One of my former colleagues got cancer and was aggressively treated with chemo, radiation, etc. At the time, I looked up her particular cancer and found that it was rarely fatal. In fact, there were many oncologists who argued that it was not a cancer at all. Yet, she will never be the same again due to the aggressive cancer treatment. She thinks her life was saved. I kept my mouth shut because I am not her doctor but I have always wondered if there weren't a lot of cancers being treated that just didn't need treating. There is a lot of profit to be made in this treatment. She went bankrupt and lost every financial asset she had. Now I wonder.....
We are brainwashed into thinking that early detection is a good thing but mounting evidence and more oncologists are debating this. It seems that benign cancers are being overly treated and the truly fatal ones are still not being detected soon enough. It is more than a waste of money.Few people are ever without pain, weakness or some permanent after effect of cancer treatment. With all the people being treated, the death rate from breast cancer has only dropped slightly and that seems to indicate that a lot of nonfatal cancer is being treated.
One of my former colleagues got cancer and was aggressively treated with chemo, radiation, etc. At the time, I looked up her particular cancer and found that it was rarely fatal. In fact, there were many oncologists who argued that it was not a cancer at all. Yet, she will never be the same again due to the aggressive cancer treatment. She thinks her life was saved. I kept my mouth shut because I am not her doctor but I have always wondered if there weren't a lot of cancers being treated that just didn't need treating. There is a lot of profit to be made in this treatment. She went bankrupt and lost every financial asset she had. Now I wonder.....
You're smart to wonder. Think of the billions (if not trillions) that are made through the Cancer treatment system, just in America. (Much less the world)
My mom had non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Incurable. But she suffered Chemo and radiation, the later of which cooked her private parts so as to make her suffer enormous pain, because the technician hadn't blocked her correctly. She looked, for all appearances, like a roast.
Me, had that been my friend in your story, I would have kept my mouth working for her benefit as my friend. You're not her doctor, but you're a trusted friend and that obviously, given all that you witnessed her to suffer both physically and financially, holds her best interest to heart far above that of the doctor that helped to make all that you witnessed possible through wielding his credentials in the process of gaining her trust so as to get away with it.
When mom was diagnosed, I was living thousands of miles away in Florida. I worked at a health food store at the time, so I'd speak with her on my time off, take notes, research and send her boxes of things to help her combat what she was suffering. Both the side effects of the treatments, and as an alternative to bolster her immune system and fight from the inside out, instead of aggressively nuking her from the both sides. I shared with her the risks, the alternatives, by phone and in writing.
When I arrived home, about a year in because circumstances precluded an earlier departure from Tampa, I found that not one book had been cracked, that I'd sent her to consider in alternative treatment options, or even just dietary alternatives. Not hardly any of the alternative remedies had been taken or drank. I was shocked and yet, I knew my mom. She would indulge her daughter, because she knew I'd do anything to save her life. And yet, she'd made her choice to go the Oncologist and Allopathic route. Life is choice.
When she had to go for her second round of radiation, she chose a different doctor (this is before the roasting episode I witnessed (after) ). They're clever, Doctors today. They know the alternative remedies industry is gaining ground and trust in the medical consumer community. So during the consult, her physician started talking about grape seed extract, and alternative medicines that he utilized himself. It bolstered my trust, because he felt sincere. As it did in my mother, because she had a daughter that talked the same way.
It was his technician that roasted mom. And that Doctor consult, was the longest time that Doctor spent with my mother one on one, until the last day she was able to make the appointments. Which I drove her to.
The positive aspect of this, because I look for those to find a positive lesson in all that suffering, was that when we arrived at his office, the waiting room was almost always full. The sad, resigned energy was palpable as soon as I walked through the door. The first visit, because the waiting room was a typical rectangle set up with chairs ringing the outside along the walls, while two sets of chairs back to back broke down the middle of the room, I walked around the whole square past every person who, without fail, had their heads down while their eyes were so sad and far away, for what they were about to face when reception called their name.
After that first visit, I checked my storage boxes from when I was a kid, and sure enough there they were. 3 dimensional Troll head lace protectors. Smiling goofy cute troll faces, adorned with a still brilliant shock of day-glow green hair. It was autumn, and the weather was cool, so I laced them into my walking boots and prepared for the next days visit to mom's treatment center.
We walked in, and sure enough the place was almost full. (As always every visit thereafter. Big business. And the Doctors top of the line new Mercedes sitting out in the front parking lot attested to the cancer business was very very good. As was that very significant plaque that outlined that spot was his. Unnecessary really, because most of his patients arrived in the patient shuttle he provided. They were too weak, or too scared, to make the drive to, for what they knew they'd be feeling afterward to drive away from.)
So, we walk in and I help mom find her seat at the back, close to the treatment rooms entry, and then I make my walk around the rectangle and right down the middle of the rows. My energy focused on all those sad faces looking down, while my green shocked smiling troll faces smiled up. I sent love, peace, healing, joy, happiness, smiles, and laughter through my self and into those trolls and then I imagined that power beaming out like a light, so that all those eyes looking so forlorn, would be drawn in. And then, I watched. From that first step forward, my happy troll mission firmly in mind, I watched as eyes sparked alive and attentive, to those funny green haired faces, slowly walking past. On I walked, as heads started to attention, and moods lifted step after step. Laughter, smiles, comment; Oh my! What are those. Sooo cute!
The energy was brilliant, in moments. That decrepit, sad, heavy dead air of doom and gloom, evaporated at my feet and lifted and filled every part of that waiting room. So much so that the receptionists and file clerks ensconced in the little room set off from there, came to the open window that looked into the waiting area, and leaned on the counter just to look down at what was walking past. And they smiled too. I made the circuit, then I walked to the doors that led to the outside and opened them so that the fresh autumn breeze could waft in and freshen the air inside.
It was perfect. Because as soon as I opened those doors to the outside, the tree's whisked the sounds of their amber, red and golden leaves in song and a huge breeze struck through their limbs and straight through the entrance and filled the office with autumn perfume. Magazines, that weren't really being read but just thumbed through absently page after page, fluttered at their corners. Patients hair lifted, for the currents that gave their cheeks a kiss and tickled them just a little. And everyone it seemed took a deep breath, because all that sadness had been blown away, as green haired little trolls smiled brilliantly in approval.
I wore those Trolls every single day, even when I wasn't taking mom to her appointments.No matter where I walked, I knew someone could use the healing a smile brings.
And at the Doctors office I committed to my troll smile ritual, every time, I made my circle around the whole center of that waiting area. So that no bowed sad face, would miss the smiles looking back at them. And every time, spirits lifted, joy sparked alive. Smiles broke across sorrow filled faces, and lively happy chatter started up, from those first words that made comments about the little trolls on my shoes. And each time, I opened those doors, to let fresh air clear the room so that new moods, would have new breezes to bolster their spirits.
The point of that long story is this. We love our friends and family. They love us and they trust us, that's why we're friends and close family. If you can be there to watch your friend(s) suffer, you can speak out to let them know there's something more.
You don't have to be a Doctor to mention what you think about what they're going through, or being prescribed. You just have to fall into the arms of the love you have for them, open your heart and then open your mouth, and say something that may save them from suffering more, right before your eyes. Life is choice, so they'll decide, because they're living what they're going through, while hearing what you think of that. In the meantime, sometimes, the greatest medicine you can give costs nothing and takes but a moment to interject, where long hours of suffering have taken root.
Know what I mean?
"Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family." Stephen Colbert
I didn't know the name of my friend's cancer until her treatment was over. I can't remember it now. It was years after her last treatment that she told me what it was and I looked it up. I would have, at least, tried to get her to get a second opinion. That was before I knew anything. She got a second opinion from a doctor recommended by her first doctor so fat lot of good that did.
My Good Wife is a survivor of Breast Cancer with a double-mas to boot. She just walked by and shook her head at me and scorned me for "B-netting again..." (wasting time). I'm glad she could.
This is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Regular self-examination and mammograms saves lives and may reduce the nuking and bad meds.
Thanx,
Ur2
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.
"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except it ain't so." Samuel Langhorne Clemens
I didn't know the name of my friend's cancer until her treatment was over. I can't remember it now. It was years after her last treatment that she told me what it was and I looked it up. I would have, at least, tried to get her to get a second opinion. That was before I knew anything. She got a second opinion from a doctor recommended by her first doctor so fat lot of good that did.
Indeed, disappointment is to be expected. They're colleagues after all. Had the second opinion refuted what that professional who recommended him, had said it would have insulted the first doctors credentials and put into question his role as primary physician. YOU NEVER Go to the Physician your primary doctor recommends, if you ask for a recommendation to a second doctor. (ALWAYS ask for a 2nd opinion or a 3rd or a 4th. It's your life! You only give it once!). However, do ask that primary physician who they'd recommend. That way you're well informed as to what doctor NOT to go to, when you strike out on your own in search of an independent physician to consider your case.
I know people who go out of State, because they live close to their borders, and get second opinions. They don't tell that doctor about the first one or anything about what they said. They simply go and ask for a consult or a check up because they're feeling certain symptoms.
That is a site link created by a Physician, who has a genuine fire inside. He knows all the in's and outs regarding cancer treatments, and methods. As well as the shenanigans perpetrated with regularity by the FDA. He advocates pursuit of healing remedies from the ground up. Cleansing the body and then fighting what ails it. And his methods aren't simply to address chronic illness either. They're also to bolster the health one now enjoys. He even has information for helping with autism, which is a big diagnosis now days and sadly enough.
You're an organic being from head to toe. It only makes sense to feed the body what it needs, to heal itself with what it's already imbued with in order to survive itself. The body is an incredible miracle of life. It regenerates everything about itself. Today's processed foods, pollution, treated water, and toxins galore everywhere we look, including even in our toothpastes, take their toll. But it's like they say. If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. Lifestyle, manufactured foods, etc... are there for consumption. But we can step away from that, cleanse ourselves of the side effects and residual effects, and bring ourselves back to balance.
Depression is a huge factor in many peoples lives today. But did you know that very often that can be healed with diet changes? Or it can be a matter of chemical imbalance that's causing the brain chemistry that produces serotonin, to be retarded? It can even by a matter of *Thyroid imbalance. (*More)
Ariel, it's a good thing you learned of this through your friends suffering. You are there for them, no matter when you find out. And now, knowing what you know, you can go forward better informed so as to help other friends and family, with what you've learned from the experience. (HUGS) Joy and strength abide you both.
"Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family." Stephen Colbert
Leading cancer experts are saying that the cancers detected by mammogram and self-exam are not the ones that are lethal. For every lethal cancer discovered, 7 or 8 women go through unnecessary mastectomy, chemo, radiation and financial ruin. Those are not good numbers.
I have to wonder also, if a cancerous tumor is in the breast tissue, flattening the breast down so as to compress that tissue and chance to burst that tumor, so that the toxins or cancerous cells then spread throughout more of an area than where they were formerly contained, is a risk in itself.
Dangers of Mammography (Source: Cancer Prevention Coalition)
Mammography poses a wide range of risks of which women worldwide still remain uninformed.
You're going to have a hell of a time convincing my Wife (especially) and myself of that. Since the Lab results proved it was malignant and life-threatening, I'll go with that.
This from the Mayo Clinic updated 10/02/2010 (that's today) @:
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is a group of health experts that reviews published research and makes recommendations about preventive health care. The USPSTF has issued new mammogram guidelines. These recommendations include:
Screening mammograms should be done every two years beginning at age 50 for women at average risk of breast cancer.
Doctors should not teach women to do breast self-exams.
There is insufficient evidence that mammogram screening is effective for women age 75 and older, so it's not recommended for this age group.
Differing mammogram guidelines These guidelines differ from those of the American Cancer Society (ACS). ACS mammogram guidelines call for yearly mammogram screening beginning at age 40 for women at average risk of breast cancer. Meantime, the ACS says the breast self-exam is optional in breast cancer screening.
According to the USPSTF, women who have screening mammograms die of breast cancer less frequently than do women who don't get mammograms. However, the USPSTF says the benefits of screening mammograms don't outweigh the harms for women ages 40 to 49. Potential harms may include false-positive results that lead to unneeded breast biopsies and accompanying anxiety and distress.
It appears you are buying into Obamacare quite nicely though. Good luck with that.
Thanx,
Ur2
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.
"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except it ain't so." Samuel Langhorne Clemens
This has nothing to do with politics, as far as I am concerned. I have been a long time fan of Susan Love for many years. She is one of the leading experts on breast cancer. Even she is saying this and she is one of the experts quoted on this article. I trust her because it was her book that convinced me to change doctors when I was being told to get mammograms every 90 days for lumps I found on self-ex. This was my GP doing this. When I changed to a doctor who sees hundreds of breasts a day, I was told, not only do I not need the mammograms but I may as well stop the self-exams because my breasts were naturally too lumpy for that to ever be meaningful. I went through a year of unnecessary mammograms and worry because the doctor was not that knowledgeable about breasts. It was Dr. Love's book that made me question the treatment I was getting. I didn't go to a radical, quack doctor for the 2nd opinion. He was a very good doctor. With a high success rate with breast cancer.
Ask questions, get clarification, don't worry about looking/feeling dumb if the answers don't make sense or confuse, insist upon second opinions-without concern that this might insult the doctor, don't be shy about changing docs - for any reason, etc.
IF ya don't advocate for yourself who is gonna advocate for ya?
