Doctors Try To Put Pain In Perspective

CHICAGO -- Susan Leonard's rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer and treatment left her with swelling all over her body, nerve damage and loss of her hair, fingernails and toenails. Her severe pain necessitated medication that made her sleep 12 hours a day. Leonard couldn't function at work and couldn't fit into her clothes. "I wanted to be lazy and hide. You don't want people to see your sadness and your crying," she said. "The physical pain turns your emotional life into turmoil." Patients like Leonard drive home to physicians that there's more to treating cancer than surgically removing a tumor or pumping chemotherapy drugs into veins. Quality of life cannot be ignored, if for no other reason than it directly affects...