Stand Up 2 Cancer

[david63]

I saw this last night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoWK8Ilv73I

Be warned you will not have a dry eye.

It is probably one of, if not the, most powerful video for the fight against cancer that I have ever seen.

[Manoverboard]

You cannot ' watch ' a fight against cancer, you can only experience it first hand …. just saying.

[Stephen]

Of course you can't imagine what someone is really going through Moby, but Bill Turnbull's documentary the other evening gives you an insight to what it must be like.

[Kendhni]

My best friend lost his fight against cancer only a few weeks back. it is a horrendous disease.
The company I work for is looking for a 'cure' to cancer. At the minute chemotherapy is like blanket bombing the entire UK to try to kill a single person - and the choice of which drug to use can sometimes be down to potluck. Our owner's belief is that if they can isolate the exact mutations at a genomic/proteomic level then they can create a 'vaccine' specific to that mutation and the cure will effectively be little more than a flu jab. It is a while off because they need to get a large enough database of samples before they can really start making informed decisions (and to think only 10 years ago people complained about governments wanting to build DNA related databases) - and the costs are expensive.

The one thing at the back of my mind though is, if we find a 'cure' for one or more cancers then what next? Will heart disease be the big killer or will our bodies mutate more with a new disease?

[Whynd1]

There will be many on this forum who have have lost family members and friends to this dreadful disease,
Some like myself have had cancer and are still here and truly thankful.
For me its always at the back of my mind if i have aches and pains,I suffer from lymphoedema.
When I went back to work, I was told I would have to up my game and catch up with the rest of my team and I worked in hr !!!

I left 10 months later.
I find these days I am less patient but more compassionate.
I just love my cruising, it's so nice to have something to look forward to.

[Frank Manning]

Sorry to say I am just catching up a bit. Sue has had marvellous treatment on the NHS for two synchronous colon cancers. Within days of diagnosis in July 2018 she had a full CT scan and a date was set for a removal. This was shown to be stage 3, nevertheless they assured us that they were looking at a positive outcome. The surgeon was marvellous and did the op via laparoscopy, and there followed 6 weeks recovery during which Sue felt much better. Then we started chemo with two nasty drugs administered intravenously every 3 - 4 weeks. Before that our lovely oncologist Dr Bryony did a test for a liver enzyme which proved positive and influenced the choice of chemo otherwise the drug of choice might have killed her. In February the oncologist decided that after four sessions Sue had had enough. Some research suggests that 6 is the optimum for best results in adjuvant chemo, but so gruelling are the side effects that more recent research is suggesting 3 doses to minimise the ongoing side effects. In retrospect that might have been best for Sue because after the 4th she really had the worst reaction (all normal for these two drugs) and those side effects are still with her although very very slowly diminishing.

Suffice to say our experience has made us very grateful for our NHS. Whatever its faults (political football not withstanding) it is quite marvellous, and deserves out support. Prior to NHS treatment we had been referred by our GP to our local private hospital where their scan had failed to detect anything and where each meeting with the specialist was £300 a time. So we are not fans of Mr Trump getting his hands on the NHS, or of any watering down of the excellent if overstretched system which has worked so well for us.

Sorry to go on so much, but once the subject had been raised I feel that everyone so affected should make their experience known. that way perhaps a little of the fear can be alleviated, and knowledge of the disease can be disseminated.