Living with Mesothelioma: A New Normal
In December of 2007, Timonium resident Jen Blair was pregnant with her second son, Kevin. It was a “very painful pregnancy.” She went to a few doctors, who told her the pain was normal. The pain returned, “worse than ever,” six weeks after giving birth to Kevin. More doctors. More tests. She was first told she needed laparoscopic surgery, then that she had stage 4 cancer in her abdomen. She was told to get her affairs in order.
It turns out Jen had peritoneal (in the abdomen) mesothelioma, in which cancer cells are found in the membranes around organs in the abdomen. This is very rare — only about 350-500 c...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - July 15, 2016 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Chris Lindsley Tags: Cancer patient care Patient Stories surgery advocacy mesothelioma volunteer Source Type: blogs
The palliative caregiver shines a balanced and soft compassionate light
I never realized the true meaning of palliative care amidst the harried practice of emergency medicine. The pressure being placed on me to do more often becomes the same expectation I place on patients to receive more treatment.
Gloria, the wife of my patient with terminal mesothelioma, shed a light on palliative care for me with the insightful words, “We know that there is no cure — we just want to even things out and buy a little more time for Andy.” This was a reasonable directive: Take a breath, ease the situation, create a smooth transition and offer some peace of mind. The art of palliative medicine is the ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 21, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Kevin Haselhorst, MD Tags: Physician Palliative care Source Type: blogs
Watson will replace me? Not a chance!
By PO-HAO CHEN, MD
Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick predicted supercomputers more intelligent than humans. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the HAL states, with typical human immodesty, “The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made… We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.” Forty years later, IBM’s Watson pummeled humans in Jeopardy – a distinctly human game.
Watson is a big shot oncology fellow at MD Anderson – he is already impressing nurses and the attendings. The supercomputer presented patients in the morning rounds, parsed data wit...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 16, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Tech THCB Source Type: blogs
None Dare Call It Health Care Corruption
... even when allegedly a prominent academic physician's traded referrals of cancer patients to a law firm, resulting in referral fees to a prominent politician who worked for the firm, for government research grants to the physician's foundation and another foundation on whose board he sat, and a job for his son at yet another non-profit organization.***Health care corruption, remains a largely taboo topic, especially when it occurs in developed countries like the US. Searching PubMed or major medical and health care journals at best will reveal a few articles on health care corruption, nearly all about corrupti...
Source: Health Care Renewal - January 28, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: anechoic effect bribery cancer Columbia University crime fraud health care corruption Source Type: blogs
Sheldon Silver and the Price of Doing Science
Walter Olson
Rumors of ethics problems have long swirled around long-time New York assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, many of them connected with his role as a private lawyer associated with a personal-injury firm whose interests extend to many government- and policy-related matters. This morning, according to multiple reports, the FBI took Silver into custody following a corruption investigation.
The complaint (courtesy WSJ, more here and here) alleges improprieties with Silver’s income both from a real estate law firm patronized by developers and from asbestos-injury legal work. On the latt...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
MVNHS© Rocket (but not Cancer) Surgeons
First, the good news: 66 year old Roger Mollison is cancer free.That's good news because the folks who run the Much Vaunted National Health Service© don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to cancer care. The not-so-great news is that, despite their "best" efforts, they couldn't cure Mr Mollison of cancer.Mostly because he didn't have cancer in the first place:"Doctors at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee told Mollison to prepare for the final nine months of his life after diagnostic testing revealed a deadly case of mesothelioma"Imagine the sheer horror of receiving such a diagnosis, and then undergoing years of...
Source: InsureBlog - August 28, 2014 Category: Medical Lawyers and Insurers Source Type: blogs
53!
Yep, today’s my birthday. I’m 53 years old! I feel a bit like the puffin in my current header photo (by the way, I took that photo at Skokholm Island, Wales, UK, last week) — young, happy, confident, strong, with my wings spread out…and with a bunch of sand eels (er…bleah) in my beak…
And to think that when, in the fall of 2005, I was diagnosed with (smoldering) myeloma, I thought I’d be dead within four or five years…That’s what my hematologist told us…
I guess I’ve proved him wrong, eh?
Back then, in 2005 that is, I didn’t know much about myelo...
Source: Margaret's Corner - July 18, 2014 Category: Cancer Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll Source Type: blogs
TWiV 290: Baylor goes viral
On episode #290 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent meets up with Janet Butel and Rick Lloyd at Baylor College of Medicine to talk about their work on polyomaviruses and virus induced stress.
You can find TWiV #290 at www.twiv.tv. (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - June 22, 2014 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology cancer coxsackievirus mesothelioma P bodies picornavirus poliovirus polyomavirus stress granules SV40 viral Source Type: blogs
On The Pulse - 20th June 2014
No benefits from surgical resection in mesothelioma (Source: OnMedica Blogs)
Source: OnMedica Blogs - June 20, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Source Type: blogs
not just about breast cancer
Today's post is a guest post from the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. This is the first guest post ever on this blog but I wanted to share this issue and felt it would be best if someone from MCA explained the issue in their own words.Here are some facts provided by Cameron Von St. James, whose wife Heather is a mesothelioma survivor. Note that while Cameron is in the US and writes about that country, asbestos is not banned in Canada, either (Update: This is the June 16 editorial from the Globe and Mail: "Ottawa's sunny outlook on asbestos is out of step with the facts."). In fact, Canada's Mesothelioma Center says our count...
Source: Not just about cancer - June 16, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: cancer blog community preventing cancer show and tell Source Type: blogs
May is National Cancer Research Month – Check Out Heather’s Story
In honor of National Cancer Research Month, I wanted to share with you “Heather’s Story”.
Heather was just 36 when she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given 15 months to live. She had just given birth to her first–and only daughter–just 3 1/2 months before the diagnosis. With a new baby in her arms, she was given the grim prognosis of just 15 months to live. Miraculously, she beat the odds and she is still here 8 years later.
Mesothelioma is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancers–and people are usually just given one year to live after they are diagnosed. There is no known cur...
Source: Octopus Mom - May 5, 2014 Category: Nurses Authors: Ferrar Copywriters Source Type: blogs
Is Commerce Controlling Our Attention and Thinking?
I was just glancing over some Web stats regarding page views and advertising revenues and the thought occurred to me that, on the Web at least, our attention and thinking is being distorted in the direction of buyable stuff. Here's my simple reasoning, backed by some stats.1. Web content creators in many cases are interested in monetizing their sites.2. The way to make money on a site is to display advertisements.3. The ads displayed are often linked to the content of the page.4. People click on ads that offer things of interest, which are often tangible products.5. The bigger ticket the tangible product, the more the clic...
Source: The Virtual Salt - April 25, 2014 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Robert Harris Source Type: blogs
Novel “Jantibody Fusion Protein” Cancer Vaccine Holds Promise Against Ovarian Cancer
A novel approach to cancer immunotherapy – strategies designed to induce the immune system to attack cancer cells – may provide a new and cost-effective weapon against some of the most deadly tumors, including ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. A novel approach to cancer immunotherapy – strategies designed to induce the immune system to attack cancer […] (Source: Libby's H*O*P*E*)
Source: Libby's H*O*P*E* - March 8, 2014 Category: Cancer Authors: Paul Cacciatore Tags: Discoveries Immunotherapy Preclinical Testing Vaccines cancer vaccine dendritic cell Harvard Medical School Jantibody fusion protein Jeff Gelfand M.D. Mark Poznansky M.D. Ph.D. Massachusetts General Hospital mesothelin MGH Vaccine Source Type: blogs
