tests, CTs and bone scans to see if and where cancer is spreading. Progression of the cancer might be noticed earlier. For others, however, a trial will produce no benefi t and may harm, Dr. Eigl says. “The only person who will benefi t from a trial for sure,” he says, “is the person who has cancer down the road.”

A trial can also buy time as researchers develop new treatments. The clinical trial of this new drug has slowed the progression of Callaway’s prostate cancer and his PSA levels today are 1.1 – a fraction of what they were two years ago. But patient and doctor are realistic.

“Cancer mutates over time,” Dr. Eigl says. “At each stage the timeline shortens. It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. The farther down it rolls, the faster it gets.”

Chipper and friendly, Callaway is a glass-half-full kind of guy who has approached his diagnosis and treatment with a positive attitude. He attends meetings for people with prostate cancer, and continues to enjoy retirement. “About fi ve years ago it hit me: you know, there’s no cure for prostate cancer. You might go into remission for a long time, but there’s no cure.” He knows that someday the abiraterone will

stop working and his PSA levels will creep up. “When abiraterone stops working for me,” he says, “I hope there’ll be another trial.”

In the meantime, he’s getting ready to go on another cruise: the Caribbean this time. He’ll head to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre for meds that will last him all 25 days of the trip. Life, he would tell you, goes on. In fact, he says that he and Coralie recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. In the background, his wife corrects him: it was their 45th. “Oops. Well, I’m hoping to be around for the 50th anniversary.”

1. TALK IT UP. Ask your doctor which studies might be right for you, and about risks and benefi ts. If you’re in the pre-symptom stage of cancer, standard treatment might be your fi rst course.

READY FOR A TRIAL?

2. LOOK AROUND.Make your search easier with online trial fi nders. Search www.alberta.canadiancancertrials.cafor potential trials based on factors such as the type of cancer and location of the trial. Find trials in other parts of Canada at www.canadiancancertrials.ca.

3. KNOW THYSELF. What level of risk are you willing to take? A Phase I study, for instance, may have limited impact on your outcome, though it helps the research process. In some trials, two patients will receive the new drug and one will receive a placebo or traditional therapy. Studies have data safety monitoring boards and patients are closely monitored, but studies are inherently experimental.

4. READ THE FINE PRINT. Once you’ve found and qualifi ed for a trial, take the consent form home to review. Ask the trial doctors questions.

5. PLAN YOUR TIME. Studies frequently last several months and include monthly or bi-monthly visits to the clinic for CT and bone scans and other tests. Each study has a pre-determined schedule. A plus is that this means closer monitoring of your cancer. On the fl ip: you might feel like slave to the schedule.

6. EVERYTHING ENDS. The study is over, now what? Some trials, like those for prostate cancer, track patients for years and, if the drug is successful, trial subjects may continue on the treatment as long as it’s benefi cial. If that treatment someday stops working, you can investigate other trials.



hen Krista Rawson runs a marathon she experiences a plethoraof emotions. “There are moments in the race that are fantastic and moments

that are painful, times that are hard and times where you just need to keep moving forward.” But as she describes it, “In the end you usually get to

celebrate your own hard work and energy.” She’s recounting her experience as an ultra-marathon runner (an ultra has a distance longer than the usual 42 kilometres that marks a marathon). But she could easily be talking about her job as a nurse practitioner at the Central Alberta Cancer Centre in Red Deer.

In November 2009, Rawson became the centre’s fi rst nurse practitioner since the centre opened its doors in 1982. (It has been at its current location, adjoining the Red Deer Regional Hospital, since 2005.) The bustling 887-square-metre facility, complete with 10 treatment chairs, fi ve treatment beds and four examining rooms has a catchment population of more than 285,000 from across central Alberta and it provides an growing number of services.

An innovator in her fi eld, Rawson came to the centre with an abundance of knowledge cultivated through her experience at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, where she began her career as an RN. In 2003, after completing her master’s degree in nursing,

WBY STACEY CAREFOOT / PHOTOS BY KELLY REDINGER

Top Job

BY STACEY CAREFOOTSTACEY CAREFOOT / PHOTOS BY KELLY REDINGERKELLY REDINGERKELLY REDINGER

Nurse practitioner Krista Rawson brings energy and enthusiasm to every race, helping patients

navigate their own course




MARATHON EFFORT: Red Deer Nurse practitioner Krista Rawson’s day includes as many as 25 patients, such as Larry Wilton, but she takes time to learn their stories.

Rawson became the Institute’s fi rst nurse practitioner. When she began working with her new designation, Rawson says that staff working with patients who had breast and gastrointestinal cancers expressed the most interest in adding a nurse practitioner to their teams. She added lung cancers to her portfolio in Red Deer.

“I have always believed that nurse practitioners would be benefi cial in cancer care,” says Rawson when recounting her decision to pursue her master’s degree and continue working at the Cross. “It was like, ‘leap and the net will appear,’” she continues. Just over a year and a half ago, Rawson took another leap when she moved to Red Deer and began working at the Central Alberta Cancer Centre.

Edmonton’s loss quickly became Red Deer’s gain. “Krista’s arrival at the centre was like winning money

on a scratch ticket,” says Rawson’s coworker and offi ce-mate Pat Gramlich who has worked at the Red Deercentre for more than 14 years. Others there agree, includ-ing nurse manager Myrna Kelley. “Krista has been a valu-able resource to both patients and staff ,” says Kelley who adds that patients and families are thrilled with the time and attention Rawson devotes to their care plans. “She goes above and beyond to tap into all resources that are available,” says Kelley.

Red Deer patient Rena Vanson was introduced to

Rawson after having already gone through a portion of her journey with breast cancer. “My fi rst appointment in Red Deer was with Dr. Graham and Krista,” says Vanson. “From that appointment on, it was Krista who helped me navigate the many twisty turns of chemo treatment. I’ve been extraordinarily blessed with wonderful health professionals all throughout this journey and she is my shining star.”

After four months under the care of Rawson and the team at the Central Alberta Cancer Centre, Vanson has completed her chemotherapy treatments. She calls Rawson her Obi-Wan Kenobi, comparing her to the fi ctional Star Wars hero. “She knew my fi le right from the start,” says Vanson, “and was able to foresee my questions. Her answers were compassionate but forthright, kind but not patronizing.”

A day on the job for Rawson is a marathon in itself. She walks or rides her bike from home, arriving at work early in the morning. Her commitment to fi tness has made her coworkers more conscious of their own fi tness needs. They see her walking to work in the morning when it’s 30-below or biking in the rain and are inspired to ramp up their own fi tness rou-tines. Once she’s at work, she hits the ground running.

Like most nurse practitioners, Rawson works autonomously in a clinic setting for a por-tion of her day. “Prescribing and diagnosis is part of my job,” says Rawson, “but I like to think of each person as having unique circumstances and stories.”

It’s those stories that connect her to the patients and help her guide them through their treatment process. “There are so many layers to dealing with cancer and I try to touch on all of them,” says Rawson, who uses her buoyant conversational aptitude to learn about the lives of her patients. “I ask them about their hobbies and the things they like to do, I can read about their health issues, I want to get to know them.” No mean feat, given that she sees as many as 25 patients in a day.

She wouldn’t trade a thing: “I have the greatest job in the world.”

40 spring 2011 myleapmagazine.ca


whyIdonate / STORIES OF GIVING


What started as a sports pool amongst friends became a fundraiser after the death of a dadBY DAVID PARKER / PHOTO BY CHRIS TAIT

MOTIVATORThe

FATHER’S DAY: David Bouckhout wishes that his young son could have grown up with grandfather Leo Bouckhout in his life. But the loss of his father motivates David to give.



extended family to donate to the Alberta Cancer Foundation in memory of Leo.A thank-you note from the foundation made David realize that a small group of donors

could raise a significant amount of money. He wondered if he could organize further support.

His wedding to Kelly gave him another opportunity. The couple placed tent cards on each table at the reception. They noted that – in celebration of their joyous day and in remembrance of Leo, who would have loved to have been there – they had made a dona-tion to the Alberta Cancer Foundation. And they invited others to do the same.

David Bouckhout didn’t stop there.A commodity strategist for TD Securities, covering both hard and soft commodities,

David specializes in the energy sector. Generating research and strategy on a variety of commodities for both internal and external clients requires deep concentration and the ability to work intently on risk analytics, marketing and trading, all with a focus on energy derivatives. But he also has a lighter, creative side.

As a young man, David performed with the Calgary Fiddlers and today plays several instruments, including the bass guitar he plays with a hard rock band. He is also a sports enthusiast and had, for a number of years, organized a small pool of friends and fellow sports lovers to bet on the winners of the NCAA March Madness tournament. (In this tournament, nearly 70 American college basketball teams compete for a spot in the semi-fi nals. It’s hugely popular among sports fans, and the subject of many pools.) The winner of David’s pool typically took home a nice cash prize and he wondered if he could promote his annual event as a charity fundraiser, with the winner donating a percentage

of the prize to the Alberta Cancer Foundation.The pool was typically held around the same time as the anni-

versary of Leo’s death, so it was an easy sell and David’s friends received the idea enthusiastically. It began with the 2009 tourna-ment, the happy winner taking 50 per cent of the prize money and donating the other half to the Alberta Cancer Foundation for a tax receipt.

Last year the pool’s enrolment increased dramatically as family and friends and fellow workers at his TD Securities offi ce got caught up in David’s passion to raise funds for cancer

research. The fact that the event was fun helped the cause, and also honoured Leo’s memory.

More than 100 people participated and this year people are already emailing don’t-forget-me pleas to ensure they are included. Requests are coming from out of province and from the United States.

David has set a goal of doubling the entries and raising $5,000 for the Alberta Cancer Foundation this year.

David’s enthusiasm in supporting the Alberta Cancer Foundation has him thinking daily of the blessings he received in sharing his life with his father Leo. Since the birth of David’s son, he hopes to ensure other little boys have grandfathers in the picture.

David Bouckhout’s March Madness basketball pool fundraiser started small. Although it’s still a very personal campaign, it has become a lot of work to administer. He says that if the pool gets much bigger he’ll need help organizing the event. He speculates that an online software tool might facilitate the growing demand.

Right now he’s also looking for other ways to raise money for the Alberta Cancer Foundation. He says that one idea he’d love to try is a Battle of the Bands benefi t concert. The key is to keep the fun in fundraising. He encourages others to take up the cause by planning personal or corporate fundraising events, no matter how small they might be as starters (see page 7 for Five Fundraising Finds), or visit albertacancer.ca to get started.

A METHOD TO HIS MADNESS

eo and David Bouckhout were as close as any father and son could hope to be. So when Leo died of

melanoma (a cancer of the skin) on March 16, 2008, David was devastated. He went through a long peri-od of mourning and questioning. Grief and mourning are typical after a loved one dies. Perhaps less typical is that it created in David a strong desire to do what he could to prevent others from going through the same experience. He wanted to try, in some meaningful way, to help fi nd a cure for cancer while encouraging people to pay attention to the warning signs.

Leo was a successful businessman in the oil and gas sector; his consulting and training assignments took him to more than 20 countries on fi ve continents. Despite living a healthy life, the removal and biopsy of a mole in the early 1990s confi rmed melanoma. Follow-up tests suggested the cancer hadn’t spread to his organs or lymph nodes – that he was in the clear. Life went on and after the fi ve-year mark post cancer had passed, the brush with the disease seemed distant.

In 2007 Leo discovered a lump under his arm, another test confi rmed it was melanoma. Leo took treatment

with interferon, which interferes with the growth and spread of melanoma. He was full of confi dence again.

But after a vacation, he developed a bad chest infec-tion, was admitted to Calgary’s Foothills Hospital where doctors discovered the cancer had metastasized to his lungs. He died four short weeks later – a shock for the close-knit family. And a wake-up call for son David, who now has an annual visit with a dermatologist.

The ordeal of losing a father who was also a close friend also caused David to do some serious thinking about cancer and how he could support research and public awareness about melanoma in particular.

Other cancers are better-known, he says, “and we need to make people aware that melanoma is much more preva-lent than they think.”

Like many other Albertans, David and his family have donated to a number of deserving charities. “They come to the door and it’s hard to pick and choose,” he says. He still contributes to several causes, but he felt it important to direct his donations to a charity that concentrates on research and patient care, as well as raising awareness for the cause.

Not surprising, he chose the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

At Leo’s Celebration of Life at Calgary’s First Alliance Church, his family encouraged friends, colleagues and

The ordeal of losing a father who was also a close friend also caused David to do some

serious thinking about cancer and how he could support research and public

awareness about melanoma in particular.

L

whyIdonate / STORIES OF GIVING



BY JESSE LIPSCOMBE

Keep the competitive fl ame burning as you travel from wellness to fi tness to sport

Trauma and disaster blindside you when they strike, and you’re left to realize that the journey back is longer and harder than you could imagine. You have to accept where you are and take the appropriate steps to progress.

My name is Jesse Lipscombe. I’m a former professional track and fi eld athlete turned health professional. I own Phat Training Inc. in Edmonton and it’s my goal to facilitate active and healthy lifestyles. I’ve seen athletes brought to their knees with illness or injury and subsequently rise to their former level of health. Alternately, there are people who are stuck feeling like a shadow of the athlete they once were. To them I say: Refl ect on the qualities that drew you to sport, the hurdles you had to leap and the naysayers you had to silence. Harness your athletic focus and use it to your advantage.

At some point in your recovery, it’ll stop being rehab and will start being exercise and sport. No matter where you are on that continuum, you need to have the mindset of a champion. With the mind of a champion, you’ll take progressive steps. As you journey back to health, there’ll be pain, doubt and confusion, so focus on the small victories. Consider it a game of snakes and ladders: three steps forward, two steps back, but always progression.

Whether your victories come from deciding that today is better than yesterday, or that you’ll have the ability to do that extra work to get you podium side, you’ll have to lead with your mind before your body can follow. Anyone can approach the way back to health and fi tness with the mind of an athlete. I can offer these tips to others trying to get back to health, fi tness and sport.

Patience. Scaling back is not regression or failure; it’s an awareness of where you are and it gives your body the chance to catch up. Your head might be in the game before your body is ready.

I worked with an athlete once who was battling back after a severe ankle injury. He managed to rehab his body back to about 80 per cent, but then he’d increase the intensity of his workouts and re-injure the ankle. Before we began our program we had the “patience talk.”

We scaled back and worked on aspects of his sport that athletes often ignore. As we focused on things such as fl exibility, ankle and foot stretching and balance, we gave the injury the needed time to heal. But I also noticed that his mood and general well-being changed. Buckets of positivity exuded from him. In the end, he healed and performed at a higher level than ever.

Motion. Athletes often overlook the feel-good endorphins that are released by exercise. But, as illness or injury force you to slow down, the will to even get out of bed can dimin-ish. To get the “feel-good emotion” back, move as much as you can within your limits.

When my clients fi rst get rolling on a rehab or workout program, nothing can stop them. Many clients have lost loads of weight and felt great. However, as time passes, that burning fl ame to work as hard as they did can sputter. It’s important to remember that the workout isn’t that hard; standing up and getting started is. The secret is just move every day.

Meditation. Take the time each day to appreciate where you are. Don’t lament the struggles that lie ahead. Just be.

Somebody brought meditation to my attention a few years back when I was “money chasing.” I was a professional high jumper attempting to make as much money as I could in as short a time as possible. I’d fl y from country to coun-try – sometimes four competitions a week – to compete and cash in as much as possible.This person taught me to take stock of the present and appreciate where I am. I began to learn meditation, enjoying the positive effect it had on my game and my health. So each day, take a few minutes to sit still, and “be” on the journey back to health.

Jesse Lipscombe is president and founder of Phat Training. Check out videos of his recommended exercises to get you started at unlimitedmagazine.com, search “deskercise.”

THE JOURNEY BACK

TRACK A MEETING: You’re never too young or too old to talk motivation and physical activity.


HIDDEN TREASURE: Geocachers use a hand-held GPS to hide, and locate, items all

around the world.


hen Pam Barnaby fi led into the auditorium at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton

with some 300 colleagues one Friday afternoon for what was billed as a stress-reduction seminar, she didn’t have any expectations. But something happened while she was there. “I could feel energy in my hands, and I could feel it radiating into me. I felt lighter, energized,” she recalls. And it wasn’t just her: “I could feel the energy build in the room.”

The seminar leader was Billy Strean, author, University of Alberta professor in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, professional speaker – and certified laughter leader. (Seriously. The World Laughter Tour organization off ers a program to train people to help oth-ers tap into their own wellspring of happiness.) “Laughing is a self-reinforcing behaviour,” says Strean. “It feels good, which encourages you to do it some more.”

The question is: how good? We all know laughing makes us feel better psychologically, but does it also have healing eff ects on our physical selves? Is laughter really the best medicine, even for those facing critical illnesses?

Scientists began to research the connection between the state of the mind and the state of the body after such people as Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams, who brought humour to the hospital, and Norman Cousins shone a spotlight on the possibilities in the 1970s. Cousins, a political activist and journalist affl icted with various ill-nesses throughout his life, believed in the power of laugh-ter to cure, prescribing himself a regimen of comedy fi lms. Ten minutes of belly laughter, he said, brought him at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

Studies since then by various medical researchers, pre-dominantly Dr. William Fry and Loma Linda University’s Dr. Lee Berk and Stanley Tan in California, would seem to back that up. The studies indicate that laughing reduces stress hormones, lowers blood pressure, increases heart rate and oxygen fl ow, boosts the immune system, and triggers the release of endorphins – natural painkillers.

And there’s a signifi cant bonus, as Strean points out: all

How laughter can help heal the body as well as brighten the spirit

W

Crack aBY LIZ CROMPTON

SMILE


HEALTH LOOKS FUNNY: Maybe Groucho Marx was onto something when he quipped: “A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast.”(Billy Strean is in the happy-face T-shirt)


this comes free of cost, free of drugs, and, for the vast majority of people, free of negative side eff ects.

A Ph.D. with a background in sport psychology, Strean considers laughter an exercise, where frequency, intensity and duration all count towards good health. And he thinks laughing in groups is more benefi cial than doing so alone. “In a group, you have laughter, you have joy, you have connection,” says Strean, who outlines his approach in his book The HoHo Dojo: Lighten Up and Love Life Laughing.

He notes that a person deal-ing with a critical illness can view it one of two ways: With feelings of anger, betrayal, denial and/or grief, or with a positive outlook, which some science would seem to show taps into the body’s healing

powers. And having a genuine, belly-shaking laugh is an obvious place to start feeling more positive. “Laughter is the ambassador to all the positive emotions,” Strean says, paraphrasing Cousins.

Lana Shepherd, an occupational therapist, has been a laughter yoga leader in Edmonton for the past year. (Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician, founded the laugh-ter yoga club movement in 1995; in these, laughter is built through a series of exercises, not by reaction to humour.) Shepherd says she’s witnessed some positive results in the two places she leads regularly: The Sturgeon Hospital program for adults and the Good Samaritan Society Millwoods Care Centre, a long-term residence where most of the participants are in wheelchairs and some are also on oxygen. That doesn’t get in the way of a good laugh, says Shepherd.

The participants’ reviews are positive. “They’ve given me feedback about how much better they feel after a session of laughter yoga.”

Having a genuine, belly-shaking laugh is an obvious place to start feeling more positive.

Billy Strean runs laughter sessions throughout Edmonton, both in regular programs, such as the laughter club at the University of Alberta, and at the invitation of organizations. For up-to-date information on current and upcoming sessions, and for more information in general, visit http://billystrean.com/

To fi nd out more about laughter yoga, visit the site of the founder, Dr. Madan Kataria: www.laughteryoga.org

To learn more about laughter clubs or tofi nd ones in Alberta, see www.laughterclubs.com

LAUGH IT UP

Barnaby, too, is hoping to help cancer patients at the Cross Cancer Institute feel better within the next few months. She’d led a laughter session with about 100 staff and she saw the transformation, as with other groups she’s worked with: “That look of almost defensiveness is gone, and it’s replaced by one of almost pure joy,” she recalls. “Without fail, they feel better, rejuvenated, happier.”

And who, no matter their health situation, can frown upon feeling better?



Bruce Horak’s character “Cancer” is part Cat in the Hat, part Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator. He’s scar y, but it helps to point and laugh

BY MIFI PURVIS / PHOTOS BY TRUDI LEE PHOTOGRAPHY



n his fi ve-star performance of This Is Cancer at the 2010 Edmonton International Fringe Festival in August, former Calgarian Bruce Horak donned Joker-like makeup and a bow-tie to become a guy named

Cancer and woo the sold-out crowd. It turns out that Cancer loves us. It’s a toxic love, for sure, but he really cares for us – and he’s an attention junkie.

LEAP: What led to the development of Cancer, the character?

Horak: I had a bouffon clown character, a kind of grotesque anti-clown, called “Foof.” He was a demon and I played him at cabarets, trying to convince audience mem-bers to let him drag one of them to hell. I showed up at Toronto’s Lunacy Cabaret one night and I was approached by another performer who felt my character’s name was too similar to hers, which had a much longer history. That day I played much the same show, only I called myself “Cancer” and tried to convince audience members to take me home. The change was electric. Later we developed a 75-minute show.

LEAP: In your show, you regularly engage audience members. At one point in your Edmonton show, you singled out a guy and announced that you – Cancer – were going home with him. He said later that, at that moment, he went cold. Then you challenged him to a fi ght with foam pool noodles, so he could “beat Cancer.” Does everyone fi nd Cancer funny?

Horak: Once I excerpted that part of the show for a bur-lesque night. I had this tipsy 21-year-old tottering in high heels on stage, swatting at me with the noodle. Then a lady runs up, grabs the noodle from the girl and everyone’s won-dering why. She pulls off her wig and screams, “You know why? That’s why, you son of a bitch!” and starts hitting me as hard as she can. After the show, co-creator and director

I Rebecca Northan came to get me backstage and said “Uh, Bruce, you’d better come out. That lady is still here and she’s crying.” I sat down with her and she thanked me – hugged me – told me it was the fi rst time she’d laughed at can-cer. Then this guy walks over and punches me in the head, saying, “I have cancer and that wasn’t funny.” But the lady said to me afterwards, “That man was the one who needed to hit you with a noodle.” She was right; it becomes the effi gy that’s important.

LEAP: Does the fact that you had bilateral retinoblastoma, a kind of cancer of the eye, as a baby give you some cred to play Cancer?

Horak: I think so; it lets the audience be more responsive. I had one eye removed and I have about nine per cent vision in my other eye. The addition of the voice recordings of my mother and father to the show help, too. I made the tape of my father when we were writing his obituary in Calgary shortly before he died in 2003. He had had retinoblastoma in one eye as a child, too, and he later developed oesophageal cancer.

LEAP: Does the higher incidence of second cancers in people who’ve had retinoblastoma as children scare you?

Horak: My mentor [and fellow clown], Mike Kennard, taught me that you have to go where the fear is, to shine a fl ashlight on what scares you. We’re all dying – I just hope that I could handle it as gracefully as my dad did. I talked to a woman once who had Stage IV cancer. She told me that if I’d called her up for a noodle fi ght, she would have danced with me instead, because that was her experience with cancer – it was a dance.

Bruce Horak’s award-winning stage show, This Is Cancer, returns to the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in 2011.

If you’d like your chance to wallop Cancer, or at least to point at him, hurl insults and laugh, Horak and partner Rebecca Northan, visit www.thisiscancer.com for a listing of upcoming performances.

LAUGH AT THE EFFIGY


BY MIFI PURVIS

A forward-thinking Charitable Assistance Fund, paid for by City of Edmonton employees, fund home-grown, cutting-edge science

A strategic manager with the City of Edmonton, Brenda Walukalso brings her expertise to her volunteer position as Chair of the Board of The Edmonton Civic Employees Charitable Assistance Fund. There, she and volunteers from nine local unions repre-senting nearly 10,000 employees (including fi refi ghters, transit worker and others) administer a fund whose mandate includes promoting healthy communities in the Edmonton area.

The Charitable Assistance Fund became involved with the Alberta Cancer Foundation in 2000, when it donated $50,000 towards IGAR (image-guided adaptive radiotherapy), a program led by Dr. Gino Fallone, director of medical physics at the Cross Cancer Institute. IGAR uses a combination of CT scanning, MRI, and PET imaging to map a patient’s cancer as accurately as pos-sible. Radiologists then design a therapy, using a helical tomo-therapy unit to deliver radiation that follows the tumour edges accurately, leaving healthy tissue undamaged.

Building on the success of the IGAR, Dr. Fallone and the Alberta Cancer Foundation made another presentation to the Charitable Assistance Fund. “They approached us in 2007 or 2008,” says Waluk. “That’s when we started supporting the LINAC program.” The LINAC-MR program is a prototype being developed by Dr. Fallone, building on his previous work. “Dr. Fallone explained it to us,” Waluk says. “The new machine will deliver accurate doses of radiation and it’s much easier on the patient. It might be able to do in two or three doses what is cur-rently done in 10 or 12.” The Charitable Assistance Fund awarded the project $485,000.

“We are so proud to be associated with this project,” she says. “We have these amazing scientists right here in Alberta, doing cutting-edge things. We have to support them.”

48 spring 2011 myleapmagazine .ca

10,000-PEOPLE STRONGThe Edmonton Civic Employees Charitable Assistance Fund represents 10,000 people in and around Edmonton. The Fund’s generous support for Dr. Fallone’s work means that their families, their neighbours and community members benefi t from a higher level of cancer care. The Fund represents employees in the following unions:• Amalgamated Transit Union #569 • CUPE Local #30• Edmonton Firefi ghters Union #209• City of Edmonton Management Association• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers #1007• United Nurses of Alberta Local #196• Communication, Energy and Paper Workers Local #829• Association of Managers and Non-Union Affi liates - Alberta Health Services• Edmonton Police Service Sr. Offi cers Association

HELP FROM HOME


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Make this a weekend you’ll never forget. A Weekend to remember those we have lost, and celebrating the lives we are saving each day. A Weekend creating hope for the future as we journey together towards the ultimate goal: a cure for all women’s cancers.

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Weekend to End Women’s Cancers™ benefi ting the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Be part of our groundbreaking movement in the quest to end breast and gynecologic cancers.

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INSPIRING INDIVIDUALS

MOVING PICTURES: Painter Liz Sullivan with a selection of her work, inspired by her ride.

50 spring 2011

Landscape in MotionThe summer sun warmed the asphalt in front of Liz Sullivan and her husband, Richard Smith, as they pedalled out of Spruce Meadows, south of Calgary towards the foothills last June. Water at the ready, the pair could feel their muscles working overtime. Enthusiastic recreational cyclists, they had never before opted to ride a distance such as this. By the time they fi nished, they had logged 200-plus kilometres in support of the 2010 Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer, benefi ting the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

“The energy of the event was so moving,” says Sullivan, a Calgary artist who has worked out of her Inglewood studio for 10 years. Cyclists rode all day, then stopped to camp at Chain Lakes Provincial Park to enjoy some evening enter-tainment and food before a night’s rest. “I couldn’t believe it,” Sullivan recalls. “We were actually keen to get back on the bikes on the second morning.” Her team of fi ve, the Old Spokes, raised more than $20,000 over the weekend.

“The ride was amazing and inspirational,” she says. “So much so that I’m sharing the experience of the colour and feeling through paint on canvas.” She has started a series of her iconic paintings based on her experience with the Ride. Known for her landscapes, Sullivan’s new series is shot through with motion. Images depict a single cyclist making it through an arduous stretch, a tough climb and vista with dozens of cyclists. “I wanted to explore ideas like

perseverance, an uphill climb and strength in numbers,” she says. She was especially moved by how many cyclists on the race sported yellow fl ags, indicating their status as people who had faced cancer.

Sullivan anticipates as many as 25 paintings in the group by the time she’s done. She’s looking for opportunities to show the series. “Of the paintings that sell in a non-gallery space,” she says, “I’ll donate 50 per cent of the profi ts to the Alberta Cancer Foundation.”

Proceeds from the Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer support the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary, the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, and 15 other community cancer centres across the province. The money is used to support top-level cancer research and scholarship as well as front-line patient care. – Mifi Purvis

To fi nd out more about Liz Sullivan’s paintings, see http://lizsullivanart.com. For more about the 2011 Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer (held this year on June 25-26), visit www.conquercancer.ca.


The Weekend to End Women’s Cancers is a trademark of Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, used under license; Shoppers Drug Mart/PHARMAPRIX is a registered trademark of 911979 Alberta Ltd., used under license.

Register to Walk endcancer.ca 877.394.WALK (9255)

Make this Weekend matter!

Make this a weekend you’ll never forget. A Weekend to remember those we have lost, and celebrating the lives we are saving each day. A Weekend creating hope for the future as we journey together towards the ultimate goal: a cure for all women’s cancers.

This is the Shoppers Drug Mart®

Weekend to End Women’s Cancers™ benefi ting the Alberta Cancer Foundation. Be part of our groundbreaking movement in the quest to end breast and gynecologic cancers.

Join this amazing journey today!

“To see all the people out there supporting research that saved my life―it’s truly amazing. I could never be more thankful.” Lorna Mutzbauer, Weekend Walker

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Gear up for The Ride of a lifetime!Join The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting the Alberta Cancer Foundation, a fully-supported, 2-day cycling adventure along the majestic Rockies. Thousands of Riders of all abilities will unite to fund breakthrough research to conquer cancer – a disease that affects 1 in 2 Albertans. Space is limited, so be sure to secure your spot in history TODAY!

CONQUERCANCER.CA [888] 624-BIKE [2453]

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