The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Blog

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week

communityreply@lls.org — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:39:29 GMT

Ask around and you'll learn that leukemia is generally thought of as a childhood disease. A lot of people don't realize that many more adults than children develop leukemia and other blood cancers. What may be even more surprising to learn is how many people diagnosed with leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma are young adults.

Yes, there's a population of young adults out there who have lives that include (alongside getting an education, dating, making career choices, getting married, having babies) chemo and radiation therapy, stem cell transplants, bone marrow biopsies and hair loss. A.K.A. life on the road to surviving cancer.

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week is raising awareness about the impact of cancer on young adults. Vital Options, a support and advocacy organization devoted to young adults with cancer, launched this annual event in April 2003. Since then, organizations like The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) have partnered with Vital Options to keep spreading the word.

If you are a young adult with a blood cancer, we encourage you to take advantage of our many online resources including:

LLS Blood Cancer Discussion Boards - Connect with your peers for valuable input and support.
RSS News Feeds and Podcasts - Get news and audio on a daily basis in your RSS reader.
National Education Programs - Register online for free telephone education programs where you'll have the opportunity to ask questions of our guest speakers. We also have an extensive archive of past programs in this area of our website.
Free Materials - Our materials range from information on the different blood cancers, to ways that you can cope with a blood cancer diagnosis. They are free to download or order.
eNewsletters - Subscribe to any or all of our monthly eNewsletters containing valuable news and updates.
Search for Cutting-Edge Research - Make sure you're exploring all of your treatment options by taking advantage of this online resource.
Information Resource Center - Chat online or email an information specialist who can put you in touch with even more information and support and help you find out about cutting-edge research.

Want to get involved? Learn about our different events and ways to volunteer through our How to Help section on www.LLS.org.

Happy Birthday to the Blog!

communityreply@lls.org — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:40:19 GMT

One year ago this month a dream was put into reality when The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Blog was launched into cyberspace. A blog can mean many things to many people and organizations, but it was our hope to bring a unique perspective with helpful news and tips to patients, families, survivors and medical professionals dealing with the ups and downs of blood cancer.

40-plus posts later we think that we have brought you a variety of information that we think have been both interesting and informative. We have our own favorites, but here are a few of your favorite blog posts from the last year.

Five ways to cope with a blood cancer diagnosis – Our most popular post, this one goes straight to the heart of the matter – how do you even deal with being told you have cancer?

September is Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma Awareness Month – This post highlighted current statistics for the blood cancers, as well as shared how to bring about more awareness for these diseases.

Cleared for takeoff – “The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Blog” launches! – This is even one of our favorites because it is our very first post.

Do the costs of some cancer medications outweigh the benefits? – An interesting question posed by our Public Policy team that was answered with some thoughtful comments.

Guest Post from Ronni Gordon, Leukemia Survivor, Cancer Blogger, and Reporter – A blogger after our own hearts, Ronni shared why the internet is an important aspect of one’s cancer journey.

Are there any particular topics you would like to see covered in this space in the blog’s second year?

A couple of quick tips to ensure you are getting the most out of our blog:

If you want to comment on something we’ve written here, you will need to first register for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Community.
Want to know when there is a new blog post? Follow us by utilizing our RSS feed. Learn more about RSS on our LLS News Feeds and Podcasts page (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Seven (yes, seven!) new podcast feeds

communityreply@lls.org — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:13:31 GMT

We sponsor a lot of very interesting teleconferences, but they usually take place on a weekday in the middle of a day. This means that many people who are at work or busy doing something else are not able to listen to these live events. Luckily we have our telephone education programs archived on our website, and additionally we have several podcast feeds.

Up until just a few days ago we had three podcast feeds:

Blood CancerCAST – all of our teleconferences
CML LinksCAST – Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia teleconferences
Lymphoma LinksCAST – Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma teleconferences

We just added seven more podcast feeds to make it easier for people to listen to the teleconferences they are interested in. Here’s a list of our new feeds:

AML PathwaysCAST – Acute Myelogenous Leukemia teleconferences
Childhood CancersCAST – teleconferences related to the childhood cancers
CLL LinksCAST – Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia teleconferences
MDS CAST – Myelodysplastic Syndrome teleconferences
Myeloma OutlookCAST – Myeloma teleconferences
Non-Hodgkin LymphomaCAST – Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma teleconferences
SurvivorshipCAST – teleconferences related to practical information for those living with the blood cancers

Okay – so a lot of people may not know what RSS or podcasts are. I’ll try to explain.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has been around for quite a while (since about 1999), but it hasn’t really taken off until the last few years. Personally, I didn’t really start to utilize it myself until a couple of years ago, but now I am taking advantage of it on almost a daily basis.

RSS allows you to read content from all of your favorite websites in one place. Do you find that you don’t have time to visit all of those websites on a daily basis, but you still want to read their content? The solution is to create an account with an aggregation service like Google Reader or Newsgator, then add your favorite website’s feed to the aggregator. At this point those websites syndicate their information to you.

A podcast feed acts the same way, except instead of text-based content, websites (like ours) can syndicate their digital media files (like teleconferences) to you. With our podcast feeds you’ll always stay up to date when there is a new teleconference, making it so you have less of a chance to miss that important and informative information.

Learn more about our new feeds and RSS on our LLS News Feeds and Podcasts page.