Cancer... a heads up.

[RED]

A brother in law just died. He was 68 and healthy as a horse in March. He started having problems swallowing. he went to the doctor and they set him up for an endoscopy... three weeks later. They found the cancer and set him up for a PET scan, another 3 week delay, then they sent him to a cancer Doctor and they started chemo and radiation in June. He was buried on the 5th day of July. Those weeks of wasted time cost him the chance to live. If his doctor had hospitalized him after the endoscopy, he could have the PET scan and seen a cancer Doctor within days rather than weeks or months.

This is the same cancer and the same piss poor care that killed my wife.

HEADS UP.... if you or a loved one are diagnosed with cancer you have to insist on being hospitalized. My wife's surgeon, the one that did her feeding tube, told me flat out that she should have been hospitalized and the endoscopy could have been done that day, the cancer Doctor could have seen her the next day and chemo/radiation therapy could have started 2 months earlier. By the time they got around to it, she was dead in ten days.

Would the earlier treatment saved her? Only God knows, but if I had known then what I have just told you, maybe, just maybe she would still be here.

[m1ashooter]

Thanks Red and I'm sorry for the families loss.

[jon_norstog]

Thanks for this Red. Sorry for your loss ... Both my parents were killed by doctors. You have to step up and demand the right kind of service.

jn

[S.A. Boggs]

I have to agree, I was lucky that my treatment started immediately. My healing has always been to the Grace of God, praise His Holy Name. I have always healed very quickly from any injury and the same is now. ALL of my treatments have been successful and my cancer doctor was at a loss for words as he has NEVER seen someone who was diagnosed with colon rectal and liver cancer survive. Two liver biopsy's, pet and ct scan show no cancer in my liver and the cancer in my rectum is in retreat. Red is right as cancer can show up at anytime, get a checkup for it. I was involver in an Ohio State University study to determine if my cancer was caused as inherited, it is not. With more cancer showing up I suspect that they [cancer] has a contributing cause of our diet. I now like home grown rabbit food.
Sam

[Tuna]

Smoking is one of the biggest causes of colorectal cancer. So not only lung cancer but many others too. As my oncologist said if I had never smoked we would not be sitting there talking.

[clintonhater]

Smoking is one of the biggest causes of colorectal cancer. So not only lung cancer but many others too. As my oncologist said if I had never smoked we would not be sitting there talking.

Well, perhaps in many cases, but my father smoked a CARTON a day, and never developed cancer; Alzheimer's did him in by about 75, and I think cancer would have been preferable.

At 72, I've stopped worrying, because to be realistic, at least 80%, probably 90%, of my lifetime is already GONE. Only thing I seriously worry about now is a stroke, heart attack, or falling & breaking a hip, because there's no warning. Waking up helpless in a hospital is a fate worse than death.

[Dolt]

Nobody's getting out of here alive anyway. It's the ones left behind who hurt the most. Watching loved ones suffer is worse than dying yourself.

[Merc]

My family Dr. is one of the best. He won't hesitate to put his patients in the hospital. In December, 2013, I was really sick, had a low grade fever and a chest Xray showed spots in both lungs. He immediately put me in the hospital to find out exactly what I had. The Dr. who read the Xray said I likely had lung cancer. My Dr. ordered blood work looking for certain antibodies and decided I had a disseminated (means it has spread to other organs) case of Valley Fever which I caught in Arizona earlier in the year by breathing cocci fungus spores. This horror lives in the dirt and is easily inhaled if you disturb the dirt or get caught in a haboob (big dust storm). I got it by cleaning up after my sister's horses. This is a dangerous illness that's not common in Pennsylvania. He immediately brought in an infectious disease Dr. who put me on fluconazole for 9 months. It killed the fungus infection and I felt better within a week, but I still have the spots in both lungs. Neither Dr. had ever treated anyone with Valley Fever before. My Dr. complains to me about the Obamacare rules and regulations and how much they slow down the medical treatment process. I fear he will get fed up and retire early.

[SysAd]

I lost my Dad at 72 and my brother at 50 to colon cancer. They just refused to get check ups. Believe me, a colonoscopy is a painless lifesaver.