Cancer: The emperor of Maladies

Stomper,

I have been anticipating it greatly, but I'll watch it when it becomes available on streaming so I can watch it at my own pace.  It looks like there's a lot of information in that one.  Looks very good.

- Jay

Hubs scans are in 3 weeks, I'm a mess. I want to watch it really bad, but it's just too much. I've been missing on the boards too, just so anxious. 

Darron said:

watching

I am watching it. I am anxious for part III.

Tivo-ing it and will watch it once we have all three parts.

Footstomper said:

Hard to watch

Yes it is but I find it also incredibly hopeful. Maybe because my wife workd in the field (AIDS related Cancers) we're innured to the personal tragedy of the individual stories. I found it profoundly moving and as I said hopeful.

Hard, cruel, unrelenting and in your face.  I usually end up heading to bed after an hour and a half.  My husband has watched the first two, and it has brought up some good discussion.

For the kidney cancer people, as Dickens wrote, ..."the best of times and the worst of times."  The cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier date, but usually by accident.  Surgical technique has advanced, with more organ sparing and lap surgeries.  Drugs have gone beyond IL2 and Sutent, the only things available in 2006.  

It was truly difficult to listen to a supervising physician at OHSU and hear him say there was no drug we can give you.  What was in trial that year, had to have an active site they could monitor.  And since I had just had a kidney, set of nodes, half a liver and my gall bladder removed, I wasn't willing to grow a cancer just for him.  And luckily, the two recurrences in the next two years could be surgically removed-lymphadenectomies.

Some of the information and stories told were part of my upbringing.  I was 9...and shhhh, grandma had cancer.  For shame...her own daughter didn't come to visit or to the funeral; but low and behold, my aunt also had cancer with mets to the brain and she didn't want to see what she might go thru the following year.

I went off to university with a minor in health ed.  Spring term 1964, Dr. Anderson's Community Health Problems class...the lecture for the day was set aside to discuss the morning's breaking news that cigarette smoking was definitely linked to lung cancer.  Part of the start of the health education movement to prevent known disease.

There have been trials and errors. Wrong theories, and sometimes flawed reasoning.  What is important to all of us is that researchers, Doctors and fund raisers have been trying.  It's gotten us to where we are today.  And for that, I say Thank You to everyone who has gone before me. 

And to Cancer-don't call me, again, ever-never.

To all of us, happy healing, enjoy April Fools Day, and have another birthday.

Love, Donna

donna_lee said:

Glad someone else is watching, too

Hard, cruel, unrelenting and in your face.  I usually end up heading to bed after an hour and a half.  My husband has watched the first two, and it has brought up some good discussion.

For the kidney cancer people, as Dickens wrote, ..."the best of times and the worst of times."  The cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier date, but usually by accident.  Surgical technique has advanced, with more organ sparing and lap surgeries.  Drugs have gone beyond IL2 and Sutent, the only things available in 2006.  

It was truly difficult to listen to a supervising physician at OHSU and hear him say there was no drug we can give you.  What was in trial that year, had to have an active site they could monitor.  And since I had just had a kidney, set of nodes, half a liver and my gall bladder removed, I wasn't willing to grow a cancer just for him.  And luckily, the two recurrences in the next two years could be surgically removed-lymphadenectomies.

Some of the information and stories told were part of my upbringing.  I was 9...and shhhh, grandma had cancer.  For shame...her own daughter didn't come to visit or to the funeral; but low and behold, my aunt also had cancer with mets to the brain and she didn't want to see what she might go thru the following year.

I went off to university with a minor in health ed.  Spring term 1964, Dr. Anderson's Community Health Problems class...the lecture for the day was set aside to discuss the morning's breaking news that cigarette smoking was definitely linked to lung cancer.  Part of the start of the health education movement to prevent known disease.

There have been trials and errors. Wrong theories, and sometimes flawed reasoning.  What is important to all of us is that researchers, Doctors and fund raisers have been trying.  It's gotten us to where we are today.  And for that, I say Thank You to everyone who has gone before me. 

And to Cancer-don't call me, again, ever-never.

To all of us, happy healing, enjoy April Fools Day, and have another birthday.

Love, Donna

i had written that episode #1 was depressing, but I just watched episode #2 and it was exciting.  I can't wait to see tonight's.

JoanneNH said:

"Nurse Wilson"

Lori Wilson is actually Lori Wilson, MD, a cancer surgeon at Howard University.

Joanne:

my bad; she was a surgeon, not a nurse.

Sarah

thaxter said:

In the six hour documentary

In the six hour documentary they don't get to immunotherapy until 5 1/2 hours in. The only mention of kidney cancer is in that segment where they say that immunotherapy works best with melanoma and rcc. They highlight ipi but no mention of PD-1 drugs. Still I learned a lot, but also learned that every time it seems a breakthrough is made, there's a disappointment that follows

Thax,

I agree so far it's kind of a bummer... I've been watching on the PBS app on my Apple TV, and only halfway through the 2nd episode.  It does seem to have many of those moments where there is a "breakthrough," only to have the cancer come back.  I still believe the focus needs to be more on early detection of cancer rather than fighting it after the horses are gone.  I know that's not appropriate in all cancers, but when you're battling different characteristics in every patient, it's hard to have one "Magic Bullet" that will work for all cancers.  

I am sick of being called "lucky."  There needs to be a focus on TESTING so that early detecting gives the patient a better chance of long-term survival.  Luck shouldn't have anything to do with it!

- Jay