<p>This is something I came across and thought you might appreciate,
from [Stress</a> Mastery](<a href=“http://www.woodmed.com/StressMastery.htm]Stress”>http://www.woodmed.com/StressMastery.htm)</p>
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<p>LTS</p>
<p>My late father-in-law chain smoked for 70+ years and never developed anything worse than a morning cough. He also ate a high fat, high salt diet, was overweight, never exercised, etc. Lived to be almost 90.</p>
<p>My Mom, who has never smoked or lived or worked around smokers, has a deteriorating pulmonary condition. But she’s in her 80’s so it doesn’t feel as unfair as your situation.</p>
<p>My father, who smoked three packs a day, died of metatasized esophageal cancer at age 70 (2 1/2 years after his doctors told him he’d be lucky to live another six months) (in 1978); my mother died of COPD (pulmonary disease/emphysema) caused directly by her 2-pack-a-day habit. Smoking is deadly, second hand or first hand.</p>
<p>Yes, dmd, it is, even though there seem to be a few fortunate souls who survive their bad habits with no ill effects. There are many more minor (than cancer) effects of smoking. For example, I learned during infertility treatment that women who smoke lose ovarian function about 5 years earlier than nonsmokers.</p>
<p>JEM–that was a good article. Thanks for sharing it.</p>
<p>I try not to allow myself to drift anywhere near “fair - unfair” thinking, though it’s very hard not to sometimes. When I find myself at the edge I just remind myself about Randy Pausch, and his three children, all under five years old.</p>
<p>JEM, thank you for your post, I appreciate it.</p>
<p>If you want to see an update on Randy Pausch’s health, and see a wonderful Halloween picture, click here:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html]RandyPauschInformation[/url”>RandyPauschInformation]RandyPauschInformation[/url</a>]</p>
<p>I love that photo!</p>
<p>Wow…I read his entire story; my heart really goes out to him.</p>
<p>Great to see that he added some months, and that he has other treatment plans in the work. The pics really put a face to his dreadful illness.</p>
<p>I am somewhat curious about his hope that another few months might make a difference or yield a new drug or even a cure. From what I can tell, these things have to start with phase I trials, then phase IIs, then IIIs, then orphan drug or fast-track drug status. And it takes years and years - not months. And you can see the pipeline. For example, I know that no “cure” for lung cancer is coming in the next ten years, because I can see the pipeline of research work. So I am curious as to how he is viewing this. Of course, I haven’t researched pancreatic cancer, so, perhaps that particular pipeline is more promising…</p>
<p>LTS, I see a few possibilities. He might be hopeful about a very experimental treatment, but I also think he is not looking at it from the medical perspective alone. I think that he feels that he won “the lottery” because every months count when kids are so small. The memories for them with their dad are priceless. I am sure his wife wants him to be in the best health possible, for as long as possible too. To be honest, he also may be putting on a brave face “to win the fight” to please those he loves, to ease their pain. He may feel that there is no other treatment and he knows the odds are not with him for a cure, but might want to keep his family as upbeat as possible. Some patients do that. Doctors also give hope, but realistic hope. If one does not have hope, I think that all is really lost to fight to stay alive.</p>
<p>Randy Pausch is a truly gallant man. Reminds me of you, LTS. </p>
<p>If an effective treatment is discovered, the patients in the early trials benefit. Do you know about gleevec? It works against a certain kind of GI tumor. It was originally tested on patients who were riddled with tumors, and whose life expectancy was counted in weeks. In many, the drug caused the tumors to disappear - the difference between pre- and post-treatment PET scans were dramatic. The drug does not work on everyone, and it does not work forever, and it is horribly expensive. But it has given some people who were at death’s door several more years of high-quality life. </p>
<p>You are someone who will know about promising treatments and who will manage to get into any appropriate trials. You say that there’s nothing in the pipeline for your cancer, but aren’t some of the potential therapies, like the vaccines, nonspecific?</p>
<p>I think that Randy Pausch’s attitude toward his health and life expectancy is consistent with the little I know about his earlier life. I saw somewhere, I think in that wonderful speech he gave, that he was not admitted to the college of his choice, but somehow managed to talk himself in, and was not admitted to the graduate program he wanted, but persisted and persuaded someone to admit him. He is not a man who gives up easily.</p>
<p>The name Randy Pausch didn’t mean anything to me, but reading the story did make a connection–the Alice Project! My kids had fun with the Alice chatbot when it was first introduced. Somehow that makes the story of a total stranger more personal.</p>
<p>I wish him the best possible outcome.</p>
<p>NYMomof2, you’re sort of right there - that’s one of the reasons I’m relocating my main office and body of work to Washington, so that I can be in close(er) proximity with NIH, MSK and other institutions that are engaged in some of the more experimental work. (The other reason is that I am going to try to lend what skills I have to trying to fix this horrible mess that is our health care system.) Oddly the more progressive work I am seeing come out of Germany. My plan is - assuming it’s needed - and given the percentage of recurrance I suspect it will be - to talk my way into some of these other potential therapies, vaccines, etc.</p>
<p>On a related note, I am happy to report that I have made some small amount of progress in staying off the internet, or at least, staying out of some of the scarier parts of it, specific to lung cancer. But then I backslide a bit - yesterday I read a post in a forum, a woman has lung cancer, she’s 50-ish; the Fortune 500 company she has worked for for the past 10 years separated her from payroll following her disclosure of illness. Short term, she has no money to pay for Cobra and no money to pay for her radiation and chemo treatments. Her primary caregiver was the author of the post, which essentially asked, are there any grants available anywhere? Any source of funding? Any way at all to get money? I am wondering if you can imagine that this sent me into just pure rage. Fury. Absolutely unacceptable that in our society we have reduced the ill among us to pleading on the internet for money for medical care. While some small part of me says that well, at least people CAN plead on the internet (what if there were no internet or no media and no audience to hear a plea), the rest of me says that within reach of my influence (though my influence is horribly inadequate to the task), the world will not continue to be this way.</p>
<p>LTS, I am in awe of your capacity, in the midst of what it is understatement to call a major crisis, to feel compassion and rage on behalf of others, and to feel determination to change the system. It’s appalling that people, even middle-class working people, have to resort to public begging to find resources to pay for treatment. The spectacle of parents asking the public for funds to treat desperately ill children is particularly heartbreaking, and of course only those parents who are resourceful enough, and who have energy beyond what is needed for daily life with a sick child, have any hope of getting what they need. I wish I knew which company fired the sick woman, but I suspect that many would these days. When I was in college I worked part-time for Delta Air Lines. It was a great job, paid well, one free trip per year. This was long before the healthcare crisis hit, but people did worry about losing jobs if they couldn’t perform well for health reasons. While I was there, a young man (married, children) was diagnosed with epilepsy. He was called in and told that he would always have a job no matter what the state of his health was, and not to worry about that. I have always had warm feelings toward Delta because of this attitude, although I suspect that it no longer exists.</p>
<p>LTS: Congratulations on making progress avoiding scary sights. Every bit helps.</p>
<p>Congratulations on having the energy to relocate your office.</p>
<p>Congratulations on having the love and resources to want to help fix our health care system. Goodness knows it’s as difficult a fight as fighting your cancer.</p>
<p>We will all be with you in Washington in all your fights.</p>
<p>Yesterday I was standing in line behind a woman in the cancer center pharmacy. She had a binder out, and was trying to understand her mother’s cancer drugs. Her notes would say the doctor prescribed 90 days of something, but she only got 70. The pharmacist very apologetically said medicare only paid for 70. Then she started on the next medication, and the next one, and the next one. There were more than one like that, medicare would trump the doctor’s order. So then she tried to add the new one she got that day, and that’s where it got really sad. Although she only had 5 perscriptions in that pharmacies database, she had another perscription some where else, and medicare only paid for 6 perscription at a time. What a choice, trying to decide which medication you can’t take right now.</p>
<p>My husband’s company had been awesome. Even though he’s been on disability for almost a year, and it really doesn’t look like he’ll be back, they keep saying they know he’ll be back. His office is still there, and they pay his medical insurance. When he was actually there, they would take some amount of money a month out for medical insurance, which they obviously haven’t been doing, since his paycheck now comes from the long term disability insurance company. He called and asked about this. They told him not to worry, they would get it when he started working there again. There are companies with that kind of attitude still.</p>
<p>I know the name of the Fortune 500 company. I didn’t post it, on the off chance that there is more to the story or perhaps the information is not correct. But I have read more than a few similar stories, so I know this sort of discriminationatory firing of employees exists. This particular story was just simply outrageous though as the caregiver was so pitifully reduced to begging for money. Just outrageous. I read it and sat here at my desk just literally shaking with rage. Oncologist says avoid stress, whoops. </p>
<p>UCDAAlum82, that story about medicare is just horrible. I am not surprised though and it supports what I have been reading. </p>
<p>I hope your husband is still doing well. I am pleased that that his employer is so supportive. I also deeply hope that they are correct in their expectation that he will return to work. How is the trial going?</p>
<p>I am also very, very lucky that my business associates are standing by me. After I read the referenced story and when I could make my brain stop rioting in disbelief, I sent every single one of my colleagues a handwritten letter thanking them for their support. And then I thanked higher powers for the great gifts of loyalty, friendship and humanity. </p>
<p>Mythmom, it’s almost a sort of “there but for the grace of God go I” situation. My DEA friend tells me none of us can “afford” cancer, unless we have cancer insurance. His daughter has already maxed the lifetime benefits; she is only 26. There are doctors out there who make medical decisions based on profit margins. I do not understand anything at all about the economic realities of the market space but suspect that in many if not most cases they may simply have zero choice in the matter. After all, there are payrolls to meet and you have to be able to keep the lights on etc. </p>
<p>Today is not that day, fortunately, but, if this is allowed to continue or get worse, any one of us could also soon find ourselves on street corners begging for dollars to buy medicine. The street corner may move from a geographic point to the internet but it’s still begging on the street corner.</p>