Chemo

A small study focused on the big question of whether intravenous Vitamin C fights cancer has yielded "somewhat encouraging findings," some Thomas Jefferson University researchers conclude. Many alternative medicine practitioners are firmly convinced that ascorbic acid infusions work, based on anecdotal cases of remissions and cures. But the evidence remains inconclusive. In the new study, nine patients with advanced pancreatic cancer received intravenous C plus two standard chemotherapy drugs for eight weeks.

DEAR ABBY: I have a close friend, "Lindy," who is dying from liver cancer. She could no longer eat or drink even before the chemo was started, and she sleeps most of the time. The chemo has done nothing more for her than make her lose her hair. Lindy is adamant that she'll beat the cancer. To that end, she wants nothing "negative" passed on to outsiders, including her relatives, who live eight hours away. She has no family here except her boyfriend, whom she won't allow to talk to her doctor.

Somewhere between a cancer patient's first visit to Berks Hematology Oncology Associates and the time it takes to become a second home, three things become etched onto the heart. The compassion of the staff. The grueling ordeal that is chemotherapy. The photos lining the treatment center's walls. One of the 80 staff members is David Lu, who has spent 4 1/2 years with this private practice within Reading Hospital's Regional Cancer Center. He was born in China 54 years ago, and was in medical school there when his father was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

Will Adams said he felt funny and a bit uncomfortable, as if the eyes of the city were on him. The 19-year-old Imhotep Charter graduate was only shooting some hoops last night with Marreese Speights of the 76ers, in front of a few friends and family - and three television news cameras. Speights read a Jan. 17 Inquirer column by Buzz Bissinger challenging any member of the Sixers to spend some time on the court with Adams. Inspired by Adams' story, Speights asked to be the one. Adams, who is headed to Towson University on a scholarship, was more than happy to make time for Speights.

As a professor of health and exercise science, Leslie Spencer practiced what she preached. She watched her diet. She ran and lifted weights and kettlebells. As she neared her mid-40s, she entered a phase of midlife reckoning. Her life felt heavy with responsibility, and she missed the excitement and spontaneity of youth. Two of her students at Rowan University were helping her train with weights, and she began flirting with the idea of bodybuilding, of displaying her increasingly toned figure in a contest.

My friend Nancy began her last adventure when the doctors at an upstate New York hospital told her there was no way she could get on a plane to go home to Los Angeles (the altitude would kill her) and proposed to transfer her to a New York City hospital for surgery. She decided to rent an RV. Her daughter, who was with her, called her brothers back in Los Angeles. They got on the red-eye, and they all met up at Hertz. They stopped at Nancy's childhood house in New Jersey. They ate prime rib at Charlie Brown's in Pennsylvania.

Much as he had overwhelmed Indians hitters all afternoon, Mike Mussina's record-setting day was overwhelmed by the subsequent theatrics of Game 3 yesterday. The Baltimore ace was virtually unhittable, striking out a league championship series-record 15 Indians in seven innings, two shy of Bob Gibson's all-time postseason record. "He might be the best pitcher in our league right now," Indians manager Mike Hargrove said. Mussina's fastball was clocked consistently in the low to mid-90s, and he had enough confidence in his breaking pitches to throw a few knuckle-curves on 3-2 counts.

?Question: I'm in the early stages of a long-distance relationship. We see each other as many weekends as possible. Whenever he visits me, I clear my calendar from Friday to Sunday. When I visit him, I can't help but feel like I'm intruding on his life. I think this has to do with the fact that we haven't been together very long. I feel awkward tagging along, but I feel even worse sitting alone in his apartment while he honors prior commitments (he has a part-time job and is also on a casual sports team)

Through Oct. 17, Philly.com and The Inquirer will mark breast cancer awareness month by publishing a profile a day of transformative moments reported by patients. The series will culminate in a special Philly.com/Inquirer/Daily News section on Oct. 18, and can be viewed at www.philly.com/breastcancer . Dawn Capone crashed into a tractor-trailer parked on I-95 and driven by, she says, "a man with a huge criminal record who was high. " The accident nearly killed her, but it also might have saved her life.

Through Oct. 17, Philly.com/health and The Inquirer will mark breast cancer awareness month by publishing a profile a day of transformative moments reported by patients. The series will culminate in a special Philly.com/Inquirer/Daily News section Oct. 18 and can be viewed at www.philly.com/breastcancer . "I remember the day that my phone rang," said Caryn Kaplan of Langhorne, "an ordinary workday. I learned that my breast cancer had returned and metastasized to my liver and bones.