Hokey Pokey Witch Doctory

Greetings.

Well, I had my meet with the doc's last week. Quick really.

I got there early and after they tapped a vein and took my vitals, I was brought back to an exam room.

I sat there for a while, but soon the White Wizard made his appearance. He stuck his head in the door and said that on the whole nothing much had changed. I like this guy.

In other words, the total remission I was hoping for was not going to be proclaimed at this appointment. Only about 10-15% of IL-2 patients get that, and well, my sample is the 85% group.

Damn.

He said that there appeared some growth but nothing that was striking, and that the strategy at this time is to continue to wait.

All and all, I am pretty good with that. And he said, shortly his Fellow would be in to talk. Which she was.

We talked a little bit more about what the White Wizard had said, and she went over some of the info more thoroughly, and all and all my tests demonstrated nothing remarkable across the board, except for that colony of rebel angels in my chest.

And now, after almost a year of CT-Scans that found the malicious barnacle, they are talking about the spot on my pancreas as pancreatitis. What am I to make of that? Well, the radiologist was trying to pad the game in favor of the other fucking team. Sort of like when the Celtics play in LA.

Hey, I need some hometown refs.

But, I digress. Back to the thing we know what it is story.

No the change in dimension of the thing was a curiosity to me. It had changed from 38X30 to 35X43. What I wanted to know was how this happened.

She explained that it could have been how I was laying on the CT-Scan table which would provide a different dimension on the slide they were looking at to gather the info.

It's all fucking hokey pokey witch doctery shit after a while.

Sometimes I expect when I am there, that they take out a bag of bones of former patients and rattle them around. Throwing them up against the wall like dice to see what result they will get.

Well, I am all in and have anted up, so I am in the game whether I want or not.

Waiting for Godot, Tim

KIDNEY CANCER - new developments from the City Of Hope

Future kidney cancer treatments show promise (w/VIDEO)

December 21, 2013 | by Denise Heady

 

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Treatments for kidney cancer have improved dramatically over the past few years — particularly for renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer. And the future looks bright as well.

Treatment for cancer of the kidneys (shown here) is improving, with more advances expected.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved seven new drugs for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma, especially significant because it approved only one drug between 1992 and 2005. Further, targeted therapies are improving standard care for patients with the disease, and several promising studies could lead to new treatment advances.

Sumanta Kumar Pal, M.D., co-director of the Kidney Cancer Program at City of Hope, summed up the field in a recent interview with OncLive. “This is so incredibly promising for patients and their families,” he said of the recent developments.

But, as with most cancer treatments, new, innovative approaches are always needed.

“What I think the field is really lacking is that there are no novel approaches,” Pal said in the interview. “So I’m really looking for trials with PD-1 inhibitors, PD-L1 inhibitors, and novel dual-targeting agents such as cabozantinib to really reshape the treatment paradigm for this disease.”

Click above for full article and video...

NY Times article about cancer survival.

Greetings, this  article was sent to me. It is a very thoughtful article written by a doctor diagnosis with cancer.  Recommended.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/sunday/how-long-have-i-got-left.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

How Long Have I Got Left?

By PAUL KALANITHIJAN. 24, 2014 

AS soon as the CT scan was done, I began reviewing the images. The diagnosis was immediate: Masses matting the lungs and deforming the spine. Cancer. In my neurosurgical training, I had reviewed hundreds of scans for fellow doctors to see if surgery offered any hope. I’d scribble in the chart “Widely metastatic disease — no role for surgery,” and move on. But this scan was different: It was my own. 

I have sat with countless patients and families to discuss grim prognoses: It’s one of the most important jobs physicians have. It’s easier when the patient is 94, in the last stages of dementia and has a severe brain bleed. For young people like me — I am 36 — given a diagnosis of cancer, there aren’t many words. My standard pieces include “it’s a marathon, not a sprint, so get your daily rest” and “illness can drive a family apart or bring it together — be aware of each other’s needs and find extra support.”

I learned a few basic rules. Be honest about the prognosis but always leave some room for hope. Be vague but accurate: “days to a few weeks,” “weeks to a few months,” “months to a few years,” “a few years to a decade or more.” We never cite detailed statistics, and usually advise against Googling survival numbers, assuming the average patient doesn’t possess a nuanced understanding of statistics. 

Still Waiting!

Greetings,

...still waiting for the results of my latest scan...as noted, I do not need a nightlight in the house now as my inner glow is something close to Mickey Rooney in the Atomic Boy.

OK, I might be showing my age with that one, but I loved all those old cheapy movies that tried to help people get a grip on the future. Hey, and that's what I am trying to do, get a grip.

I was counting up my scans the other day and I believe, give or take one or two, that I have eclipsed the 20 mark over the past seven years, and the way things are going I will probably be having my body radiated every now and then, just for good measure. I am reminded of the early years of radiation, when they thought it was a wonder tool for medicine, which it is. But in those early days they found if they radiated a child's head with enough X power it would kill lice.

Well, they killed a lot of lice, but when the kids started developing brain tumors it wasn't long before these early explorers of radiation put the proverbial one and one together and understood that they could only administer the X-rays in limited dosages.

My doc tells me that the new protocol is 15 CT-scans in five years. OK, I might have gone past that and I am now out there in X-space, so to speak, but you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

You know, in the Star Trek shows they never talked about how the "beam me up" rays impacted the body. Hmmmmmm. And, on top of that, I just found out that there are 11 dimensions and not the one that I live in....damn completed world we have created for ourselves.

I really prefer the one dimension that I live in to anything else, even if I do glow like a poppy-wogg pulled out of the Susquehanna River just outside of the Three Mile Island Nuke facility. I would have said nuclear or nucular, but I never get them right...good news is that I do not have any fucking lice.

SCANNED AGAIN!

Well, just got radiated...I have lost count of how many CT-Scans I have had.

I get amused now, the old radiation veteran that I am, when a new patient is talking about how they need to get themselves checked and when their next scan will be...I am about eight years in, and I am pushing 20 CT-Scans and something close in MRIs...plus all the requisite nuke scans and tests...but, when you are new in this arena, you're still learning the new life you have and how you have to do new things, and somedays, besides going to Market Basket for milk and bread, you also have to get radiated like a FL tomato...

Neck to pelvis looks like a Rand McNally road map of some deserted place on earth, with roads starting nowhere and ending nowhere...sort of like a government run transportation rail system being built in California...feel a little bit like California, hosting a multitude of foreign illegals that are sucking away at the life of the host, me...I am probably about 1980 California, still able to host the illegals without too much damage to the host, although the succession of my left Kidney, indicates they want more of me than I am willingly going to give up...

Anyway, I wrote on my website for photography the other day that I had rental cancer...got a smile from that and thought if I stopped paying the rent maybe the cancer would leave and finds some new digs...renal cancer is what I have and I am the 1, of the 1 in 2 men, in the US that gets cancer...it's 1 in 3 for women...something to think about, and I did while standing on the T platform this morning looking at a very upbeat poster that said, "we can see the end of cancer from here." I looked around but didn't see anything.

Well, maybe. It's not quite so definite if you actually have fucking cancer and knowing the PR campaign is designed to create a false sense of survival.

But, we all leave in a state of some sort of denial, and for those not yet carrying around a host of illegals in their chest the PR campaign seems to assert that we might, indeed, live forever. But that is as much an expression of the false world we have created around us...we should all be thin, eat oats and grains, vote progressively, and save all the planet from it's natural conclusion. Actually, I like oat meal, but the fad thing has never appealed to me and I am what I am and I am pretty comfortable with that as I look forward to 62 anos on this rock plunging through space.

Anos? Oh no, the immigrants are changing my world...hey, relax, they just want a home and a good job, it's the little fuckers I have that corrupt the host and eat my life sustenance...at some point, that is what any cancer does...the balance in living with cancer is to keep it in check so that that balance doesn't overtake the host...that is called el morte.... in any number of languages.

Most soldiers at the beginning of any war are resigned that they might be the first die, but as a war ends, they are less resigned to be the last to die....Max Hastings.

 Well, it's about time for me to jump back on the T (metro) and head back to my place of gainful emplyment. enjoy the day. Tim