I am writing this from the pool deck of a cruise ship while on a transatlantic sojourn. Our fourth transatlantic and our favorite form of vacation, we cross then pick several countries and explore. This year, after docking at Barcelona, we fly to Ireland and tour the wild and unpopulated western coast, then spend a long weekend in Edinburgh, and fly home. The cruise and the touring after is wonderful. The flight back is a nightmare because my incision scars throb in pain in a pressurized aircraf
I like thinking about choice. It is an interesting concept and can involve logical, rational thinking and irrational and illogical thought — sometimes concurrently. Choice is not just a human phenomena. Animals make choices, some deliberate and some random. But when all is said and done, a choice is a decision that has an outcome (or consequence). When we make rational choices, we are said to be informed of the consequences. Irrational choices are those where consequences don’t matter.
Perhaps you’ve heard? The federal government is a large insurance business with a standing army. Social Security is insurance — a specific kind of insurance called an annuity. The insured and employer pay premiums every month to fund a defined benefit at a specified year (normally your federally mandated retirement year). Everything is peachy-keen till a disability affects work because one has late stage lung cancer. And, when a lung cancer survivor files for disability, allowed by law and
I am a capitalist! I firmly believe profit is a reward for good performance and indeed it is an expected reward. Nothing is more important in business than making a profit. Nothing! My purpose for writing this is to acquaint you with a new type of business on the lung cancer scene — a for profit advocacy company. That’s right, companies have been formed to advocate for and sustain those in lung cancer treatment and expect to earn a profit -- off us! Let that sink in for a moment.
Why
In the days before computers, college registration involved waiting in long lines. Freshmen were last to register and my hope was an elective in social science, fine arts or music. But when I reached the registration table, I was assigned the only open class, Theology 101—The History of Religion. I was less than excited. And, worse yet, it was a Monday-Wednesday-Friday 8:00 a.m. class.
The professor was a Marianist brother, with PhDs in Ancient Languages and Cultural Anthropology, and f
The lights dim, the announcer’s introduction complete, now all the stand-up comedian needs to do is be funny. We’ve all seen one bomb. Even the best have a bad night. Overcoming fear must be a prerequisite for a comedian. Comedian and author Jerry Gillies developed an excellent approach for handling fear: “Confront your fears, list them, get to know them, and only then will you be able to put them aside and move ahead.”
This is very relevant advice for a lung cancer survivor. I practiced
We often hear smoking gun used to describe the “ah ha” moment of a who done it. I was unsure of the meaning and asked Siri. My Apple genius defined it as “as piece of incontrovertible incriminating evidence.”
I know two things with high confidence: (i) there is a very strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer, and (ii) implying smoking as a cause adds to the self-induced stigma that smacks down research for my disease. So, how do we address the stigma without pointing the smokin
Today we celebrate 13 years of surviving NSCLC. I'm borrowing three toes from Martha, my wife and caregiver extraordinaire, who deserves most of the credit for my continued life. Martha did the heavy lifting during treatment, asking the right questions at the right time, and prodding my medical team with just the right touch. By comparison, I was at wit's end during my nearly 4 years of continuous treatment. Doctors McK (GP), H (Oncologist) and C (Thoracic Surgeon) also deserve a lion's shar
I've seen the star of Bethlehem, very early on Christmas morning. While peacekeeping in Egypt's Sinai Desert, I would run before daybreak as soldiers are prone to do. Although the desert is quite cold in December, dawn running was a habit hard to break. I ran the camp perimeter to check the defensive positions and greet soldiers enjoying the banter in three different languages. Starting in the south perimeter and running counterclockwise, the predawn western sky was dark except for the stars
Today, in the United States, we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. Our first president, George Washington, called for an official “day of public thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789 and although the Congress heartily agreed, the proclamation was lost in the bureaucratic press of politics. It fell to Abraham Lincoln to rekindle the Thanksgiving Holiday shortly after the pivotal battle of our Civil War—Gettysburg in 1863. Thus in the mist of warfare and uncertainty, a holiday dedicated to thank
I am not a statistics wizard; an engineer, I value the predictive power of statistics. Indeed, if one can precisely control variables, a statistics-based prediction of the future is remarkably accurate. The joy of predicting end strength for a new carbon-nanotube concrete mix design melts the heart of this engineer. But, concrete is a thing with but 4 variables to control. Human beings have perhaps millions of variables, thus predictions about people are vastly more complicated and inaccurat
Amazon Kindle Royalties Donated to LUNGevity.org During November:"I am not a doctor; indeed, I possess little medical knowledge. I am, however, a very experienced and long-tenured lung cancer patient. That gives me a unique perspective on the disease that kills more people—many times more—than any other type of cancer. I do not intend to fill this story with statistics. They are readily available from any number of reputable resources. I have a firm belief, however, that lung cancer resea
I will donate all Scanziety Amazon Kindle Store sale royalties for the Month of November to LUNGevity.org to support much needed research. I wrote for the book for three reasons. First among them is “to raise a call to arms for funding lung cancer research.” Help me raise the call to arms! Read a book about surviving lung cancer and donate to sponsor research to find, fix and finish lung cancer.
Stay the course.
Get your copy of Scanziety here https://www.amazon.com/Scanziety-Retrospec
Meet Charlett Emilyrose Wilson, my first grandchild. Her parents, daughter Melissa and son-in-law Bill, are overjoyed. I am ecstatic! Proud would be a vast understatement!
Charlett was born 12-years, 8-months, and 13-days after my diagnosis with NSCLC. I celebrate this joyful milestone in my life for but one reason. If I can live, so can you.
Stay the course.
The other day, in conversation with a newly minted medical school graduate, he told me low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) was dangerous. Dangerous! If LDCT is dangerous, what is late discovery of lung cancer? He nearly fainted when I told him I had perhaps more than 40 CT scans in my treatment history, telling me I was a candidate for radiation induced cancer. It didn’t seem to register that I was a candidate for extinction by lung cancer.
We are told the only effective way of treating our
I just completed a most unusual intellectual assignment—evaluating molecular biology and pathobiology research grant applications. When I learned of my assignment, I wondered how I’d make the academic stretch from civil engineer to biologist.
Sure, on a good day, I can spell pathobiology correctly without aid of a spell checker. Why would someone deliberately assign me to review molecular biology stuff? I’d forgotten. I was a lung cancer survivor and expert, not by education but by expe
LUNG CANCER ACCOUNTING—A METHOD TO WIN THE BILLING BATTLE
Treatment for lung cancer was, hands-down, the hardest thing I ever endured. What’s the second hardest? Without a doubt, it is settling treatment bills. After nearly 13 years, I still get them. Despite all of the advances in information technology, medical invoices, including medical insurance invoices, are the most unnecessarily complex documents ever created. Their level of useless intricacy bests even lawyer generated minutia
Chances are you pay attention to new treatment developments. I was aimlessly scrolling through a social media app when I happened on a dramatic interview. Everything was staged to look legit. The interviewer looked like a TV reporter, the background scene looked like a doctor’s office, and the set up question “doctor, let me talk about cancer a little bit” got my attention.
The camera changes views to the doctor as the reporter says, “what are some of the things you’ve seen in terms of y
The summer Olympics kindles an unpleasant anniversary. I was in hospital recovering from a failed bronchopleural fistula surgery complicated by pulmonary embolism, further complicated by pneumonia, and then aspirational pneumonia. After surgical mayhem and ensuing coma, I settled into a nil per os or NPO recovery from a uncooperative epiglottis. July, August, and early September of 2004 were clearly the worst days of my life. The only joy was watching Katie Couric’s daytime TV Olympic broadca
“Terminal stage IV lung cancer patient miraculously cured by cannabis oil.” “Frankincense oil kills cancer cells while boosting immune system.” “The real reason pharma companies hate medical marijuana is because it works.” If you are a lung cancer survivor, you’ve read these pronouncements. Hopefully, you don’t believe them. The purveyors of miracle cures are so persuasive that some people avoid conventional treatment and rely instead on the unconventional.
I remember my frantic web search
I’m reading of a Yale University study that advocates we choose primary care physicians by testing their political views. It is political open season and medical reporters want to join in the feeding frenzy. The danger is some will believe a political test (views on motorcycle helmets, pot smoking and firearms to name a few) is necessary physician competency criteria, especially since the test is aimed at our closest and most important connection to the medical system—the general practitioner.
Baseball is a game that requires patient players and fans. Like lung cancer treatment, there is a lot of waiting for something to happen. Also like lung cancer, the game is unpredictable. A single pitch can change the outcome of a game like a single cell can change the outcome of treatment. And like lung cancer, baseball has many uncertainties and these are defined by odds. The best hitters succeed a little better than one in three times; the best teams winning about six in ten games. Baseball p
“Squamous cell cancer offers distinct therapeutic challenges by virtue of presentation in older patients, its physical location in the chest, pattern of metastasis and association with comorbidities that can compromise treatment delivery and exacerbate toxicity.” This quote is from the article Targeted Therapy for Advanced Squamous Cell Lung Cancer.
When diagnosed, almost 13 years ago, I didn’t realize lung cancer had types. Pathologists visually classify lung cancer cells seen under a micr
