Cancer best treatment chemo began in 1940

Even the alternatives to chemo are fucking brutal. 

Side effects aren't quite as bad, but still suck.

FUCK CANCER. 

Firstly, FUCK cancer. But none of this is true. There have been significant leaps made. I am living proof of that. Due to advances, I'm ten years past my expiry date. I do have one more option when my 4th recurrence happens. Not a good one but one more than zero.

TM

Cancer is definitely awful and my household is not doing well with it, but spreading false information doesn’t help much. 

Maybe it’s because they are only willing to try something that can be patented.  You can’t patent anything that’s not synthetic (man made).  There’s no money to be made if you can’t patent it.  Round and round we go.  Follow the money.  

Oh, and my dad has cancer, so I couldn’t care less if you have the opinion that my opinion is invalid.

It's not technically false, but it does disregard population increase and aging, and more importantly, the fact that cancer mortality is down. 

That’s two of us. I had stage 4 squamous cell cancer that ruled out chemo/radiation. Keytruda got me to remission and I’ve had no evidence of disease for 2+ years. No side effects, so far, either. 

Keep kicking ass Dave! 💪👊

Every patient has a different course of treatment. 

For me, that disease has managed to eventually overcome two previous course of actions.

The third's been able to eliminate it in certain areas, and keep it managed in the other areas. But it's still a ticking time bomb. 

The meds are insanely expensive. 

As are the meds helping with the side effects. 

There's no doubt that it's a big $$$ business.

There's truth in my meme.

Full disclose, one of the drugs I received in one regimen was a version of mustard gas. I hear that's quite old. Of course you don't get it in gas form.

TM

It's not unreasonable to believe that doctors want to cure cancer but big pharma wants to treat cancer. Can you imagine the hit to the economy if a cure to cancer was found next week?

With the cancer rate in Iowa, that state alone will keep big pharma in profits for years. 

Playing devil's advocate here, but the "cure" for obesity has been pretty lucrative for big pharma far as I can tell. In fact, it seems to be the largest catalyst since the "censored" in 2021. 

I just started a new job for a place that makes Actinium 225 and Y90, which is a radioactive isotope for specific types of cancer. From my understanding this medicine only stays in your system for a few days, so once it is in your system, you can just pee it out in a few days. I am just a maintenance guy here, so I dont know squat about it, but the workers make it sound like they have seen good results using it. 

It is completely false. 

Total cancer deaths have increased, but nowhere near the 75% figure parroted. It’s around 19%, so 1/4 of the claimed increase. 

Death rate has decreased. From 1991, the cancer death rate is down about 34%, which is significant. It needs to be a larger reduction, but it’s going in the right direction at least. 

For some “lucky” people cancer is now a chronic condition. 

I go to MD Anderson in the Houston medical center for checkups and that place is massive. There’s patients from all over the world there. It’s sad seeing some of the patients there in different stages of the illness. 

The problem with cancer is that it isn't some virus or bacterial infection invading your body. It's YOU. Cancer is nothing more than the unchecked growth of your own cells, which crowd out and destroy healthy tissues around it. To kill cancer, you have to kill everything like it everywhere around it - including your own healthy cells. It's a huge problem for treatment. 

My dad passed about a month ago from complications due to liver cancer. FUCK CANCER. 

That's the challenge right? Kill the cancer cells without killing the host. I'm actually quite surprised that new drugs came long for me as less than 5,000 people will get my disease this year. You do you make a profit on such a small market? It's surprising that not very many new effective drugs have come out breast cancer as they get the lions share of the donations. After all, who doesn't like boobies? So when a nice set of boobs asks you for a donation and the next guy asks for money for prostate research, which one are you going to give your money to? I think I read that of all the money that Komen takes in, less than 10% goes to actual breast cancer research. They do however offer a lot of help to women in treatment.

True.  I am about 99.99% sure that my wife's will require treatment for the rest of her life and it will determine how long that is.  

1st, yeah cancer sucks! Couple things I've found/experienced. Preventative testing and early detection are critical for your best chance outcomes. Think PSA tests for guys and mammograms for women. Not all chemo is alike either: some is IV systemic, some is localized to the source, some is pill form,etc. Some have to be repeated if you don't get results the 1st time, etc. Immuno therapy same deal. NONE of it is fun or easy! 

Also, you have to be your own best advocate using managed healthcare! Nearly every single nurse I've met in my 3-year cancer journey absolutely validates this to me. Part of that is doing at least basic research on topic before your appointments. This includes your Drs and care providers. There's tons of info online about procedures, treatments, etc. at Mayo, MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, etc.- Use it! Don't be afraid to ask your Dr questions about proposed treatments - and procedures options.  My policy is to be polite but persistent in seeking answers if things don't feel right. Also, don't be afraid to get 2nd opinion or even change Drs if anything doesn't feel right!

I saw a total of 4 Urologists before finding the right person. The 1st 2 lied to my face and wanted to go directly to drastic life altering surgeries that I knew were more like last resorts, instead of 1st line approved treatments based on published established protocols.

Finding a doctor who is optimistic can be hard, I'm told.  We ran into that when my wife was first diagnosed, but after we got rid of that oncologist I feel like she's gotten care from providers who actually seem invested in her outcomes.  

The first oncologist, during the visit when he first told us that she had cancer, went straight to palliative care.  Now I know that he meant it as a way to make her life a bit more comfortable during whatever treatment she was going to get, but the first thing that almost everyone think about when they hear palliative care is that it is time for a hospice.  

Then we moved to Dallas and I could not be more impressed with the folks at Baylor, Scott, and White (in Dallas, not a satellite clinic).  Her oncologist didn't sugar coat things, but she didn't ever give off the feeling of being defeated and the end being 'inevitable so why fight it' either.  

MD Anderson is supposed to be the best in the country and possibly in the world.  I sometimes wish that we had lived close enough to get her care there, but I am not positive that the care she had in Dallas wasn't the absolute best she could have had, either.  My cousin's wife is currently undergoing treatment at MD Anderson after first going to their 'local' BSW in Temple and they had a horrible experience with BSW.  They are a couple hours closer to MDA than we were and my cousin is retired so they can go down for a few weeks at a time if they need to.  

Obviously cancer is a physical disease, but I am also convinced that it is harder to gain control and live longer if your care team doesn't believe that they can help you 'beat' the disease.  The mental part of it might not save someone, but it can certainly make things advance to worse conditions faster.  

There’s sooo much opportunity for community in this thread…

Are our various stats tarred by specificity?

I know we’ve had successes in Cancer-Tech as of late…yet, with our ever expanding populous and ever increasing knowledge and new information…

It’s hard to truly know if we’re making progress…

Or not.

I remain hopeful and lean into the faith that we’re getting better on the matter.

FUCK CANCER

Manny 

Well the #1 thing to do to improve your outcome is "get your ass to a major cancer center". My first Onc, who I liked very much, maybe 5 years from retirement, from a very successfu career, had 2 other people in his career with my disease. No matter how good he was, he just doesn't have the time or resources to know enough to provide the best choices. And at the time, you could ask 5 different oncologists and get 5 different answers for treatment as there was just not enough data to know what's best.  Fortunately, it was just known that I'd need a transplant and I picked UCSD who dictated everything about my care. 

TM