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garoteSo a friend of mine went to the doctor's office last week, complaining that he was feeling short of breath all the time. He had no history of medical problems, not even a hereditary history of them. He doesn't smoke or drink, he always gets enough to eat and it's rarely junk food. He occasionally got mild headaches, but then don't we all. This shortness of breath thing, he couldn't figure out. So he went to the doctor.
They took x-rays and blood tests and quizzed him on a few things and said they couldn't find anything wrong with him. He went home mystified. What was causing this? He went back to the doctor and they said, "perhaps we should run some more thorough tests."
So they took a tissue sample of his lung. And then they made a terrible discovery; and they ordered that he get a full-body scan - an MRI I think it was. Then they all sat down with the charts and the scans and spelled it out:
He has dozens of small, deadly cancerous tumors spread throughout his chest, head, and brain. Most of them are inoperable. He may die in three weeks.
Or in a few months, or in a few years. Perhaps five years on the outside. That shortness of breath? Not going away. Also, the tip of the iceberg.
Nobody can yet figure out where or how the cancer began, or how slowly or quickly it is spreading. In the meantime, he is rolling with the punches. He and his wife are contacting every specialist who may be interested and he's beginning a round of chemotherapy soon. He's carefully focusing on the things he can control, and banking on the odds to work themselves out. No one knows how fast the cancer grows, or how it will respond to treatment yet.
It bears repeating that no one knows what caused this cancer, or when it started. Everyone else in his house - his wife and another friend of mine included - must also consider their possible exposure to the same unknown carcinogen, and must all undergo testing.
Summer 2006 has been a firestorm around us. Three families we know are in the straits of divorcing - all of them with children. One of them due to drug abuse. Now this.
They took x-rays and blood tests and quizzed him on a few things and said they couldn't find anything wrong with him. He went home mystified. What was causing this? He went back to the doctor and they said, "perhaps we should run some more thorough tests."
So they took a tissue sample of his lung. And then they made a terrible discovery; and they ordered that he get a full-body scan - an MRI I think it was. Then they all sat down with the charts and the scans and spelled it out:
He has dozens of small, deadly cancerous tumors spread throughout his chest, head, and brain. Most of them are inoperable. He may die in three weeks.
Or in a few months, or in a few years. Perhaps five years on the outside. That shortness of breath? Not going away. Also, the tip of the iceberg.
Nobody can yet figure out where or how the cancer began, or how slowly or quickly it is spreading. In the meantime, he is rolling with the punches. He and his wife are contacting every specialist who may be interested and he's beginning a round of chemotherapy soon. He's carefully focusing on the things he can control, and banking on the odds to work themselves out. No one knows how fast the cancer grows, or how it will respond to treatment yet.
It bears repeating that no one knows what caused this cancer, or when it started. Everyone else in his house - his wife and another friend of mine included - must also consider their possible exposure to the same unknown carcinogen, and must all undergo testing.
Summer 2006 has been a firestorm around us. Three families we know are in the straits of divorcing - all of them with children. One of them due to drug abuse. Now this.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 03:52 am (UTC)* One of my co-workers had his routine checkup and it came back HIV-positive.
* My friend lost his business, followed by his house.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 10:33 pm (UTC)Incidentally, I've been a bit worried about you lately ... you've dropped off the radar for awhile. Things going alright?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 02:29 am (UTC)I stopped doing LiveJournal because at some point, I realized the whole thing was just bad for me ... making posts and responding to comments was siphoning off my social energy, but worse, it was siphoning off my writing energy at the same time. So I turned that energy to more-productive outlets. I check the friends' page once a month or so just to keep a tab on you all.
The other reason I haven't been here is that I can't really write about my life right now, but that's for positive reasons! My life is perfectly awesome at the moment, I'm managing to balance everything I've ever wanted to do for years, and everything is going precisely the way I want it to. So I didn't want to make everybody puke -- neither did I want to jinx the run of good luck, ooo superstition. Maybe I just did, but what the hell. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 03:35 am (UTC)