wiesia
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Posts posted by wiesia
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Don, I am sorry to hear that news.
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I have read those studies as well. It was on cisplatine and astragalus. They sounded very encouraging. Astragalus has also activity for breast cancer (plus chemo). My mother is taking it
(with femara). My father was also taking it during his chemo.
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PCI is given routinely for small cell; as a preventive.
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heights: I got stuck once heigh up on a Majan pyramid and would not move; after a while I went down on my butt;
tight spaces: like ventillator shafts in the remake of "Poseidon"; ughhh
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My father had a similar problem. In his case it was the lymph nodes in between the lungs that were constricting the esophagus. His oncologist was hoping that chemo will get rid of that problem but unfortunately chemo worked on lungs but not on lymph nodes (they kept growing). I think it is a good idea to put a stent in (and it is a minor procedure) but it is also a good idea to check whether the tumor is not constricting the trachea and main bronchi. Those problems often go together.
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I am so sorry Sonia.
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I am so sorry to hear what is happening. Me too, I hope that you have or can find someone to help you.
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When my father needed Avastin we had to buy it ourselves (around 4000$ a cycle). The same would have been with Tarceva. Both are approved in EC but
whether each individual countrie's health care system pays for it is a different matter. Polish budget can simply not afford it. It seems that even rich countries (like England) are deciding that their budget can not afford it.
I do not think that this is a problem of socialized medicine. If we keep thinking like that we could easily miss what is going on at home (that is in US).
I have a great health care insurance here and if I need Avastin I would get it but ... in the last
two years my drug deductible grew from 5% to 25%.
25% of Avastin is still a lot of money ! And what about the 25% or so of people in US who do not have insurance. What happens to them if they need such drugs ? I know that many go without expensive medicine like Imitrex because at 4$ a pill (without insurance) they just can not afford it. In England everyone is insured. If they were to "uninsure" 25%
of their population their budget just might afford Tarceva.
The new drugs are just too expensive. Period. For
practically any country. Futurists argue that with this "new" medicine we are approaching times when
there will be two kinds of people: those with tons of money living 150 years and those with little money
living 50 years. Scary thought, no ? But, it seems to me, very realistic.
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I am so sorry to hear that Missy.
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Yes, what I read recently is that they advice to elevate it to only 12 or slightly above and no more if possible. I do not remember what the problems were for higher levels.
Dog tired ? Not really. Mostly notice that I can not exercise as long and as easily as others. But I also have a very low blood pressure (70/50, 90/60) and that is more of a problem
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I just want to comment about your hemoglobin level.
If I have it at 10.9 I consider myself lucky. And
extremely lucky if it is above 11. Something in my family genes makes the hemoglobin levels so low.
It is not a problem for me. But I could never be a professional athlete with such low levels ! I do get
short of breath while exercising faster than other people.
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This reminds me of times when I am really depressed and stressed. Have a lot on my plate. Then inavitably
I have to unscrew one of those medicine bottles. Kid-proofed. And, of course, I can not. The simple task of unscrewing that bottle when there is so much going on in my life turns out to be too much ! I have to leave it and come back to it later.
Soooo, step back and treat yourself well.
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There is a lot of research on medscape (in the public domain). Most evidence I have found for NSCLC was for astragalus, PSP, and melatonin. All seem to
help chemotherapy (cisplatine) act better on the tumor.
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I do not believe in God. Or gods. I was raised Catholic and most people I am close to are Catholic.
But then... some thousand years ago my ancestors believed in a very different set of gods: the Slavic
gods. Whose mythology is still around. Christianity was imposed on us (as on many others) with a sward.
Why should I believe in the Christian God over the "older" gods... I could not ever understand that.
But I envie those who do believe in Christian God. The image of life after death could be very consolling. There is nothing like that in some other religions (Judaism I think says that there is no life after death but you live through your children).
For me ... the fear that I turn into nothing after death is very real. Maybe there is a surprise waiting. But I do not know what I have been before I was born and I do seem to stop to exist every time
they put me under an anestesia. So it seem possible that this is it: my life ends and there is no more of me in any form. Very sad, pointless and not fair, but who says that life is not just like that ?
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It is only now that I am able to report it. My father died on February 15'th. He fought only three and half months; much shorter than we all hoped for.
He felt fine until the middle of January. And it was a very fast decline from there. Last week he got severly out of breath and was taken to a hospital. We thought that this could be corrected but the doctors were not able to. We do not really know what caused such a severe shortness of breath: just the tumor burden itself, infiltrates, or a mixture of things.
The only consolation we have is that he was never in any pain and suffered "only" the very last week.
Well... we were hoping to beat the statistics. We were not that lucky.
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I have read about long-term survivors with adrenal mets. I do not remember how they were removed (surgery or cyberknife) but they were definitely removed. I would advice you to look at removing it very seriously.
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I am so sorry to hear that, Patty.
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How wonderful !!! Good luck with avastin.
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Ohhhhhh, so completely wonderful !!!!
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wonderful !!!
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Tracy,
I am sorry to hear about it. My mother has a breast cancer and after the neoadjuvant dose of chemo five years ago she has developed some emphysema. The chemo was taxotere/ adriamycin. It does seem that chemo causes emphysema frequently. She has some problems with it (like she had harder time breathing when
she visited me in Salt Lake) but overall it is not too bad.
Probably it is not going to be too much of a problem for you.
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Her case sounds very typical. Median survival for stage IV LC is somewhere around 8 months. For IIIB
is getting closer these days to 15 months with aggressive treatment. For stage IV maybe 30-40% live a year. I would also think that younger people, though able to withstand more agressive treatment, might have more agressive cancers.
Statistics are dismal here. I was/am hoping that my father could be one of the lucky ones but ... the odds are against us.
Peter Jennings, remember, was gone in five months.
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Our doctor put my father on Navelbine (plus Avastin). He scheduled it 2 weeks on, one weeks off.
All I could find on the internet is the weekly schedule (for single-agent Navelbine). Have any of you seen that kind of scheduling ? I am a bit worried that it may be not as strong as the weekly one.
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I hope that everything goes very well.
Update on Gerald
in CAREGIVER RESOURCE CENTER
Posted
Heather, I am so sorry to hear that.