Women’s Health - Breast Cancer in the United States

Eloah Rocha currently works as a counselor with the Los Angeles Children's Hospital.

As counselor to families and their children, Eloah Rocha manages the Youth Activity Center at a Los Angeles-based children's hospital. In addition to her commitment to young people’s mental health, Eloah Rocha volunteers with breast cancer awareness charitable events.

According to the most current data, in 2016, more than 246,000 new breast cancers will appear in women throughout the United States. Of those patients, over 40,000 will ultimately succumb to the disease. Breast cancer is second only to lung cancer among the leading causes of death for American women. However, mortality rates from breast cancer have been declining for 28 years thanks to advances in early diagnosis and treatment.

In fact, if doctors detect the disease before it can spread, or metastasize, to tissues outside the breast, the likelihood of survival over a five-year period stands at roughly 98 percent. In those cases where the cancer has metastasized to surrounding tissues like the lymph nodes, five-year survival drops to roughly 84 percent.

Even with state-of-the-art modern care, less than one-quarter of patients with breast cancer that has progressed to other organs survive for five years after diagnosis.

Emotional Responses in Siblings of Hospitalized Children

Eloah Rocha – Promoting Child Well-Being

As a counselor at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital, Eloah Rocha leads an activity center designed for siblings of hospitalized children. Eloah Rocha has also participated in a number of studies that assess the behaviors and emotional responses of children with ill brothers or sisters.

The hospitalization of a child affects not only himself or herself and parents but siblings as well. Siblings of hospitalized children are likely to feel worried or scared, both on behalf of the sick sibling and in regard to their own and the family's well-being. Very young children may experience anxiety if the hospitalization leads to separation from parents or disruption in routine, while older children might fear catching the illness or worry that the sibling will die.

Well children can also feel jealousy and resentment when it appears that the ill child is receiving all of the parents' attention. It is important for the parents to spend time with the well child or children and to take the time to explain the sibling's illness in age-appropriate terms. Parents can also help well children to feel involved by taking them on visits to the hospital, and by preparing the children for what they might see and hear on the visit.

It is likewise important for parents to understand that the well child may feel angry at the sibling for becoming ill. Some children might also be angry at their parents, whom they perceive as having the ability to prevent harm from coming to the sibling. Younger children can even feel anger directed toward themselves, as the magical thinking of early childhood can convince them that they could have done something to prevent the illness.