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My wife has one metastasis on her spine , it was detected 33 day ago, I fear that moment where she will be suffering enough that she will qualify for medically
by nick__m 4y ago
My wife has one metastasis on her spine , it was detected 33 day ago, I fear that moment where she will be suffering enough that she will qualify for medically assisted death. According to the paper accompanying her incredibly expensive drugs (5700$/month) she has between twelve and eighty-eight months left ... I hope that she will cost money to my insurance for a long time!
According to her oncologist we cannot know as the stats are always made in the past and they don't reflect recent medical advances like the to be scheduled next week xray scalpel surgery.
fuck cancer.
- tomrod 4y agoFuck cancer. All the best to you and your wife.
- melling 4y agoI really wish people would stop saying “F cancer” As a society, we have the option of greatly reducing cancer deaths whenever we so choose. Let’s do that rather than raging against something that feels nothing. It has been over 15 years since the Last Lecture and we still have done little for pancreatic cancer, for example. https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to eliminate cancer: https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s No one is saying it’s going to be easy but we’re going to make a lot of progress over the next 25 years. Let’s decide to do more sooner.
- bulbosaur123 4y agoReferring to early screening, this seems like the right way to go: https://grail.com/ https://grail.com/
- jghn 4y agoSort of. The issue with current early detection methods is that they tend to cause more harm than good at population scale. Between getting dosed with radiation in the process, false positives causing at best psychological trauma if not unnecessary treatment, and it's hard to tell if you just detected a cancer you'll die with instead of dying of - and thus another form of unnecessary treatment. The blood tests remove some, but not all of that. Yes, for any arbitrary person it might be lifesaving, just like current methods. But at population scale it's not a panacea.
- pifm_guy 4y agoWe also have a lot of data on ways to reduce cancer before it happens. Reduce obesity. Reduce pollution. Etc. Yet we really aren't doing an awful lot about those things. Imagine for example if we had an obesity tax - everyone obese must pay 30% of their earnings into a Medicare fund. Sure it would be unpopular, but obesity would very quickly be solved, and cancer rates would plummet.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoThat will probably do nothing for obesity rates except fleece obese people. I’d be more interested in seeing appetite drugs like semaglutide become cheap and easy to get, something that helps instead of buying into punitive measures for absolutely everything.
- fuzzfactor 4y agoExactly. There needs to be a reward system for healthy initiatives, not a punitive approach for unsuccessful accomplishments.
- copperx 4y agoIt's ironic that you mention semaglutide, because it causes cancer.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoThose approaches -- reducing pollution, etc -- aren't popular in part because humans are terrible about not knowing how to count the deaths that didn't happen.
- jodrellblank 4y ago> "Imagine for example if we had an obesity tax - everyone obese must pay 30% of their earnings into a Medicare fund." Imagine for example if we taxed the shareholders of CocaCola instead, they're the ones who got wealthy from obesity. And before you say "it was the consumer's choice", what was CocaCola's $4b/year advertising spend for, then?
- Waterluvian 4y ago"Fuck cancer" is more than a scause for a cause. It translates to, "you are not alone." Certainly, I agree that we can be doing more.
- justin_oaks 4y agoAs someone who lost a sibling to cancer, thanks for the translation. I wish people would use "You are not alone" or "We also have suffered due to cancer. It is awful. You have our empathy and we offer our condolences." or something else instead of the shorthand "Fuck cancer". But I'll accept "Fuck cancer" too.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI generally agree. I used to be so angry when someone said it. Fuck cancer? Fuck you. What do you know about how I’m feeling? I learned two things over the years : 1. everyone “knows something” about cancer. 2. I can’t control culture and language. To be honest though, many years later… I still haven’t found a single phrase anyone can say that doesn’t make me think, “I wish we could just not be having this conversation.” I remind myself that there are no words but people are still trying.
- DubiousPusher 4y agohttps://allpoetry.com/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night https://allpoetry.com/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night
- tomrod 4y ago"Fuck Cancer" is what I feel and what I will share. When we cure cancer, I'll back down. Until then, in memory of the folks I have lost and with empathy to those experiencing it or watching loved ones experience it, fuck cancer.
- adamredwoods 4y agoHopefully TCR therapy will move us forward against these types of cancer: https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/01/novel-genetic-experiment-shrinks-pancreatic-cancer https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/01/novel-genetic-experiment...
- imdsm 4y agoFuck cancer. I wish you the longest possible time.
- adamredwoods 4y agoSorry to hear. My mother had cancer in her spine for many years (10+) before she passed. I hate cancer. Instead of building weapons of war, we should be building tools to help completely control it, for all cancers, for all people, so it is no longer this UNKNOWN thing that keeps us up through the night, wondering, worrying when our time will be.
- thefounder 4y agoThat's hard to do. We "can't" even agree to ban the stuff that brings us most of the cancers (i.e food poisoning, air polution etc). We are lab rats.
- nick__m 4y agoThanks for sharing, your comment is somewhat reassuring... I'm sorry for your loss and hope it was it 10y of with a good quality of life.
- rubicon33 4y agoI'm so sorry man. Losing my wife is my greatest fear. FUCK cancer.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago>(5700$/month) How is this not profiteering?
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoThe problem isn't (specifically) profiteering, it's unequal access. Those drugs are probably a vastly different price if your big insurance company buys them than they are if you're forced to buy them on your own. I'd like to see there being one price per drug with a small quantity modifier for bulk purchases.
- nick__m 4y agoExactly, it is an acces problem, here, you cannot access those drugs unless your either are on a great private drugs insurance plan, are quite ritch or are terribly poor.
- 737min 4y agoSorry tongear, that’s terrible