<p>We’re all still here with you LTS.</p>
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<p>Hey - I assume this gender reference was to both LTS and yourself, and that’s fine of course, but lest anyone should get the wrong idea about the divine Ms. Moore, there’s certainly no reason to ghettoize her. From personal experience I can assure you that she’s just as “hilarious” and “caustic” - even a “tonic,” too - for the “thinking” man.</p>
<p>I can assure you that she’s just as “hilarious” and “caustic” - even a “tonic,” too - for the “thinking” man.</p>
<p>ahhh, yes epistrophy. my bad indeed.</p>
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I also wanted to thank Epistrophy. I am busy copying and pasting all the links and forwarding them to my friend :-)</p>
<p>LOL it’s like coming to the food bowl every day. But today there’s nothing new from Epistrophy. But then I can almost hear the admonishment “but LTS, you haven’t finish reading all the resources I already sent…”. LOL. </p>
<p>Faline I love it here - thank heavens for weighty and complex distractions. I try not to ever let the word “fair” wander into my head. I think often about very young, new parents and of course all of the children who must endure very serious health challenges, and I think that the net net of it is that I have been very lucky and very blessed, and for a very long time. </p>
<p>Curiousmother, my daughter is having a blast but she is frantically worried about me. She hasn’t been able to reach me because I’ve been in meetings, plus, she went with her young man and his family to Bali for a few days and a satellite was out (???) meaning no internet access, and so I have all this frantic email asking if I’m o.k., and punctuated with cancer diet and medical stuff that she doesn’t know that my research team and I already knew all about. LOL. So I sent email back calming her down (hopefully), her mother is fine, etc. I wonder where she learned to go helicopter - surely she didn’t learn that at home :)</p>
<p>LTS, I had a brief conversation today with a woman whose mother is a five-year survivor of lung cancer. She apparently had one lobe of one lung removed – I don’t know if she had chemo or not – and there was both small cell and large cell cancer in the lobe. This is someone who I’ve just met, so I didn’t feel comfortable quizzing her too much. But if I find out any other info which may apply to your situation, I’ll let you know.</p>
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<p>Historian (and now Harvard President) Drew Gilpin Faust appeared yesterday on the NPR program “Fresh Air,” where she discussed her (to me fascinating sounding) new book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Toward the end of the interview, briefly but eloquently, she talks about her own experiences with breast and thyroid cancer.</p>
<p>[NPR</a> : ‘Republic of Suffering’ Author Drew Gilpin Faust](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17957712]NPR”>'Republic of Suffering' Author Drew Gilpin Faust : NPR)</p>
<p>(While I think this whole interview is very worthwhile, this particular section of it, if you want to skip ahead, comes at 27:40.)</p>
<p>[Lung</a> Cancer Online: Lung Cancer Support Services](<a href=“http://www.lungcanceronline.org/support/services.html]Lung”>http://www.lungcanceronline.org/support/services.html)</p>
<p>And an internet support group specifically for individuals with small cell lung cancer:</p>
<p>[Archives</a> of <a href="mailto:LUNG-SCLC@LISTSERV.ACOR.ORG">LUNG-SCLC@LISTSERV.ACOR.ORG</a>](<a href=“http://listserv.acor.org/archives/lung-sclc.html]Archives”>http://listserv.acor.org/archives/lung-sclc.html)</p>
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<p>[Seed:</a> The Listener](<a href=“Wallpapers.com | 1,500,000+ Free HD Wallpapers for Desktop, Mobiles & Tablets”>[2700+] Gaming Wallpapers | Wallpapers.com)</p>
<p>(P.S. I’m currently in the midst of Sacks’ new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. While I’m finding it a bit uneven, particularly in comparison to some of his other books, there’s a lot of fascinating stuff here.)</p>
<p>I agree about Sack’s new book, and also about the poignancy of him becoming one of his own characters. Well said. There have been intimations of this all along. I read one scrupulous account of how he gets lost in side buildings (pre-melanoma.)</p>
<p>I find the saddest moment is his commenting that melanoma is a beautiful word. </p>
<p>As Curm said, we’re all in this leaky boat together.</p>
<p>At least he’s intellectually engaged in it vs. terrified of it…</p>
<p>Yes, that’s true.</p>
<p>As for Sacks’ comment that “melanoma is such a lovely word”:</p>
<p>–It’s evident from Sacks’ writings that he reads a lot of poetry (his work is full of references to W.H. Auden [who I think was also a personal friend], Thom Gunn, and other poets) and, relatedly, that he’s very sensitive to sound - both in general and, in particular, in language and music. And what I think he was referring to here was, very specifically, the sound of this word. And it is a lovely sounding word - all those repeated m’s and uh’s packed so closely together. And the sound of it is particularly striking, I suspect, when compared to most of the other words that one would encounter in medicine.</p>
<p>–Without a follow-up question, it’s hard to tell, but my hunch is that Sacks may have made this comment with a bit of a twinkle in his eye - as if he found it a delicious irony that a phenomenon that could be so destructive (even fatal) should be known by such a lovely sounding word.</p>
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<p>LTS: In much of the material I’ve cited in this thread - whether it was from a Buddhist, an actor, a mountain climber, a short story writer, a historian, or in this case a neurologist - what has most struck and impressed me has been this sense of deep engagement. Not denying, not running away, not sentimentalizing; rather, simply looking at - and experiencing - one’s circumstances as intensely and fully as possible, no matter how dire they might appear to be. How admirable to be able to engage with one’s life so deeply and intensely!</p>
<p>Epistrophy, interestingly enough, based on what I have read here and in talking to real life survivors of lung cancer, these appear to be the types people who tend to live longer, if they don’t actually end up conquering their disease…</p>
<p>LTS,
Although I rarely post in this thread , I wanted to let you know that I check it daily, and always hope to hear of your latest triumph. My Dad died of lung cancer 30 years ago, also a non-smoker, and I’m sure that my Mom just trusted whatever one physician she happened to link up with. Nonetheless, I still find it astonishing and exasperating that there has been so little progress in finding a cure. I continue to marvel at the way you have attacked this disease. Best wishes!</p>
<p>Momof3sons, the issue of “cure” is trapped and locked up in our stupid, hopeless, outdated trial system, among other things. Other countries are making progress with lung and other cancers that we’re not even close to here. </p>
<p>I have a trial on my desk right now from a top 10 university. This trial doesn’t appear anywhere on the internet or where one could search for it - I found out about it by asking questions, and because people began making inquiries on my behalf. But even if those afflicted with cancer could find the trial, it requires traveling to a distant city twice a month for several months. Now, I can do that, without a problem. But I’d speculate that most people with a lung cancer diagnosis cannot. If economics don’t prevent them from doing so, physical limitations will prevent them from doing so. But the university is frustrated too - they cannot get the desired number of participants into the trial. Very little hope for their research to advance very far, and make it through the long process to get FDA approval. </p>
<p>It’s no wonder so many people are dying of this disease. </p>
<p>Having said that, there have been many positive outcomes in other types of cancers…perhaps lung cancer will some day catch up. It would also help a LOT if people would stop smoking - BUT - many people with lung cancer are never-smokers…</p>
<p>LTS-
Please pardon my ignorance. Is radon exposure a contributor to this type of lung cancer?</p>
<p>Mafool, according to some reports I’ve read, yes. I don’t know how to evaluate their accuracy or legitimacy though and I don’t know how well proven this is. </p>
<p>Nearly everything I read says smoking. But then there are just some completely inexplicable situations too - such as people in their early 30’s who are never smokers, no smoking history in their immediate families, etc. I am guessing these just have to be genetic and/or environmental causes etc.</p>
<p>Thanks, LTS.
Onward and upward.</p>
<p>All this makes me wonder…has there been any research on families that just don’t seem to get cancer?</p>
<p>Besides environmental factors, genetics plays a large part, right? And I know they have identified families with hereditary predispositions to certain cancers, and learned much from studying them.</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because in my mother’s large family, there seems to never have been any cancer. She is one of 11 children, and searching both back and forwards among the generations…they just don’t seem to get cancer. (Other things, yes, but not that.) Which makes me feel good until I remember the apparent randomness of some breast cancers, for instance.</p>
<p>I suppose it would be like trying to prove a negative, and that it’s far easier to focus on the one thing that goes wrong to produce a disease. Just curious.</p>