Unicentric Castleman Disease and Pheochromocytoma

Castleman disease is an uncommon and heterogenous lymphoproliferative disorder which is classified as unicentric or multicentric depending on the number of lymph nodes involved. Each type has a different clinical presentation, aetiology, treatment and prognosis. We report the case of a young woman who presented with cervical lymphadenopathy and a retroperitoneal mass, and was diagnosed with unicentric Castleman disease and pheochromocytoma. We describe the diagnostic steps, the complications that developed, and the importance of the differential diagnosis in the evaluation of these patients.

Death and the Maiden in Philostratus, About Apollonius of Tyana 4.45

The Vita Apollonii leaves much open to interpretation. In 4.45 Philostratus tells us about a young woman who was thought dead by her family and the whole of Rome. Apollonius whispers something in her ear and the maiden starts talking again. The narrator comments it was impossible for the bystanders and still is impossible for him to say whether the girl was really dead or not: whether it was a case of Scheintod which proved Apollonius’s extraordinary powers of observation or whether it was a resurrection-miracle which would signal a special ontological status for ‘the man’ from Tyana. In his suspension of judgment, Philostratus uses the words arrhêtos hê katalêpsis combining a technical term from Stoic epistemology (katalêpsis) with a concept related to the Mysteries (arrhêtos). We discuss the Philostratean interpretative strategies, link them to the Pythagorean tradition of selective communication, and read the reference in this chapter to the story of Alcestis to the epistemological debates between Stoics and Skeptics about the limits of human wisdom.

Getting Back to a “New Normal”

Violence in educational institutions compounds and accumulates in our collective memory, as school shootings have become a ubiquitous phenomenon. When a young man carrying three guns entered Dawson College in Montréal, the downtown core came to a standstill. As bullets sprayed and ricocheted, one young woman was killed, 19 others wounded, and a community of 10,000 students, teachers, and staff were traumatized. This research employed a qualitative methodology, interviewing 10 senior administrators and managers in-depth. Findings document the salient role grief leadership played in restoring balance and an educational focus in the wake of a shooting on campus and served to reshape the community into one of learning, resilience, and courage. It details specific actions taken by administrators, which promoted healing and re-established equilibrium at a site of grief, loss, and terror. Administrative responses proved essential in helping to re-establish thriving at Dawson College.

Macro-B12 masking B12 deficiency

In clinical practice, the finding of an elevated serum B12 concentration is often the consequence of supplementation with B12 in either oral form or injections. Also, elevated serum B12 may be associated with underlying disorders, like liver diseases or a (haematologic) malignancy. Only a few studies have shown that it may also be the consequence of complex formation of B12-vitamin binding proteins with immunoglobulins, the so-called macro-B12. We describe a young woman who previously was diagnosed with B12 deficiency, and in whom, after cessation of B12 injection treatment, neurologic symptoms re-appeared, and despite this, repeatedly elevated serum B12 concentrations above the upper limit of the assay were found. We demonstrated that this was caused by the presence of macro-B12, which not only resulted in erroneous and longstanding elevated serum B12, but also masked her underlying B12 deficiency.

Her Body Islanded” Corporeal Resistance in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman

Marian MacAlpin, the protagonist of Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, is a “marvellously normal” (Atwood 207) young woman. However, at one point—coinciding with the acceptance of her partner’s marriage proposal—something goes utterly wrong. Her body, in an act of revolt, refuses to accept more and more food; it becomes an increasingly independent, as if exterior entity. While trying to fight off this impenetrable rebellion, Marian comes to face social norms she is supposed to comply with as a woman, finding them indeed indigestible. Written in 1965 and published in 1969, The Edible Woman touches upon issues that are still relevant for the contemporary reader. This article examines Margaret Atwood’s novel within the framework indebted to the recent shift of feminist studies towards fragility: a notion that no longer has to entail mere passivity or surrender. Aiming at an exploration of the theme of a fragile corporeal protest, this article juxtaposes the revolt of Marian’s body with such tropes and categories as fluidity and containment, abjection, agency, and becoming in order to trace the dual nature of corporeal resistance presented in the novel.

A case of early diagnosis of toxic cardiomyopathy in a patient receiving tamoxifen for breast cancer

The article is devoted to the problem of cardiotoxicity of chemotherapy drugs used in cancer patients, the nonspecificity of early clinical manifestations of cardiomyopathy developing against this background, and the search for informative diagnostic techniques to confirm this disease. As an illustration, a clinical case of cardiomyopathy in a young woman who developed against the background of chemotherapy for breast cancer is presented.