Living with cancer (and madwullie memorial thread)

[Donathan]

59 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Regarding Andy Goram and his decision not to take chemo because of what a bad time his Mother had on it, every case is different. I'm not trying to say he made the wrong decision, but people shouldn't decide on the basis of one case they know about. There are a multitude of cancers types and stages, and different chemo drugs to treat them. When I was told the average increase in life expectancy I might get from chemo I was tempted to say no, I didn't and it turned out the side effects were pretty mild and the effectiveness combined with other treatment was stonkingly good. The average contains ranges from near instant death to a full life term, so if anyone gets bad news, think about it properly before turning chemo down.

 

I can't remember the women's name, but Deborah James's co-host from the podcast "You, me and the big C" was on another podcast recently talking about how she feels chemo is overused. I can't remember what cancer she had but the standard treatment was surgery to remove the tumour followed by adjuvant chemotherapy to kill any remaining cancer cells.

 

She said that doctors had told her the 5-year survival probability is 81% with surgery alone or 85% with surgery followed by chemo, i.e., for 96% of people, the chemotherapy made no difference to whether or not they'd survive their cancer. Her view is that doctors should look into individual cases in more depth to try and determine which cases will be fine without the chemo, which are unfortunately not curable even with the chemo, and which cases will actually benefit from having the chemo.

 

In Goram's case he had stage 4 metastatic oesophageal cancer which is a terminal illness. The prognosis for oesophageal cancer is very poor as it doesn't tend to cause symptoms in the early stages when it's more treatable. By the time symptoms start to appear, the cancer has unfortunately usually spread to other organs which tends to end the prospect of a cure. Doctors told Andy Goram he'd probably live for around six months if he declined chemotherapy or nine months if he took the treatment. He decided against it on the basis that the potential side effects weren't worth it for an extra three months. Absolutely tragic case but far too common.

 

They really need to start screening people for those cancers that are symptomless in their early stages (like they do with the smear tests that woman get for cervical cancer). If they'd caught Goram's tumour on a routine scan a few years back, it might have been a different outcome.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Donathan

[bobbykdy]

2 minutes ago, Donathan said:

 

I can't remember the women's name, but Deborah James's co-host from the podcast "You, me and the big C" was on another podcast recently talking about how she feels chemo is overused. I can't remember what cancer she had but the standard treatment was surgery to remove the tumour followed by adjuvant chemotherapy to kill any remaining cancer cells.

 

She said that doctors had told her the 5-year survival probability is 81% with surgery alone or 85% with surgery followed by chemo, i.e., for 96% of people, the chemotherapy made no difference to whether or not they'd survive their cancer. Her view is that doctors should look into individual cases in more depth to try and determine which cases will be fine without the chemo, which are unfortunately not curable even with the chemo, and which cases will actually benefit from having the chemo.

I think sadly it is a pig in a poke a lot of the time when it comes to what treatment someone is given if any and how they respond to it.

My dad had metastatic melanoma which spread into lymph nodes in the groin which he then had to have removed, he was then told he would require radiotherapy afterwards. A few weeks later at his follow up appointment he was then told that in their view the radiotherapy was not advisable as there had been a study in Australia of people who had radiotherapy for this type of cancer and it was found they fared slightly worse than those who didn't have it. His operation to remove nodes was in the February, he was told they had changed their mind on the radiotherapy at the end of March and he was dead by the end of first week of June. When I queried this all with his surgeon they said they were all genuinely shocked at how rapidly & aggressively it had spread and with hindsight they were still confident it was the right way to go and that it would have made no difference. What can you do?

[welshbairn]

In my case my prostate cancer when diagnosed was at stage four, an exceptionally high PSA score of 145, and it had spread to my bones and lymph nodes. The average life expectancy for stage four was 5 years, but given the PSA score and spread the indications I got were that it would be a lot shorter in my case, although they didn't spell it out. I think the they said that chemo could on average extend my life expectancy by 3 months, and given the horror stories I'd heard about the effects of chemo, constant vomiting etc, I thought what's the point. I wasn't bothered about going bald as I was getting there already. Anyway I changed my mind, went for it and the chemo turned out to be a breeze. Combined with hormone treatment my PSA score went down to below 1 within about 6 months and it's pretty well stayed below 0.3 ever since. I was first diagnosed on the eve of Covid, and the only serious discomfort I've felt was a sausage fingered nurse sticking some cutting tool up my arse to take a sample of of the tumour right at the start. All I'm saying is that sometimes chemo isn't a big ordeal, and can be more effective sometimes than the predictive average.

Edited July 2, 2022 by welshbairn

[Richey Edwards]

My uncle is currently dying of cancer. He does not have long left. He only found out that he has cancer a couple of weeks ago and was told that it is terminal.

 

 

 

[Satoshi]

Very humbled to read the thread, thoughts with you all who are either battling individually or with family who are.

Can recommend this excellent documentary on the BBC which looks at themes including over treatment. Probably the most fascinating was how increased screening for throat cancer in South Korea didn't have any impact on survival rate (meaning there was a lot of unnecessary operations).

Very complex situation for all involved and no easy answers.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017wzq#:~:text=When she's diagnosed with cervical,world around her through numbers.

[scottsdad]

13 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle is currently dying of cancer. He does not have long left. He only found out that he has cancer a couple of weeks ago and was told that it is terminal.

 

 

 

Sorry to hear this. The exact same thing happened with my uncle - 7 weeks after his diagnosis, he passed away. 

Best wishes. 

[Jacksgranda]

17 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle is currently dying of cancer. He does not have long left. He only found out that he has cancer a couple of weeks ago and was told that it is terminal.

 

 

 

Sorry to hear that, hope he's not in pain.

[Richey Edwards]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Sorry to hear this. The exact same thing happened with my uncle - 7 weeks after his diagnosis, he passed away. 

Best wishes. 

 

1 hour ago, Jacksgranda said:

Sorry to hear that, hope he's not in pain.

Thank you both.

He apparently noticed a lump in his chest ages ago but never told anyone and never got it checked out until he was hospitalised while struggling to breathe a couple of weeks ago. Now it is too late to do anything about it.

Basically, if you notice anything like that then definitely get it checked out. Don't ignore it.

[scottsdad]

10 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

 

Thank you both.

He apparently noticed a lump in his chest ages ago but never told anyone and never got it checked out until he was hospitalised while struggling to breathe a couple of weeks ago. Now it is too late to do anything about it.

Basically, if you notice anything like that then definitely get it checked out. Don't ignore it.

In my uncle's case, he noticed he was hard of breathing in February 2016. Did nothing about it.

Two months later he went for a bath, and when he came out one of his legs had turned blue. He went to hospital and was told it was a blood clot. They went to find out why, and he had lung cancer. It had caused the clot. But by then it was too late to do anything. 

[Jacksgranda]

15 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

In my uncle's case, he noticed he was hard of breathing in February 2016. Did nothing about it.

Two months later he went for a bath, and when he came out one of his legs had turned blue. He went to hospital and was told it was a blood clot. They went to find out why, and he had lung cancer. It had caused the clot. But by then it was too late to do anything. 

I noticed I had breathing difficulties round about the same time or maybe a couple of years earlier.

Turned out to be emphysema. Best get these things seen to.

A routine blood check (for my emphysema) flagged up high PSA levels, which led to my early prostate cancer diagnosis. (I had no symptoms or concerns)

My wife missed a routine mammograph appointment, got offered another one at a less convenient time if I remember correctly, I said you might as well take it, that led to her early breast cancer diagnosis. (She had no symptoms or concerns either).

Get checked, folks!

[Richey Edwards]

On 08/08/2022 at 17:49, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle is currently dying of cancer. He does not have long left. He only found out that he has cancer a couple of weeks ago and was told that it is terminal.

 

 

 

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

[Rugster]

17 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Very sorry to hear that. Deepest condolences mate.

[scottsdad]

28 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Very sorry to hear this. 

[Crazy Days]

1 hour ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Sorry to hear this - hope he did not suffer too much.  Best wishes to you.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Very sorry for your loss Richey.

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Sorry to hear that.

[Venti]

5 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Sorry to hear mate.

PS you are right. Anyone should get checked immediately if they notice something.

[Jacksgranda]

On 14/04/2022 at 17:18, Jacksgranda said:

I'm generally tired anyway, as I have COPD, but that said I regularly dozed off on the journey home, and many's a night I'm in bed before 9.00 pm.

Just have to wait and see what the oncologist has to say.

Also waiting for the results of my chest scan last week.

Next on the agenda is a visit to the (local) hospital for a glaucoma examination. It's all go when you're old and decrepit! 

Glad to hear you're doing well, and I also wish everyone else all the best.

Glaucoma confirmed (local hospital referred me on to Altnagelvin's specialist), but they're happy with the eye pressure, (which has dropped slightly from my last examination). I've to continue taking the eye drops and they'll see me in 9 months.

I've now developed a nasty pain in my left buttock...

[Andy Dufresne]

On 18/08/2022 at 08:19, Richey Edwards said:

My uncle died at ten past 7 this morning.

Thoughts with you and your family at this hard time.

[BFTD]

Condolences to Richey. Hopefully your uncle had quality care that made the end bearable.

My father has nothing but good things to say about the hospice that cared for his second wife. It's comforting to know that the pain can be managed, in some cases at least.