Posted on 02/05/2020 6:54:37 AM PST by libstripper
My dad gave up smoking around 1968 and lung cancer took him when he was 69 in 2001.
Actually we think it was the cancer treatment which took him as he was doing great until they changed the medication.
Didn’t he basically say he had tried to not mention it as long as he could? I suspect he has known for months. Hence the beard and wheelchair.
There was a doctor on FOX, talking about Rush’s cancer diagnosis (in general terms, since Rush is not a patient, of course). He himself has “risk factors”, chief among them is that he was a smoker years back. He had a CT Scan this fall, looking for lesions & said he has a scan regularly (I got the impression it’s once a year). He seemed a little surprised that Rush maybe was not having regular scans.
That being said, cancer can pop up in a hurry, even with regular, fairly frequent scans. I lost a relative in December. She was having 6 month scans, having had a malignant uterine tumor removed 2 years ago via a complete hysterectomy. The surgeon thought the cancer was ‘contained’ & she also had a course of chemo. She was having scans every 6 months with clear scans; however, her August scan popped up with cancer in both lungs and her spleen. Being in her 80’s, she chose to keep her quality of life and not undergo chemo treatment - her doctor said that with the cancer she had, chemo would not have been a cure, would have given her an extra month or so, and ruined the quality of her life with the first treatment. As things progressed for her and the experiences with family/friends she had from diagnosis to death, she made a good choice.
On my wifes side of the family cancer is very prevalent.
Her parents, grandparents and a few uncles all died of cancer.
On my side it rarely occurs.
He was interviewed in the way in and heard and understood the questions just fine. The video was on twitter.
A low-dose CT wouldn't be as good for detecting cancer, but I think if performed at least once every few years it would help immensely not only for cancer but other problems. My aorta dissected a few years ago, and when they scanned me they found a one-inch malignant tumor on my right kidney. If it hadn't been for the dissection, that tumor might very well have gone on to kill me.
Again you cite statistics that are meaningless to the individual. Give them the results and let them decide. Ingnorance is bliss is BS.
Thanks for the info .... very helpful.
Your wifes side may qualify for free gene testing if any of it involved breast or ovarian cancer. They do test for other cancer genes at the same time. At least Myriad did for me.
It is sad that you have had to become such an expert on the dreaded subject.
Unfortunately doctors in this country don’t believe in preventative medicine.
From my heart, you have my prayers for you and your loved ones. God Bless. ~Q
God knows, but the person living with it has a hand in how they play their cards and sometimes that speeds or slows the progression (which of course God already knows how they will play their cards)
I know from personal experience..not lung cancer..that if something is off..and i mean OFF.
and it is off for weeks or months..there is usually something seriously wrong.
Extreme tiredness for apparently no reason.
Extreme loss of appetite.
Weird persistent pains in one area of the body.
Weird bumps of course.
Changing it before months have past can mean the difference between stage 2 or 3 and stage 4.
Or, some other degenerative disease.
My step dad died few years ago at age 82 and had quit smoking for 40 years. He died of stage 4 lung cancer and was dead within 2 months of diagnosis.
Don’t listen to most doctors in this regard. Get a screening. It is affordable and ignorance is not bliss.
GO TO THE DOCTOR before month(s) have past can mean the difference between stage 2 or 3 and stage 4.
Or, some other degenerative disease.
This is why I say repeatedly on these kinds of threads..know your body..know your symptoms..and if you cant get a Dr to order a blood test then do it yourself through www.directlabs.com
There are many questions about cancer that are basic yet no one really knows. Neuro is something I am more familiar with having done a Neurosurgery Residency. There is a brain tumor, you probably have heard of, called “Astrocytoma”. It has a “grading system” of 1-4 that is a bit different than others, say lung or prostate, but it’s there. The answer to your question in regard to these cancers is and has been controversial for decades. There are those who ascribe to a theory that all these are the same cancer at different stages. There are those who don’t even accept that. AFAIK they are still arguing but most people accept that “Stage 1” progresses to “Stage II”, etc. i vividly remember casually remarking as much to my mentor in Nueropathology and he reamed me a new one. He challenged me to produce any evidence this happens. Yet just about everyone assumes it does.
Sure you may say, well I hated a Grade I Astro and 5 years later it was biopsies “Grade III”. This does happen but it may not mean what you think.. what if they just missed the Grade III part of the tumor 5 years ago? I have met Neurosurgeons who insist a Grade IV Astro is NOT a “Glioblastoma”. So do they progress? Figure out a way to prove it. AFAIK no one has. So if we can’t prove they do progress you realize just how complicated the answer to your question really is?
I heard that for most cancers stage 1 can last for years.
The problem with a stage 4 dx is they have no way of knowing if and where it has metastasized in the body. That is why many survive and many more live a few weeks or months.
Rush looks sick to me. I was shocked when I saw him the other day during announcement because I do not do his video.
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