Re: Intro's revisited - blithe

[Guest guest]

Very true. There's also the fact that oncologists often need to race

against time and use very powerful therapies to beat the cancer. As a

doctor, if you're weighing a patient's life against possible

complications later on, you'll take the risk of causing complications

so that your patient will live.

The problem is, we still don't fully understand the effects that

these treatments have on patients. For example, the data available 10

years ago was far greater than the data available 20 years ago. So

it's always a crapshoot. In my case, they knew to warn me about

possible heart problems, but no one figured having one adrenal gland

could be a problem. The assumption was that a single adrenal gland

could take on the work of two without a hitch. But perhaps that might

not be the case.

My point was, I think there's a bit of a gap between oncologists'

efforts to save lives, and follow up efforts to monitor the *quality*

of survivors' lives. There needs to be a sort of feedback loop, such

that research in the quality of life of survivors can increase

available data on the results of treatment. That increase in data can

be used to further refine both the treatment and follow up protocols.

I'm sure that's done to a great extent, but there are some

situations, such as mine, where certain finer points of patient

follow up can fall through the cracks. Often, the excellent

oncologists that treat patients are the same ones to follow them up

post treatment. On the one hand, this makes sense. On the other, I

wonder if there's room for follow-up specialists to monitor patients

as well.

Anyway, I'm glad your dad is alive! Back in the 60's, I imagine that

was a difficult disease to treat. I hope he keeps going for checkups.

Those are important. Btw, for back problems, there are some

stretching exercises he can do that might help him. He might want to

see an orthopedist. Perhaps the onc can give him a referral.

blithe

> " In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious that aggressive therapies

such as chemo and radiation would cause subtle problems later on in

life, "

>

> My father was supposed to die in the 60's from Hodgekins [or the

treatments] but he didn't cooperate. Since then he is supposed to go

back to the onocology dep't for regular check-ups [probably for

research purposes] but he usually skips. He did go last month-had a

different Dr., one who was an intern when he was 1st diagnosed. back

problems-oh that's because radiation killed off the muscle.

strokes/heart attack-well now we know that chemo and radiation can

lead to such things years later...diabetes-yes, there is probably a

connection....and so on and so forth.....time to remember that

medicine is a practice, yes?

>

>

> sincerely, edumom

>

>

> The mind is its own place, and in itself

> Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. Milton (1608–

1674), British poet. Paradise Lost, bk. 1