Posted on 02/05/2020 6:54:37 AM PST by libstripper
I only know one person who had stage 4 lung cancer.
It was found in Late January. He was dead 10 months later.
He went the full treatment route.
As he approached the end and stopped treatment, he finally did all the research and found that his type of lung cancer, at his stage has a 7% survival rate. He told me he would not have spent the last 9 months of his life miserable had he known that up front.
It’s not really discriminatory plenty of people get treatment for cancer when it’s needed and they can go to many different doctors including the best. That was my wife’s experience. It’s not like the doctor is your friend saw were not also seeing many other patients and they see patients rich and poor.
From my life experience it seems that many people limit their own medical treatment because maybe they just stick with their local doctor. A lot of people are completely oblivious to taking care of themselves when it comes to serious illness they just want to see a doctor be given something and go home. They don’t want to learn about their condition and they don’t want to select the best doctors.
I’m not being negative about your story or your friend I am just sharing my own experience for others reading this. They should always get 2nd opinions from the best possible providers at least within their geographical area.
Rush will get the best treatment but I’m sure the doctors that he will see are also treating many indigent patients and many average people from all over.
Yeah.
People that still smoke or chew need to know that it is on you to really press for the exams to check for this stuff.
And seriously consider quitting, people. It isnt sticking it to the PC crowd to continue subjecting your body to tobacco.
Why was Rush in a wheel chair? I wonder if he’s weakened from treatment? I was under the impression that until this diagnosis he was fine, playing golf and such. I was so proud of President Trump’s acknowledging Rush’s contributions, the media and pearl clutchers he damned.
Yeah, lung cancer is a terrible thing to watch as it takes a loved one. Your mother’s experience echoes my grandfather’s. He actually beat the lung cancer, but it popped up in his bones. At that point he had regained his health — killed him in four months. So much damn Ensure left.
The good news is that he was able to get up on his own and had no oxygen tank last night.
But the sad reality is that it is Stage 4. It has spread. Where it has spread and how it effects him yet is unknown.
My relative was able to walk for some time during the last 4 months. Pretty much until the last few weeks. Neighbor went into a wheelchair pretty fast. Neither went through Chemo.
He has earth shattering decisions to make..in the end he may decide not to do Chemo. Or he may go full on with every kind of treatment
I am just glad he got the Medal last night.
Chronic repeated respiratory infections, wheezing and trouble breathing that isn’t just COPD.
Same with a friend who tried everything Mayo had to offer, and he was a non-smoker and active cyclist.
Five year survivability is under 5%. We all know how this ends.
He experiences shortness of breath. Going to the SOTU is probably hard on anyone’s body. The walking, waiting, security etc.
He also may already be on drugs. Seemed like it to me.
No one knows. Had 2 friends diagnosed with same type of cancer. One stage 1. The other stage 4. My friend with stage 1 1 was gone within the year. My friend with stage 4 lived 5 years. No one knows only God does.
I have a son with terminal brain cancer and a wife with Stage 4 kidney cancer. I know far more about cancer than I ever wanted to know.
Cancer can lay low and grow for a long time and you will never know it until it pops up in a late Stage.
My son was in the hospital for months with a very rare disease of the immune system. While trying to diagnose it he went through every scan, test x-ray and examination you could think of. No cancer of any kind was detected.
One day he was slurring his words and stumbling. An MRI found a brain tumor. They were able to get a handle on the immune disorder but not the cancer.
Well, other people had to wait a week to get an appointment - he was seen on the spot, immediately, no waiting. His test results were ready in less than an hour, while other patients had to wait two days. It was definitely the red carpet, big boss’s best buddy cancer treatment - and it worked.
Shoulder pain in some lung cancers.
I don’t think what you saw was drugs. You have to remember, in a situation where there is background noise, Rush is basically deaf. I don’t believe he could hear what was going and was reacting on visual cues only.
Firstly, let’s start with just basic Medical Screening. For screening to be practical I(or even helpful, not to mention potentially unethical) 5 conditions have to be met. 1) high disease prevalence (rare disease don’t generate enough data). 2) there has to be a test. 3) that test has to be able to detect the disease in an early stage 4) there has to be a treatment (how does it help people to tell them early on they are gonna die?) 5) that treatment has to have better outcomes when applied early. In the absence of meeting these 5 criteria screening should not be done. Check the USPSTF website. They may explain this in detail.
Secondly, doctors have been looking for decades for some way to screen for lung cancer. Unsuccessfully. But in 2013 ONE STUDY of 29,000 patients found a miraculous “20% reduction in fatalities” by doing THREE CT SCANS A YEAR on smokers or former smokers (15 years) of 55 or 60 years or older. These people seem to have discovered the “Holy Grail” others had sought for deacdes. The USPSTF was impressed and it seems changed their recommendation to a “B”. If you look into it just a little bit they had a “False Positive” rate of 2.7%. Why is this significant?
Thirdly, let’s consider the Radiology of CT. What to do with asymptomatic pulmonary nodules has been a controversy in medicine for decades. Over the years a pretty good algorithm has been developed to deal with this. If interested, do some research. It is complicated as hell. Most doctors don’t understand it. ONE PERCENT of routine CT scans demonstrate a new, previously unknown pulmonary nodule. Imagine. One percent of all CT scans already precipitates a new, complicated work up that requires YEARS of close medical supervision. Years of subjecting. Normal people to years of worry, years of CT scans, and in many cases numerous procedures. Some with significant risk of morbidity and mortality.
Fourthly. So why is a false positive rate of 2.7% relevant? Because down the “False Positive” arm of the algorithm lies “asymptomatic pulmonary nodule”. Now go back and remember there is already a decades long, controversial approach to this serious medical problem that has little to do with lung cancer screening. There are library shelves full of research on this alone. There are reams of data on “false positive” outcomes in the work up of “asymptomatic pulmonary nodules”. How does a false positive of 2.7% line up with that data. Poorly, I would imagine. In all previous studies of screening for lung cancer the false positive rates are much higher.
Fifthly, why does this matter? Because in cancer screening the “lives saved” has to be balanced between lives “harmed or killed” needlessly. A 70 year old who dies in the ICU from complications of a pneumothorax that was the by product of a needless procedure has to be weighed against the life of the 68 year old who was “saved”. So if the False Positive Rate is actually higher (or, as I suspect, MUCH higher) the number of patients IN the process who don’t actually have cancer increases drastically.
So, if you want to believe Low Dose CT Scanning as a Screening Tool for Lung Cancer is something you want to do as a 55 or 60 year old smoker or ex-smoker the recommendation of the USPSTF is “one per year”. But there is a problem here, as well. If you read the study one thing jumps out of “Methods and Materials”. THEY did THREE SCREENING TESTS A YEAR. Not one. As far as I can see there is no study that shows a benefit with ONE CT a year. So you might want to consider that. It could be the difference between, let’s say, between taking Insulin once a week vs. once a day.
So, briefly, (VERY briefly) are just some of the reasons I remain a skeptic. But a “B” recommendation is still a “B” recommendation. If I still saw patients and one asked me about it I would inform him (or her, obviously) of the above and let them make their decision (as I was taught years ago is the only ethical way to practice Medicine).
Well, I hope this helps. I do have somewhere to go today so my answering time is limited.
Someone here who works with National Cancer Institute Drs said they are now all beginning to believe there is a genetic component that creates the situation that allows the enviromental impact to trigger.
The very graphic thing she said that will stick in my mind for awhile is that you could swim in asbestos and it wont effect you if you dont have a genetic weakness.
Or something to that effect.
This could explain why someone can smoke for 90 years and not get cancer but someone who never smoked can die from it 4 months after diagnosis.
True.
There was a video interview on twitter as Rush was going in to the SOTU. He said he felt fine. He looked shocked to me, very humble about receiving the award.
What Trump said was perfect, Rush inspired so many, did so much good, and held things together for conservatives through the dark years.
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