Actor Jeff Bridges, hospitalized five weeks, beats both Covid and lymphoma at virtually same time

Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges says his getting Covid made his lymph-system cancer seem like "a piece of cake."

According to recent online HuffPost story by Mary Papenfuss, Bridges — who survived has both the virus and the lymphoma, which is now in remission — thought he was "gettin' close to the pearly gates."

Jeff Bridges, wife and Oscar

The 71-year-old thespian said on his handwritten blog that he contracted the coronavirus during his cancer treatments, which ultimately — and dramatically — shrunk a 9x12-inch tumor "to the size of a marble."

The pandemic, Papenfuss' article states, caused him "moments of tremendous pain" causing him to cry out  "throughout  the night."

Extra oxygen reportedly was necessary for the actor to just walk around. The HuffPost story quotes Bridges as saying the sound of reminded him "of Darth Vader."

Covid-19, the HuffPost piece quotes the mid-September Bridges website post, "kicked my ass pretty good, but I'm double vaccinated and feeling much better." 

The vaccine, he suggested, was linked to his speedy improvement, with all his treatments now being "in the rearview mirror."

Bridges, who won the best actor Oscar in 2010 for "Crazy Heart" and had been nominated for half a dozen other Academy Awards, had been hospitalized for five weeks, he wrote, because his immune system was "shot from chemo."

His wife, Susan Geston, not incidentally, also was hospitalized — although only for five days — because she contracted Covid.

Bridges was elated, he indicated, to be released in time to walk Hayley, his daughter, down the aisle for her wedding and to dance with her "without oxygen."

More information about disease treatments can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Actor Stanley Tucci says he overcame tongue cancer, after long treatments, 3 years ago

Screen and television star Stanley Tucci has disclosed —- three years after the fact —— that he beat cancer following long, difficult treatments. 

The tumor was at the base of his tongue and originally "too big to operate" on.

Stanley Tucci

An online story by Cole Delbyck in yesterday's Huffpost maintains that the 60-year-old Tucci had undergone intensive treatments for approximately half a year — including chemotherapy and high-dose radiation that apparently killed the malignancy and made it unlikely that it could return.

Delbyck's story indicates that Tucci feels "much older than I did before I was sick. But you still want to get ahead and get things done.”

The actor's disclosure, which appeared in Vera magazine last week, indicates that cancer "makes you more afraid and less afraid at the same time.”

Tucci's now the star of his eponymous CNN food-and-travel series, "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy," after having honed his culinary skills and developed a following. The show, which earned multiple Emmy Award nominations, has been renewed for a second season.

Tucci's first wife, Kate Spath-Tucci, died of breast cancer in 2009 at age 47. Afterwards, he vowed that he'd never go through chemo and radiation because watching "her go through those treatments for years was horrible," he told Delbyck.

Clearly, he changed his mind.

The Huffpost article points out that he had also been "particularly concerned with how his diagnosis would affect his five children.” The actor has three children from his first marriage and shares a son and daughter with his current wife, Felicity Blunt, sister of his 'Devil Wears Prada' co-star Emily Blunt.

Delbyck's piece quotes the actor as saying that the "kids were great, but it was hard for them. I had a feeding tube for six months. I could barely make it to the twins' high school graduation."

Earlier this year, the article notes, Tucci spoke in an "CBS Sunday Morning" interview about his late wife and noted that "you never stop grieving. It's still hard. And it will always be hard [but she] would never want any of us to ever wallow intuit grief and let it take over our lives. She would never want that. She wasn't like that."

Tucci in recent years has appeared in three films, including the gay romance, "Supernova," in which he co-starred with Colin Firth as a man battling early onset dementia.

Additional information about diseases and their treatments can be found in “Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer,” a book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Minorities feel cast aside by health system

Black women's fatality rate from breast cancer greatly exceeds that of whites, HuffPost story says

Black women are 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than whites, especially in the South.

That was the conclusion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a recent story by Max Blau on the HuffPost website.

"Louisiana and Mississippi have the highest racial disparities in breast cancer mortality," Blau's piece quotes the American Cancer Society, with the excess death rate among black women being more than 60%.

But Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee all have rates above 40%.

One reason, the HuffPost article says, "is that researchers haven't developed advanced treatments for a series of aggressive [and hard to treat] tumors — known as triple-negative breast cancer — that black women are more likely to get. Another is that recent advancements in cancer therapies for other kinds of tumors have yet to be fully proven in minorities, in part because of the lack of diversity in…clinical trials."

Moreover, the story contends, "black women have described feeling cast aside by a health system of doctors, nurses and support groups that rarely look like them; and face further obstacles outside labs and hospitals — including lack of access to jobs, transit and health insurance. This marginalization of black women is especially prevalent in the South."

Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice

Blau quotes Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, as expressing the hope that "we move beyond the disparities and put our dollars toward solutions that not only close the gaps but lead to healing equity."

The writer also notes that, at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research's annual conference, Dr. Shafiq Khan, a biological sciences professor at Clark Atlanta University, maintained that "treatments developed and approved are disproportionately tested on white people."

More information on triple-negative research can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

'Triple negative breast cancer' treatment studied

African scholarship student is working on potential cure for a subtype of cancer for blacks 

A Sierra Leonean student reportedly is developing an alternative breast cancer treatment for black women.

Sandra Musujusu

According to a recent story by Taryn Finley on the Huffpost website, the research of Sandra Musujusu, a student at the African University of Science and Technology in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, is focusing on "triple negative breast cancer, which is actually the aggressive subtype of breast cancer that is common with women from African ancestry."

The Huffpost piece references an article in the Nigerian Tribune that reported the research centering on "the development of biodegradable polymers for treatment of breast cancer."

A variety of African publications have been sanguine about Musujusu's research potentially leading to a cure.

She apparently is using macro molecular science as her basic tool.

Breast cancer, the Huffpost story indicated, "is the most commonly diagnosed caner among women around the world. In 2012, there were 1.7 million new cases worldwide, according to World Cancer Research Fund International."

An online article on the Rollingout website says that "about 1 in 8 U.S. women "will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, according to breastcancer.org."

The National Cancer Institute has reported that approximately 1,211,690 black people have a history of cancer.

In the United States alone, the Huffpost story notes, "black women with breast cancer have the highest mortality rate than any other race, according to the Susan G. Women Foundation."

And the National Cancer Institute has said approximately 1,211,690 black people have a history of cancer.

Musujusu is a World Bank scholarship student.

More information about breast cancer and black women can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.