As Heather reported on earlier today, another blow to alcohol consumption has been found. European research released this week shows a connection between alcohol consumption and the possibility of developing bowel cancer.

The research concluded that people who drink one or two glasses of beer or win per day increase their chances of developing rectal (bowel) cancer by 10 percent. Is that number such a big deal? Absolutely.

Sound like a low amount? It's not -- and the researchers apparently looked at more than 500,000 people in the study, so the results are quite statistically significant. Out of that population, 18,000 people were found to have bowel cancer and the researchers dug in deep until they found out the correlation(s) with certain lifestyle choices.

It's always a good idea to have alcohol in very moderate amounts (although wine has been found to be healthy and not healthy), and this research points to more evidence to support that point. Will you abandon alcohol completely, though?

Battling cancer can at times feel like slowly paddling upstream against currents that are both forceful and unforgiving. Sometimes reprieve comes only when we find others in the same boat, others submerged in their own rough waters, others who truly know what it's like to navigate a dreadful disease.

I am lucky -- in an odd sort of cancer way -- because I had breast cancer. Many women have breast cancer. And while this really is a horrible fact, it makes for a great sea of support. At times when I felt I was drowning in cancer, I reached for my lifeguards -- the women who paddled before me, the women paddling alongside me -- and they coached me, guided me, saved me from one the worst side effects of cancer. Isolation.

I have rarely felt isolated in my cancer journey and as a result, I have not thought much about this lonely cancer consequence. But I am thinking about it now -- thanks to a reader who has courageously shared her story with me, in hopes of locating someone in her same boat, in hopes of creating connections with other survivors who share the challenges of her disease.

Tanya has anal cancer. She was diagnosed one year ago -- during a routine colonoscopy -- with squamous cell carcinoma in-situ in her anal canal, on the wall between the anus and vagina. Previous abdominal discomfort, much like dull menstrual pain, preceded Tanya's screening but she was sure it was due to menopause. She was 53 at the time.

But it wasn't menopause. It was cancer. And it was devastating for Tanya who was spared radical surgery in exchange for a combination of radiation and a chemotherapy called the Nigro Protocol. First came a mitomycin push followed by four to five days of 5-Fluorouracil. Radiation came next -- for six weeks -- and then Tanya endured another round of the same chemotherapy regimen.

"The treatment was brutal," Tanya says. "By the end of the sixth week, I was in a lot of pain, especially since the affected area had a lot of traffic and could not exactly be decommissioned and allowed to heal."

Although she was told by her oncologist she tolerated her treatment well, Tanya says it was pure hell.

Tanya's treatment ended in March and an August biopsy revealed she is doing just fine. Her cancer appears to be gone. What is not gone, however, is the discomfort that still plagues her -- both physically and emotionally. And while the physical scars are simply terrible -- she feels pain during urination and bowel movements and is currently unable to have intercourse with her knight-in-shining-armor husband -- the emotional isolation is overwhelming distressing.

"I have not shared this experience with too many people since I feel awkward discussing that part of my anatomy and because the condition is so uncommon," Tanya says. "I would, however, be most grateful to discuss any or all of this with someone who has been through the same experience."

If you have been in Tanya's same cancer boat, have paddled similar waters, or know someone with whom she might connect, please consider contacting this brave survivor at sultana@cyberight.net.

Rectal cancer usually involves surgery. The surgery that is performed has the possibility of causing the loss of bowel control. The idea behind giving chemotherapy before surgery (neoadjuvant) is to shrink the tumor so that the surgery will be minimal to avoid the loss of bowel control. Researchers have been evaluating the effects of chemotherapy or radiation therapy prior to surgery in attempt to combat this after effect of surgery.

The article recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine says that survival of patients with rectal cancer fair the same whether or not the chemotherapy is giving before of after surgery. Most patients with rectal cancer are usually treated with radiation before surgery.

Researches affiliated with the European Organization for Research and Treatment for Cancer (EORTC) conducted a clinical trial that included 1,011 patients with rectal cancer. The researches split the patients into four groups. Those receiving chemotherapy and radiation before surgery, those receiving only radiation before surgery, those that received radiation before surgery and chemotherapy after surgery and those that only received chemotherapy before surgery.

The five year survival rate for those who received chemotherapy before surgery and after surgery were both 65 percent. Local recurrences occurred less in those patients who received radiation plus chemotherapy before surgery.

The impact on long-term survival with the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy has not been well established. The article did not mention if the radiation or neoadjuvant chemotherapy did at all affect the loss of bowel control after surgery.