Support for LateToSchool

aibarr · April 24, 2008, 5:05pm

That sounds a little too much like electrocution for my tastes. I’ll be sending chargeless healing energy, thank you!

PS- 95% DDs (rough draft, essentially) went out to the client today, including basement spandrel details (!)

epistrophy · April 24, 2008, 7:23pm

and another

“Cancer survivor takes fight against disease to the streets”

Running a marathon without a third of your right lung might seem impossible, but for Mike Wooldridge it’s just another day on the road.

Diagnosed with a fist-sized tumor in his right lung a year ago, the Pleasant Hill Web site designer was initially given a 10 to 15 percent chance of surviving. Today he’s running 30 miles a week, training to compete in his first marathon.

“At this point, strange as it may seem, I’m probably in as good shape as I’ve been in my life,” says Wooldridge, 35, who will run in the Wellness Community’s Strides for Hope fund-raising marathon next month in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Wellness Community is a national support group for cancer patients and their families. Wooldridge attended meetings specifically designed for those suffering with lung cancer at its Walnut Creek center.

For the past 10 years, Wooldridge, who had never smoked, had suffered from a cough every winter that he figured was just a seasonal thing. In the winter of 2002, though, the cough was starting to keep him up at night, and people were beginning to notice at work. When asthma and allergy prescriptions didn’t clear it up, his doctor ordered a chest X-ray.

On Valentine 's Day last year, just as he was making preparations to propose to Linda, his girlfriend of nine years, the results of the X-ray came in.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my God. I got the ring, I’m going out to dinner with Linda tonight to propose.’ It was just surreal. It was like this strange nightmare, really. I was like, the doctor’s going to call and tell me this is all a mistake,” said Wooldridge.

Undaunted, Wooldridge went ahead with his plans that evening, and Linda said yes. But, he didn’t tell her about the diagnosis for a week.

“I tried to put off telling her as long as I could,” Wooldridge said. Once he did, they “really were a team. We attacked this.”

While the easygoing Wooldridge was optimistic, the first doctor he visited at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston was not.

“He said the tumor was so big and invasive that there wasn’t a way they could do surgery on it, and surgery happened to be the best chance to really give me a cure,” Wooldridge said. The doctor then half-heartedly recommended chemotherapy. “We left there pretty down.”

Upon returning home, Wooldridge went to Diablo Valley Oncology in Walnut Creek where he was immediately referred to Dr. David Jablons, chief of thoracic surgery at UCSF Medical Center, where they specialize in handling difficult lung cancer cases. Highly regarded as one of the country’s leading lung cancer surgeons and researchers, Jablons’ reaction to Wooldridge’s tumor was 180 degrees from the earlier diagnosis.

Although he admitted to Wooldridge that most surgeons would be hesitant to operate, Jablons reassured Wooldridge that he had dealt with similar cases before.

Because of Wooldridge’s youth and overall general health, Jablons immediately recommended treating him with aggressive chemotherapy to shrink the tumor. While this led to the usual side-effects (numbness, vomiting, hair loss), when the cancer began to shrink substantially, Wooldridge was happy to be a bald groom at his wedding in April 2003.

In July, during nine hours of surgery at UCSF Medical Center, Jablons removed what was left of Wooldridge’s tumor and one-third of his right lung. A recent chest scan revealed no evidence of cancer.

“This guy’s alive today and running a marathon because he got superlative combined treatment care. In other words, a combination of the right choice of drugs, the right sequence of drugs, and surgery,” Jablons said. A crusader against the fatalistic approach some of his colleagues have toward treating lung cancer, Jablons wants Wooldridge to be “the poster boy” for more aggressive treatment of the disease.

That’s just fine with Wooldridge.

“I’m proud to wear that badge,” he says. “Hopefully it can demonstrate to a lot of people that there’s hope for beating this illness and there’s hope coming out of it. If I can run a marathon less than a year after I had surgery I think there’s a lot anyone can do in my situation.”

In addition to the cutting-edge treatment he received, Wooldridge said he is also grateful for the support of the Wellness Community.

“I’d see my doctor for 15 minutes,” Wooldridge said. “When I’d leave there, I’d still have tons of questions, and it’s really great to be able to go to the Wellness Community and sit down with people who have the same illness and talk to them for an hour or two in a support group fashion, confidentially.”

The Wellness Community Center was started 21 years ago in Santa Monica by Harold Benjamin, a lawyer who became interested in helping cancer patients after his wife’s bout with breast cancer.

WCC has grown to 22 independently run facilities scattered across the country and in Israel and Japan. Services for both patients and their families are free, with licensed therapists or psychologists running all meetings. The organization developed what they call the patient active program. It calls for cancer patients to be active members of their medical team and in a support group. Researchers at Stanford, UCLA and UCSF medical centers have concluded that if a patient is involved in his or her treatment in this way, it may positively affect the outcome of their disease.

“There’s three common stressors that cancer patients face,” says the Walnut Creek center’s Executive Director Mariana Moore. “Isolation, loss of control, and loss of hope.” To address these issues, WCC holds its meetings in a homey setting amid couches and blankets.

“It’s not clinical feeling at all,” Moore said. “People walk in the door and feel comfortable. That alone helps reduce the isolation. There’s nothing that’s off-limits. For two hours they’ll talk about sex, death, religion, the meaning of life. What if you’re trying to explain to your kids your cancer diagnosis without scaring them? The collective wisdom of the group helps them get through all the things they’re going through.”

The organization can even help those who have already been successfully treated for cancer. Teresa Medina had a cancerous kidney removed in 1989 at age 30 only to learn that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. After undergoing treatment under a clinical trial with the drug proleukin, her cancer was wiped out in 1990. But, as happens with many cancer patients who have had success eliminating all signs of the disease, no doctor has ever declared that she is cured. To help deal with her uncertain future, the Concord resident turned to WCC. Although she no longer goes to meetings, Medina is a member of the organization’s marathon team and will compete in the 13.1-mile half-marathon walk-run next month in Vancouver.

In addition to the marathon, this summer WCC will benefit from the efforts of the San Francisco Giants’ pitchers. In a fund-raising campaign dubbed “Strike Out Cancer,” the drug company Genentech has pledged to donate $100 to the organization for every strikeout Giants’ hurlers get during their home games this season. Moore estimates the campaign will generate $40,000 to $50,000 to bolster their $650,000 annual budget.

[Cancer</a> survivor takes fight against disease to the streets](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/23/CCG6567PDI1.DTL]Cancer”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/23/CCG6567PDI1.DTL)

latetoschool · April 24, 2008, 8:27pm

LOL. I’m totally o.k. with 10,000 siblings or parents or electrons or other things…I’m especially happy if we end up with an accumulated brain trust here that helps others who either will or are fighting similar battles can find as much hope and support as I have…

I finally did it - on my way home today, I approached two women and asked them to stop smoking: walked up to them, asked them for a moment of their time; when they said o.k., I explained I have lung cancer; then gave them some detail about the prognosis, my age, when I was diagnosed, and I also told them how difficult the treatments can be. I even lifted a corner of my wig so that they could see I have no hair, and hopefully they then knew I wasn’t making it up.

I asked them to please consider quitting smoking, and then thanked them for listening to me - then I walked away because I’d asked for “a moment”, and that was what we had.

It wasn’t a very satisfying experience, although I didn’t really expect it to be, and I don’t have any illusions that they’re going to go home and suddenly give up cigarettes. I’m going to try it again tomorrow - lots of smokers in downtown D.C. Oh - one of them did say to me as I was walking away “I’m very sorry you have cancer…” - hmmm…I wasn’t looking for sympathy, just wanted to see if I could have impact.

Maybe if I can approach enough people, one or two might actually quit smoking…

epistrophy · April 24, 2008, 9:03pm

and another

“Man shares story of survival”

Art Jones of Tuolumne, who will man the “fight back booth” during the Relay for Life, is a cancer survivor.

Jones touts the help provided by the American Cancer Society, saying if it hadn’t been for the nonprofit group’s services, his cancer battle would have been a lot harder.

The group provided him with moral and financial support, advised him on how to tell his children about his cancer, and gave him information on homeopathic remedies to help him deal with the nausea caused by anti-cancer drugs.

Jones suspected something was wrong with his health when he started having chest pains in April 2006. At first, doctors told him his symptoms were just the vagaries of middle age, which were new to Jones, now 42, at the time, and nothing to be concerned about.

Not satisfied with his diagnosis, Jones met up with Dr. Steve Smith at the former Tuolumne County General Hospital, who told Jones that he “might have lung cancer.”

A smoker for 20 years, Jones quit that day. Upon “digging a little deeper” through a biopsy, Jones discovered that Dr. Smith’s suspicion was correct.

Jones’ first reaction was: “Oh my God? Why me?” He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to provide for his two daughters, Arissa, 9, and Serina, 16.

Jones, an engineer, knew he had to fight. By August 2006, thanks, in part, to funding from the cancer society, he begin a three-month regimen of chemotherapy and radiation treatment to kill the fast-growing cancer cells before they intruded upon and damaged his nearby organs.

“With your family and the American Cancer Society, you know you’re not alone,” Jones said. "Without them, it would have been easy to say: forget it, it’s not worth it.’ "

But the treatment, received at Sonora Regional Medical Center, wasn’t easy.

“It’s not just the disease, they take you to the brink in order to wipe out the cancer,” Jones said. “I went from 170 pounds to 128; you lose your hair and you don’t feel good about yourself.” The treatment was effective, and Jones’ health slowly returned. Unfortunately, he began having other symptoms: he was getting dizzy and losing his balance.

Another checkup in September 2007 revealed that Jones had a tumor near his brain stem.

Shortly thereafter, Jones found himself in an operating room at Stanford University to removed the tumor. No incisions were made during the surgery. Instead doctors used a cutting-edge procedure dubbed “cyber-knife” surgery. Jones described it as a “non-invasive radiation therapy.”

It worked.

“It probably saved me from brain damage,” Jones said.

Jones’ experience has taught him a valuable lesson: don’t skip doctor’s appointments.

“If I hadn’t have been checked out, I’d be dead,” he said.

Even if the news from the doctor’s office is bad, Jones urges people to stay optimistic.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “There are people out there who have gone through it. Cancer is not a death sentence. I’m living proof of that.”

With medical technology improving all the time, Jones is hopeful that a cancer cure will one day be found.

“Someday, somebody somewhere is going to step up to the plate and beat this thing then we’ll all be better off,” he said.

[UnionDemocrat.com</a> - The Union Democrat Online](<a href=“http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=26422]UnionDemocrat.com”>http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=26422)

lorelei2702 · April 24, 2008, 9:05pm

Good for you, LTS! What a gift you gave them, if they choose to accept the wisdom of your experience. Unfortunately we cannot will others to better and wiser choices…sigh. You are a generous spirit to use your energy to try. Kudos to you! Hugs, too, the gentle, heart-felt, nurturing kind!

mimk6 · April 24, 2008, 9:39pm

OK, I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on T.V. but some years ago my husband had a herniated disc and he was in agony and pain meds weren’t doing much for him. He saw a specialist (orthopedist? sports medicine?) who gave him an epidural shot of cortisone. I think he had two. It was miraculous. I’ve known others with similar stories. I think the cortisone in the shots dramatically reduces inflammation quickly and gives great relief and allows healing to take place. I wouldn’t rely on your oncologist to treat your disc pain. I think you need a separate specialist for that. Your oncologist could make a referral and consult with him regarding your overall care. I’m certainly hoping you will feel fine in a few days with some rest and Aleve but if you don’t, I want you to know about this option. The nice thing about it is that it is localized treatment and you don’t feel drugged, etc.

marite · April 24, 2008, 9:44pm

LTS:

I thought of you as I read this news item about a doctor who sold her house in order to treat the uninsured (well, you’re in my thoughts every day, but this is special):

[‘So</a> many people … fall through the cracks’ - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/04/23/heroes.stuart/index.html]'So”>'So many people ... fall through the cracks' - CNN.com)

ADad · April 24, 2008, 10:23pm

(“After an extensive yet unsuccessful shelling of [Quebec], Wolfe then led 200 ships with 9000 soldiers and 18,000 sailors on a very bold and risky amphibious landing at the base of the cliffs west of Quebec along the St. Lawrence River. His army, with two small cannons, scaled the cliffs early on the morning of September 13, 1759, surprising the French under the command of the Marquis de Montcalm, who thought the cliffs would be unclimbable.” -Wikipedia)

epistrophy · April 25, 2008, 4:19am

and another

“AccuStar Labs Warns Of Killer Radon Gas During National Radon Action Month”

Each year, a killer that lurks invisibly in homes throughout the country claims the lives of 15,000 to 22,000 Americans. January is National Radon Action Month. Radon, a radioactive gas, is a Class A carcinogen estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cause thousands of lung cancer deaths annually. It is the number one environmental hazard in the U.S. and is second only to cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer deaths in this country. To protect families, and in recognition of National Radon Action Month, the EPA encourages people to test their homes immediately.

Elizabeth Hoffmann of Milwaukee is a survivor of radon-induced lung cancer who did not test her home before she moved into it in 1988. A nonsmoker, Elizabeth’s 15-year exposure to dangerous levels of radon in her home resulted in the removal of the cancerous lower lobe of her left lung before her 38th birthday. Luckily, her doctors caught her cancer early. But Elizabeth’s cancer - and the lung cancer that causes the deaths of more than 60 Americans each day - might have been prevented by a simple radon test. It would have alerted Elizabeth and many others to fix their homes to reduce elevated radon levels.

“Radon-induced lung cancer is so preventable, but the public is not being told about the deadliness of radon exposure,” said Hoffmann, who is spokesperson for Cancer Survivors Against Radon. The organization encourages survivors and their families to join others who are committed to warning the public about the danger of indoor radon.

According to the EPA, “Radon can be a problem in all types of homes, including old homes, new homes, drafty homes, insulated homes, homes with basements and homes without basements. Testing your home for radon is the only way for you and your family to know if radon levels are dangerously high.” The Office of the U.S. Surgeon General and EPA recommend radon testing in all homes and fixing those with an elevated level. They estimate that about one in 15 American homes will have a radon level that should be reduced. . . .

[AccuStar</a> Labs Warns Of Killer Radon Gas During National Radon Action Month - EWORLDWIRE](<a href=“Vespa188: Situs Slot Server Thailand Asli No 1 Super Gacor”>Vespa188: Situs Slot Server Thailand Asli No 1 Super Gacor)

epistrophy · April 25, 2008, 7:31am

and another

“Remembering Pearl Harbor and a shrinking list of survivors”

At the fall reunion of Nebraska’s Pearl Harbor survivors, six showed up.

Edward Guthrie of Omaha, a survivor of the attack, said the dwindling numbers are just something he has learned to live with.

Guthrie, treasurer of the state’s chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivor’s Association, said he believes that even when all the survivors are dead, Americans will still remember those who served.

Pearl Harbor, he said, was too important for the country to ever forget.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

At a ceremony at Harrah’s Casino in Council Bluffs, three of the five Pearl Harbor survivors who live in Council Bluffs came together to mark the day.

**“We have a monument in Des Moines that has approximately 500 names of Iowa Pearl Harbor survivors on it,” said Pearl Harbor survivor Lin Burleigh, 86. “Out of those 500, there might be 30 still alive.”

Burleigh said he has battled lung cancer for 11 years.

“I’ve been shot at. I’ve been bombed. I’ve been torpedoed. I didn’t have enough sense to get scared until the doctor looked at me and said that it’s lung cancer,” Burleigh said.**

The declining number of Pearl Harbor survivors is something that veterans across the country are facing.

In Honolulu, Donald Robinett went directly to the sign-in area for Pearl Harbor survivors when he arrived there this week.

“I am trying to find my shipmates,” the 89-year-old veteran said. “I want to see which ones are here.”

A volunteer at the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, one of the groups organizing a massive reunion to mark the attack, began flipping through a logbook until she came to Robinett’s ship, the USS Tracy, a small mine-laying vessel that had been in port that infamous day.

“Sir,” she said, patting the old man on his shoulder, “you’re the only one here.”

In the decades since the bombing of Pearl Harbor, countless survivors have made the long journey back to Hawaii every five years to remember comrades who were lost and to catch up with those who lived but later went their separate ways. They drink scotch and tell war stories; they brag and weep. They often just sit together and say nothing at all.

But this year’s reunion holds an urgency that hasn’t been part of gatherings past: Most Pearl Harbor survivors, nearing their 90s or even older, say it will be their final trip back to this place that changed the course of their lives and their nation forever.

Event organizers – many of them children of survivors who are ailing or already have died – pragmatically are calling this the “final reunion.” And survivors’ extended families, including children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, are coming along to the reunion in unprecedented numbers to glimpse history firsthand through their loved one’s eyes before the opportunity is gone.

“This is their last swan song,” said Sue Marks, an event volunteer whose father, a Pearl Harbor survivor, died a decade ago. “They know that a lot of them either won’t be around in five years or won’t be physically able to make the long trip.”

This morning, some 1,500 survivors, friends and family members gathered with 2,000 other guests and dignitaries for the 65th anniversary commemoration at Kilo Pier on Naval Station Pearl Harbor, looking out at the USS Arizona Memorial a half mile away.

The amount of living history gathered in one place this week is almost mind-boggling. An estimated 450 American survivors are in Honolulu. They are easy to spot by the hats they wear that announce “Pearl Harbor Survivor” and the ship or base where they were stationed on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese planes appeared through Oahu’s Kolekole mountain pass to drop their deadly payload on the unsuspecting U.S. forces below.

Yet these numbers represent just a fraction of the estimated 4,000 to 6,000 Pearl Harbor survivors still living – many gravely ill or too frail to travel. Over the last decade, the number of survivors to attend these memorial events has dropped precipitously. The same is true of membership in the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, the largest national organization for survivors; chapters all across the U.S. are closing as members die.

“We had more than 650 survivors come for the 60th anniversary out here five years ago,” said George Sullivan, chairman of the Arizona Memorial Museum Association. “Our numbers are falling fast.”

The survivors in Honolulu this week, many hunched, some in wheelchairs, men deeply wrinkled yet still trying to trade a history lesson for a quick kiss on the cheek, collectively know one thing: They defied death 65 years ago, but the inevitable is creeping up on them.

They know this from the pain in their backs and hips. They know this as their eyesight fades and their hearing fails. And they know this because every five years, when they return to Pearl Harbor and find that their old buddies are not there, it’s a reminder that their friends either couldn’t endure the arduous Hawaii flight or that they died a couple of years back.

“At our little happy hours each night you see the guys sitting alone who don’t have any old shipmates to speak with because they’ve all died,” said Debbie Marks, 35, who became involved in the survivors association because of her late grandfather. “I just spend the night walking around trying to get the ones who are alone to start talking to each other instead.”

Not only do the bulk of survivors not expect to make it back to Hawaii for another reunion, they know that the memorial site at Pearl Harbor will look dramatically different if they do.

Plans call for ground to be broken Dec. 7, 2007, on a new $50 million Pearl Harbor Memorial Museum and Visitor Center. It will take some two years to complete, but when done it will be a state-of-the-art facility complete with interactive exhibits and twice the visitor capacity of the current site.

[Remembering</a> Pearl Harbor and a shrinking list of survivors. | Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, NE) (December, 2006)](<a href=“http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28850921_ITM]Remembering”>http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28850921_ITM)

churchmusicmom · April 25, 2008, 7:57am

LTS (and all of the other dear people who read this): a dear friend of mine just told me last night that his brother, who recently had surgery for removal of a brain tumor and subsequent WBR, just was informed by his oncologist that he has lung cancer and that it is also in his lymph system. This friend is a member of my choir and, as I have said, he knows about you and about this thread because I have been asking them to pray for you.

So I sent him a link to this thread and he is going to be reading some and, I am sure, gaining wonderful insight and strength from this, as we all have. Would ya’ll please keep my friend and his brother in your prayers? And isn’t it cool to know we don’t even have to know each others’ exact name to pray???

LTS, I hope this day is a blessed one for you. You have blessed us all so many times over!

mythmom · April 25, 2008, 8:46am

churchmusicmom: Will do.

oaklandmom · April 25, 2008, 9:03am

LTS
I continue to be amazed by your strength, courage and determination. My thoughts are with you today and every day. Sending healing energy your way.

binx · April 25, 2008, 9:50am

Churchmusicmom - I believe in prayer! And I also think that it is neat that because you were faithful to pray for LTS in that public situation, that another person is going to benefit from this compiled wisdom.

LTS - You gave those smokers something to think about. Sometimes someone has to hear something several times over before it has an impact. That means the result might not be immediate - but you’ve added to grist, and there will be an effect. Good for you for caring about others.

And your D reminds me so much of my S. He keeps scolding me for not making the doctor appointments I’ve been told to make. I hate all things doctorish - the subordination, the helplessness, the condescention by office staff, the fighting with insurance companies, the expense, the interruption and often waste of time. I finally saw a doctor two weeks ago, and he handed me a fist-ful of cards for more doctors, and I’ve done absolutely nothing with them. Too overwhelming. I’m thinking I might be able to handle one at a time, wait for the insurance to be settled on that one, and then move to the next. But I don’t know which doc to start with. My oldest S finds all this very infuriating, especially because I have always brought my kids to the doctor ASAP, and because my nursing background should make me wiser. I just can’t apply the same objectivity to myself. I don’t mind his lectures; I find his concern very sweet. It’s still hard to do, though.

DougBetsy · April 25, 2008, 2:51pm

New to CC and just found this thread. LTS, you’re in my prayers.

padad · April 25, 2008, 2:59pm

LTS, Happy Birthday

NYMomof2 · April 25, 2008, 5:19pm

Happy birthday, LTS!

I have a few suggestions for the back pain, which I will offer in case they are useful to you or to anyone else reading.

Sitting, as someone else said a page or two ago, is the worst. Sitting on a large, inflatable exercise ball is much better. Using one forces you to constantly make small adjustments in position, and it is fun.

I found a great book on back pain, The Multifidus Back Pain Solution, by Jim Johnson. It’s the best one I’ve read (and I’ve read many, as my husband suffers from back pain).

Fish oil reduces inflammation. Several weeks after I started taking a medical-grade supplement (omegabrite.com), the pain I’d had in one shoulder for 10 months was gone and the range of motion was completely restored (I’d been unable to raise my arm above shoulder height).

mythmom · April 25, 2008, 5:22pm

LTS: Happy birthday! And here’s to next year. Now blow out your candles!

latetoschool · April 25, 2008, 6:46pm

Churchmusicmom, I am so sorry to hear the news of your friend’s brother; I am pleased this thread exists as a resource: the information here is incredible, and, in my opinion, one of the greatest emerging values that I could not have imagined when I first posted back in September is that this compilation of information saves people from drilling through the internet: that way leads to horror and madness if one is not careful, as one must work through simply tons of material on the ugliness and terrible prognostic factors of this disease, in order to find just one story of hope or survivorship such as what Epistrophy might post. I think this is really, really critical: I truly believe that the greatest portion of this battle is mental, and, we become what we think about. It’s very difficult to maintain a positive attitude when one is inundated with negative information with no counterbalance of positive information, and so there is such great value in all of the positive, supportive posts here.

Binx, I don’t like anything medical either. I really don’t. Every single time I go to the doctor - which is typically at least once a week - I take work with me, my blackberry, lots of other stuff. I send my body to the doctor, but my brain is at a client site, at a congressional hearing, in my office, on an airplane, even on CC. I only engage my brain in the medical stuff when absolutely necessary - when the doctor walks into the room, etc. Same with scans, tests, etc. I read every single word of every report, I read everything in my chart, etc., but that is just so that I can really understand it all. Comparatively, my daughter’s position is that doctors and things medical are wonderful; everyone should go to some doctor, any doctor, all the time. She even obsesses over her health insurance to make sure she’s squeezing every single benefit out of it she can. I don’t think she’s overlooked any opportunity to see any “-ologist” that she is eligible to see. She believes there is no other profession that is so wonderfully altruistic.

Thank you to everyone for the advice re this herniated disc issue. Last night and this morning the pain was simply excrutiating, almost unbearable. Oddly, Aleve seems to do the trick even if only temporarily, and, after chemo today, there is almost no pain - I am wondering if the benedryl or some other drug they give me with this chemotherapy combination helps. In any event, I am going to ease off the stairs etc. for several days to try to give this some rest.

Thank you for the birthday wishes; Monday we are going to have a very nice, quiet dinner at Old Ebbit Grill, one of my favorite Washington restaurants and a place where I have many years of wonderful memories.

NYMomof2, I am going to get some of that - my primary oncologist approved that I can take supplements - my Miami doctors would never allow it, but then they would never explain why, either…

Last, as I have posted before, I do believe very strongly in the strength of prayer. I believe He listens to us; the long term survivor in Texas and I have talked about this extensively. When we compared notes, we discovered that when we pray, we DO NOT ask to be healed of cancer, or to be allowed to live longer, etc. We discovered that that strikes both of us as arrogant, inappropriate - God aleady knows we do not wish to be ill with cancer and that we want to live longer, see whatever grandchildren may be coming in the future, etc. What we typically ask for instead is guidance, help, and support - how to meet this challenge with grace and class - how to make sure we are continuing to be fair, reasonable and kind to others in spite of such an enormous challenge, how to make sure we continue to do the right things in all situations, make the best possible decisions for all persons who are impacted by our cancer, etc…(at the end of the day, thy will be done).

We also both believe that we were inflicted with this disease for a reason: we are meant to do something about this…he and his wife (she’s simply awesome) have worked extensively with lung cancer patients over the past three-four years; he has tried very hard to start various support groups but the stigma gets in the way. We both now know that there isn’t much we can do about the health care issue until we have a new administration (and even then we both lack the knowledge and resources), therefore, our efforts are going to be restricted to helping people one by one, to the extent we can. That so far has included giving people money or counseling them over the telephone or asking strangers not to smoke cigarettes…

latetoschool · April 25, 2008, 6:55pm

Marite, thank you for that link, that is one of the issues that makes us (survivors) crazy. Some months ago I called the SEER statisticians and made them run real numbers for me - the actual “observed survival” of persons diagnosed with small cell lung cancer - not the weird calculus that they call “relative survival”. I was shocked at the differences of survival rates between caucasians and other races, and when I asked SEER to explain the data they said it was because of lack of insurance, inadequate care etc. This issue needs to be addressed, obviously, and it is good to know the doctor is doing something to help the uninsured since there is no other available solution for now.

ADAD, thank you very much for your posts, I appreciate them, and they have the necessary impact!!! :)

Support for LateToSchool

CONNECT WITH US