topic Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer in Community Chat

Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 17:34:07 GMT

I got an email from a friend that another legal secretary has cancer.

I worked in a one stop light town that is also the country seat. 99% of the law firms are one attorney/owner with 1, sometimes 2, secretaries.

I counted all the secretaries from when I started in the early 90s to now. It came to 28 legal secretaries and I know and dealt with all of them up to my retirement in 2015.

Of the 28 women 7 have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years. 3 have died.

I'm told this county has a high incident of cancer. I guess they are right. I also know 4 people who have had a colostomy, my DH was one of them. I dare say most folks don't personally know one.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

skatting44 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:06:54 GMT

Is the water supply contaminated or is the air contaminated by factories ???

Stress can have a very negative impact on one's body . Can imagine that it could be a very stressful job meeting deadlines and working over time .

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

Suzeecat — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:10:53 GMT

Do the legal secretaries seem to have a higher incidence of cancer diagnoses than the general public in that county? That's certainly alarming and I wonder what the connection is?

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:21:42 GMT

@skatting44 A lot of people have individual wells on their property. Some boroughs do have their own water supply.

There are no major factories in the county. A lot of people work in nearby NY state or travel to neighboring PA counties for work.

Yes, the job could be stressful. During weeks when I was tearing my hair out I joked that if stress really killed I'd be dead on the floor.

The youngest secretary was in her 30s, the oldest in her 70s.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

bikerbabe — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:26:09 GMT

More than 1/3 of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, with most common in middle age to 70s. My question would be: Is there a certain type of cancer that is most common locally and is it different from the national average?

I’m sorry about your friends. 💕

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:26:37 GMT

@Suzeecat I don't know the stats. I just find it odd that so many in the same profession got sick.

It is not like a big city with dozens and dozens of law firms where you might have hundreds of secretaries.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 18:34:18 GMT

@bikerbabe The secretaries were 4 with blood cancer, either leukemia or non-Hodgkins, 1 with breast, 1 with lung and the most recent, brain, I'm told she is terminal.

2 of the leukemias and the breast cancer all worked in the same office.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

Tinkrbl44 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 19:03:40 GMT

@CrazyKittyLvr2 wrote:
I got an email from a friend that another legal secretary has cancer.

I worked in a one stop light town that is also the country seat. 99% of the law firms are one attorney/owner with 1, sometimes 2, secretaries.

I counted all the secretaries from when I started in the early 90s to now. It came to 28 legal secretaries and I know and dealt with all of them up to my retirement in 2015.

Of the 28 women 7 have been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years. 3 have died.

I'm told this county has a high incident of cancer. I guess they are right. I also know 4 people who have had a colostomy, my DH was one of them. I dare say most folks don't personally know one.

@CrazyKittyLvr2

Okay, that's really weird ........ what about incidence of cancer with the attorneys?

The first thing I thought of was if these practices were all in one office building, but it sounds like that isn't the case. So the building materials causing the problem seems unlikely.

What is unique to what legal secretaries do, as opposed to other secretaries in other professions?

My best guess is that it could be office supplies that are unique to the legal profession ... somehow contaminated in the vendors' warehouse.

Has this caught the attention of any investigative reporters in that area?

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 19:15:36 GMT

@Tinkrbl44 I can only think of one attorney that had cancer.

Most of the offices were within a block of where I worked. You could walk to them in a few minutes. 2 of the offices were in other towns within 15 miles.

To my knowledge no one is looking into it.

There are 2 banks close to the law offices and I have not heard of any excessive cancer there. Being a very small town you know everyone. The same goes for the restaurants.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

shoesnbags — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 19:53:31 GMT

@CrazyKittyLvr2 wrote:
@Tinkrbl44 I can only think of one attorney that had cancer.

Most of the offices were within a block of where I worked. You could walk to them in a few minutes. 2 of the offices were in other towns within 15 miles.

To my knowledge no one is looking into it.

There are 2 banks close to the law offices and I have not heard of any excessive cancer there. Being a very small town you know everyone. The same goes for the restaurants.

Sounds as if there's a need for an Erin Brockovich type to do some investigating. Alternatively, is there an investigative reporter at a TV station that serves your area? Maybe in the nearest larger city? This seems like the type of thing they often like to look into. All it would take is a couple of calls for you to find out if anyone might be interested in doing a story.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

chrystaltree — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 20:28:37 GMT

There must be an environmental reason; soil, water, air. There was a town near me that had a high incidence of leukemia. My coworkers mother and young daughter died from it. There were studies that narrowed the leukemia cases to a specific area of town and then to an old chemical dumping site from the 40s or 50s. A neighborhood had been built on top of it.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 20:47:32 GMT

@shoesnbags That's a thought. I would not do it without talking to the women that are actually sick. Naming them without their consent is not right.

I assume any reporter would want actual names and not just me saying hey, you need to do a story about 7 women with cancer.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 20:55:58 GMT

One of my closest friends is one of the women. Luckily, she is in remission and doing well.

She and I have talked about the number of secretaries diagnosed. It is different ages, lifestyles, live in different areas of the county (some in town, some far out of town) etc.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

granddi — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 21:21:22 GMT

State Health Department should be alterted

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

Mindy D — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 23:48:58 GMT

The county's health department should be notified.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

Linmo — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 04:47:01 GMT

@chrystaltree ITA. We had a neighborhood in our area that was built over landfill. Several women that we knew in the neighborhood developed brain tumors. DH and I actually moved away from that immediate area many years ago.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

jlkz — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 12:09:46 GMT

@CrazyKittyLvr2

You said the county has a high incidence of cancer. If it is mountainous, could there be radon present ? Colorless and odorless gas from rocky terrain, it required a vacation home near the Poconos to have a vent system installed.

It can cause lung cancer without the individual being a smoker !

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

gardenman — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 12:55:57 GMT

In general, cancer clusters turn out to be genetic. People in an area tend to marry others in that area and a genetic predisposition to cancer can then spread. When you start doing family histories on those involved, they tend to all come back to a common ancestor in the area a century or two (or longer) ago. Most communities started out with a handful of families back in the pioneer/colonial days. Those families had children that married one another and before long everyone was at least distantly related to everyone else. Certain genetic weaknesses were passed along that then reappear in later generations.

People want to blame the environment, and other factors, but most of the time the issue comes down to genetics. Cancer clusters have been examined for decades and in most cases, it comes down to a shared genetic trait from a common ancestor. If you go far enough back in the family history of most of those who get identical cancers in an area, they'll have a common ancestor who passed on the genetic tendency for that cancer.

We're all one big family and that's especially true in smaller rural communities. Family trees intersect in all kinds of interesting ways and tend to go back to a common ancestor a few centuries ago. When health issues occur, they're almost always due to a genetic predisposition.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

qualitygal — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 13:09:46 GMT

My thoughts, and it's due to an area here too, not near me, may have to do with water. Don't know if something may have gotten into the ground water, or soil. Wonder if it's to do with power lines. There's evidentally people compiling info about people who have passed and their pets from that area. May never know.

Re: Yet Another Legal Secretary With Cancer

CrazyKittyLvr2 — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:49:39 GMT

The house I grew up in was originally my maternal garndparents house. My Mom was born, and died there. at 82). She had 2 sisters and 5 brothers, all 8 of them had cancer.