Cancer sucks

[iamwiz82]

Just got some more news from my parents-

Apparently he had been saving the last few years to attain his dream, buying a cottage in Northern Michigan to move there in semi-retirement. He had started looking for places since he felt he had enough cash. Just cruel

 

[Skel]

I'm very sorry to hear of your loss. I lost my best friend to cancer last year and I'm still not OK. He was 39.

 

[ichy]

Pancreatic cancer is more or less asymptomatic until it's terminal. The people that beat it are the ones that get lucky and show some kind of symptom (related or unrelated) early in that general area of the body and imaging picks it up. Pancreatic cancer isn't necessarily "worse" than other cancers, it's just a lot harder to detect. At least, that's my understanding.

Early detection doesn't help that much for pancreatic cancer. Even patients who are eligible for surgery (meaning it was caught early) have awful long term survival rates. The cancer almost always comes back.

 

[ichy]

Early detection is key.

No it's not. Finding better treatments is key. The benefits of screening have been greatly overhyped. At this point we need to spend less money on stupid "awareness" campaigns and more money on research.

 

[Born2bwire]

I don't understand how it kills you so fast. He lived for two weeks after it was diagnosed, right? I'm assuming he wasn't in terrible shape before the diagnosis because he would have gone to the doctor sooner most likely. That means he went from a doctor visit for a slight pain somewhere to dead in two weeks. That's incredibly fast, no?

It's amazing how fast it can develop. I was told that I had a slow spreading and predictable cancer. I had surgery to remove the tumor less than two weeks from the day I noticed having any kind of symptoms but by the time I was going into surgery I was having trouble walking.

No it's not. Finding better treatments is key. The benefits of screening have been greatly overhyped. At this point we need to spend less money on stupid "awareness" campaigns and more money on research.

I would say that such a statement is very cancer specific.

 

[Number1]

Not much can be said. I hope your friend did not suffer.

Sorry about your loss.
Cance is not something to fool around with.

I had mouth cancer a few decades ago due to smoking. I and my wife pushed the doctors AGGRESSIVELY to get me treated ASAP. 3 surgeries later and a good chunk of the bottom of my tongue removed and they got the tumor completely excised.

Had I waited like they wanted me to do at first I would probably be dead by now.

 

[Andy22]

Colon cancer has a fairly high survival rate due to the fact that there are generally obvious symptoms like blood in your stool and feeling anemic from loss of blood. You usually don't show up at the Dr and get diagnosed with stage 4 unless you've ignored the warning signs for a long time.

 

[iamwiz82]

Colon cancer has a fairly high survival rate due to the fact that there are generally obvious symptoms like blood in your stool and feeling anemic from loss of blood. You usually don't show up at the Dr and get diagnosed with stage 4 unless you've ignored the warning signs for a long time.

My Mom is a stage 4 colon cancer survivor. She ignored the symptoms until she began losing weight. At that point she had a significant tumor in her colon (softball) and multiple spots on her liver, plus some lymph nodes were compromised. She is now 3 years clean.

 

[dmw16]

Sorry for your loss. Makes you realize how precious life is.

 

[TheVrolok]

Pancreatic cancer. Sorry for your loss. Last week I had a 49 year old guy, essentially healthy, come in with some mild belly pain, worked him up and it turns out he has Stage 4 adeno of the duodenum. Similar prognosis to late stage pancreatic. Not what he wanted me to say. Not what I wanted to tell him.

 

[LegendKiller]

No it's not. Finding better treatments is key. The benefits of screening have been greatly overhyped. At this point we need to spend less money on stupid "awareness" campaigns and more money on research.

It's very easy to say that but far harder to do in practice. There isn't one cancer, all are different. My wife had a very rare form of malignant thyroid cancer, one that's only seen in one in a few million thyroid cases, enough so that sloan kettering took her in immediately. Hers couldn't be applied to others.


My dad's cancer is pretty beatable. My wife's father had it 15 years ago and they caught it right away. My dad's docs in FL screwed around for 6 months, misdiagnosing it as an ulcer repeatedly. Those 6 months were key. Same with Steve Jobs'.

Again, it's easy to say we should find better treatments but until they are found and can be applied across all cancers, the best bet is to identify risk factors, diagnose as best as possible and treat with what we have.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Pancreatic cancer. Sorry for your loss. Last week I had a 49 year old guy, essentially healthy, come in with some mild belly pain, worked him up and it turns out he has Stage 4 adeno of the duodenum. Similar prognosis to late stage pancreatic. Not what he wanted me to say. Not what I wanted to tell him.

Are you a doctor? I can't imagine how hard that has to be to tell someone.

 

[TheVrolok]

Are you a doctor? I can't imagine how hard that has to be to tell someone.

Mmhmm. It's fairly emotionally draining, but I suppose better than being on the other side of the conversation.