I emailed this thread to my son to see what he might think. If he posted here, he might be NC DOC (if your SC stands for South Carolina?)
I read the link you sent me. I always like to hear how patients, the press, and politicians describe cancers and their treatments... so I found it interesting. i have no idea what exhibit A is... I’m guessing some person (perhaps fictional) who would “benefit” from Obama’s health care plan. As far as completely debunking it... not enough information. I think the most likely possibility has not been mentioned yet:
She may have refused surgery (to care for her father) or not been considered a fit surgical candidate; in this case, other alternative treatments would have been considered. One commonly used and effective procedure is called radiofrequency ablation (RFA) which would have been available at the time in question. It is done as an outpatient and is often mistakenly referred to as “radiation” by patients. IMO, this is a plausible scenario and perhaps a genuine “misunderstanding” — I’m sure you like that word. For the reasons stated by SC DOC, I too think it is unlikely (but not impossible) that she received traditional radiation therapy (external beam radiation).
No plans on watching the video though... I can’t stand the latest trend of referring to specific people as examples (as is now trendy even in the state of the union addresses).
Love,
RFA is a very good option for small lesions in the kidney and is becoming preferable to radical nephrectomy in many cases. What I mostly see these days are symptomatic kidney lesions in patients with widespread metastatic disease, postoperative patients with positive margins after nephectomy, or patients with prior nephrectomy who now have recurrence in the retroperitoneum.
As mentioned before, I have treated a handful of primary kidney cancer cases in the past with radiation, and now that we have all the modern tools (IMRT, IGRT, Stereotactic radiosurgery, etc) I haven't seen one. At least I am ready, if the circumstance arises.
Where in North Carolina is you son? I have a mountain home between Hendersonville and Bat Cave. I love the cool weather up there compared to SC.