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I caught the cancer


Burt

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Y'all know what I and my wife have been through the last six months - and the last week if you visit the getting old sucks thread - well today she took her best friend to MD Anderson - best friend has stage 4 breast cancer - they can’t find it in the breast, they found it in her lymph nodes and blood. Turns out even mammograms every six months didn’t turn it up (family history led to more frequent scans). Not the lumpy kind, oh great. So far gone, they won’t do radiation, chemo or surgery. There is an immunological drug that’s been approved for about 5 years that could work but she’ll be on the drug for life and they also have to stamp down her estrogen to zero since it’s estrogen dependent. Won’t know if it works for 4 months. MD Anderson is the fucking tits though. Got this all done in two days, she’s on  the estrogen blockers tonight will have the cancer drug by next week.  I really hope this works, she’s an amazing lady, and my wife’s bestie. I remember when my wife wondered if this woman liked us and she was worried because she wanted to be her friend. Fuck. 

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14 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

The drug is gonna work.

From what I heard second hand the doctors were not freaking out with enjoy your life while you can statements so it seems stage 4 cancer isn’t a death sentence anymore and they were confident in the drug’s efficacy they did say “if it works” though. But yeah my wife was optimistic. 

still she’s got to be zero estrogen for life so there’s complication with that plus the drug. Good news is most common side effects are some but not extreme fatigue and some GI irritation. Could be a lot worse. We think the estrogen side effects will be the hardest actually - bone loss being the top one. 

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Yep. During my Stage 4 "talk" Doc told me how she plans drug treatments, tldr it's entirely possible to live a very long happy life if A, B, and C, just like your odds if you didn't have cancer.

My Mom commented a few years ago that my odds of long life may actually be better WITH cancer because I wasn't being careful at all before.

But I mean, it's all the blink of an eye when said and done. You just dwell on the good days, and enjoy them. Who the hell wants to hang around for 200 years anyway.

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25 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

, tldr it's entirely possible to live a very long happy life if A, B, and C, just like your odds if you didn't have cancer.

My Mom commented a few years ago that my odds of long life may actually be better WITH cancer because I wasn't being careful at all before.

I have a 20 year term policy that ended about two years ago.   I started looking for replacement term insurance as a cancer survivor, and was told all the blah blah blah about increased premiums, reduced benefits, an add-on “you had cancer once”  penalty etc.

I tend to wander through PubMed from time to time, looking at the latest stuff on colon cancer, especially return of colon cancer, and I see that someone who is my sex and age who has never had cancer would have a 3% chance of contracting it in their lifetime.   I found a couple of long term studies that showed a breakdown of colon cancer returning by a lot of categories. On the age and sex category, the chance of that same person my age and sex having colon cancer again is between 1 and 2%. 

So even though the underwriting shows less of a risk for me than if I had never had cancer, insurance company gonna charge me with a cancer premium penalty multiplier that is untethered from medical and actuarial evidence.  Capitalism and all.

But returning to the point I was trying to make, the fact that I now pound vitamin C, D and E, watch my diet and exercise more -and get numerous bloodwork and scans and colonoscopies - undoubtedly makes the reoccurrence (or at least a fatal reoccurrence) less likely then some dude my age walking down the street who never had cancer. 

That and medical marijuana are a couple good things that came from me getting cancer I guess. And maybe one other. My ex-wife is rumored to have said about my cancer diagnosis:  “Ubet always infuriated me with his risktaking and never worrying about anything…this is only gonna make that worse”.    She was right.

Edited by Gatorubet
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On 12/6/2024 at 7:44 AM, hornbri said:

Yeah it was a PET CT, she is getting one every couple of months right now, they were ill defined spots right now. But because she is a sarcoma patient any spots that were not on the last scan are worrying, so they just went right to biopsy. I should be grateful the doctors are being careful, and hopefully it’s just residual from the pneumonia that did occur between the scans.

I think this is the first time I am appreciating that life will never be the same for us, there will be scans for the rest of her life and there will be random setbacks, we somehow need to find the strength to live a full life and not be in fear. 

New update…this journey can be a roller coaster. 

So in Early December when they saw the spots on her lung there was also a spot in her right leg, they didn’t seem concerned but ordered a MRI anyway. 

After we learned her lungs were infection, we got a call about her leg and were told “MRI confirms it is cancer, we need to start a new chemo treatment.”

We agreed to get the ball rolling on setting up the new chemo regime, but also asked to do a biopsy to confirm the mets in her leg (13mm spot). 

Last week we have a CT biopsy for her leg, and the spots were gone, doctors took it as confirmation it was infection or a blood clot….she never got to the chemo due to just taking a while to schedule. 

So radiologist can be wrong…i am kinda annoyed the doctor did not insist on a biopsy first but going forward we know to ask and push for it. 

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18 hours ago, troph said:

Y'all know what I and my wife have been through the last six months - and the last week if you visit the getting old sucks thread - well today she took her best friend to MD Anderson - best friend has stage 4 breast cancer - they can’t find it in the breast, they found it in her lymph nodes and blood. Turns out even mammograms every six months didn’t turn it up (family history led to more frequent scans). Not the lumpy kind, oh great. So far gone, they won’t do radiation, chemo or surgery. There is an immunological drug that’s been approved for about 5 years that could work but she’ll be on the drug for life and they also have to stamp down her estrogen to zero since it’s estrogen dependent. Won’t know if it works for 4 months. MD Anderson is the fucking tits though. Got this all done in two days, she’s on  the estrogen blockers tonight will have the cancer drug by next week.  I really hope this works, she’s an amazing lady, and my wife’s bestie. I remember when my wife wondered if this woman liked us and she was worried because she wanted to be her friend. Fuck. 

About 2 years ago my wife was complaining about one of her breast having a spot where it was extremely painful. She went for a “normal” mammogram and it did not find anything. Her gyno is an awesome doctor, so she sent her for a 3D mammogram. That test ended up finding a mass. Thankfully, it turned out to be non-cancerous. It did reveal that apparently she has really dense breast tissue, so a normal mammogram might not show something that is actually there. 
Since then, she has done the 3D mammogram. I believe there is also a breast MRI, but the closest one to us is 2.5 hours away. 
 

Hope your wife’s friend kicks cancers ass. 

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On 1/17/2025 at 10:17 PM, troph said:

MD Anderson is the fucking tits though.

Word!! Everything about that place rocks.  

The first time I went in a men’s room stall there and saw the sign saying “call this number if you’ve soiled yourself and we will come assist you” - I knew those folks had their shit together and were all about helping patients with the myriad horrible problems that came with the disease.

your wife and MD Anderson are about to kick some serious cancer ass

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You don’t have to actually have it to help kick its ass.   And there is never a time not to kick its ass.  And you can even sucker punch it when it’s not looking at you and no one will speak badly about you.  

And you can repeatedly scream “Kisqali” at it as it slowly dies after a good PET scan and…

IMG_3979.jpeg.41c091c133a6b10e45faeea604a2b5e8.jpeg

see…nobody cares.

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Long time lurker here.  And have referenced this thread a ton as I await my biopsy results in a couple of days.  I had a PSA result spike and my urologist recommended an MRI, which necessitated a prostate biopsy.  My gut feels like it's cancer and caught early, and treatment would likely be RALP...but hoping that I'm wrong.  Reading the stories and advise has been a huge help and appreciate what everyone has gone through.  Keep kicking cancer's ass.

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7 minutes ago, AustinDom said:

Long time lurker here.  And have referenced this thread a ton as I await my biopsy results in a couple of days.  I had a PSA result spike and my urologist recommended an MRI, which necessitated a prostate biopsy.  My gut feels like it's cancer and caught early, and treatment would likely be RALP...but hoping that I'm wrong.  Reading the stories and advise has been a huge help and appreciate what everyone has gone through.  Keep kicking cancer's ass.

If you get it, you'll hunt it down and kill it. Hope it's nothing, but if it is, kick the shit out of it.

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2 hours ago, AustinDom said:

Long time lurker here.  And have referenced this thread a ton as I await my biopsy results in a couple of days.  I had a PSA result spike and my urologist recommended an MRI, which necessitated a prostate biopsy.  My gut feels like it's cancer and caught early, and treatment would likely be RALP...but hoping that I'm wrong.  Reading the stories and advise has been a huge help and appreciate what everyone has gone through.  Keep kicking cancer's ass.

Praying for you. If you’ve read the thread, I’ve shared my experience (sounds similar to yours), but I’m happy to share any of my experiences as I’m 13 months post-prostatectomy if it would be helpful. 

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