Wednesday, February 20, 2019

HBCU Should Go To College

Hello and welcome to my first Action Project for my humanities course, Forbidden Books. In Forbidden Books, we talked about the censorship of books, the reason books get banned. We also discussed current censorship topics such as the Gucci blackface scandal and the Nike Arabic scandal. We read the book Fahrenheit 451 and we just ended our first unit called Politics. Socrates was a very prolific philosopher who never wrote any of his teachings down. We read The Apology which is the manifesto that Socrates wrote to his accusers. In this manifesto, Socrates held a hypothetical Socratic dialogue with one of his accusers. Socratic dialogue is when one person's questions another with a questionable opinion until they change their statement. Socrative dialogues can be dangerous because it challenges the government and can expose secrets.
My partner GR and I did a Socratic dialogue about Historically Black Colleges and Universities vs Primarily White Institutions. We discussed why a person wouldn’t want to go to an HBCU and the assumptions of why some people may think PWIs are “better”. We chose this topic because it's something we talk about very often. Howard is my dream college and GR wants to go to Brown.
 
HBCU Need To Go To College from GCE Lab School on Vimeo.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Marie | An Exploration and Profile of Breast Cancer

Hello and welcome to my first AP for my STEAM course, Disease. In Disease, we have talked about blood, cancer, and body systems. In a few assignments, we went over cancer and how it affects the body, why it happens and some of the options that people seek to treat it. This AP was very challenging for me. I wanted to create an informative patient profile while also not making it sound cold or impersonal. In this AP, we will be learning about the breast cancer survivor Marie and her experience. We will be going over her surgeries, aftercare, risks, and symptoms.

Marie is a 42-year-old white woman who lives with her husband and foster children in Cleveland. Marie never had any children of her own. When giving herself a breast exam, our patient noticed a lump in her breast and new dimpling. According to Marie, “At first, that didn’t worry me because my mother had a lump in her breast that was benign.” (benign means that it is not cancerous) Four months later, however, Marie noticed a discharge from her nipple. “This is what worried me; that was what wasn’t normal.” Following this, she went to her primary care physician to get a mammogram. A mammogram uses x-rays to examine the breast for lumps. Marie was not very active and had a history of breast cancer in her family; these factors heightened her risk for breast cancer.

After many tests, Marie was referred to get a single mastectomy which is a surgery in which the breast tissue is removed. The skin remained intact, but they were not able to save Marie’s nipple. Before the surgery, Marie prepared by buying a special pillow and special sweatshirts with pockets that hold the drains (tubes connected to pouches that are placed in during surgery to prevent the buildup of fluid.) “I searched frantically for someone to tell me how this was going to go. The doctors gave me medical advice but weren't able to give me first-hand insight.”
Marie’s surgery was life-saving as well as life-changing.“I think, as a woman, so much pressure is put on you to look feminine. I felt almost guilty that I was giving away one of the most feminine aspects of my body.” Marie says that she went through a slight depression over the loss of her breast.

Breast cancer is a disease that affects mostly women ages 40 and up. 12 percent of women (all ages) get breast cancer and 1 percent of men get breast cancer. This disease can affect the breast tissue, lungs, liver, and lymph nodes by spreading into the bloodstream and attacking the cells. Cancer occurs when cells in the body don’t shut off their reproduction function. In the instance of breast cancer, this affects cells in the breast. Symptoms of breast cancer are redness and tenderness of the breast, discharge from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, and dimpling of the breast.

There are 3 main treatments of all cancers; radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery. The surgeries we discussed earlier are broken down from breast-conserving to complete removal. Complete removal is necessary when the whole breast is affected with cancer and there aren’t just one or two lumps to remove. There are breast-conserving surgeries called lumpectomy (where only the cancerous lump is removed) and partial mastectomy (where part of the breast is removed).

Some risk factors of breast cancer are being overweight, starting your period before the age of 12 or starting menopause after the age of 55 these factors both producing high amounts of estrogen, smoking, alcohol consumption, and not having children before 40. Marie was put at risk because of her family's history with cancer and also some of her lifestyle choices.

Breast cancer has a major impact on the body of the person who affects the disease. Below you will see a diagram of the affected lymph nodes, liver, lungs and breast tissue.

     TN Breast Cancer Diagram 2019





Citations
“Breast Cancer Surgery.” American Cancer Society, Feb 13
“CDC - What Are the Risk Factors for Breast Cancer?” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
“Breast Cancer Foundation.” Susan G. Komen®,

Frontiers

 Hello and welcome to my final action project for my STEAM class Frontiers. In this action project, we were asked to create a conference pos...