Cancer is ****ing evil - my family has too much

[scho63]

Just got a call from my sister back East. My first cousin, who is very close to my sister, was just diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer that is also in her liver. She is 49 years old, married to a wonderful guy and has a great family of 3 kids, she is really an incredible person we were all close to as kids and I just spoke to her Dad last week, my Uncle on my father's side. She just moved to a real nice house on the Lake in northern NJ about a month or so ago.

She was having stomach pain, went through a bunch of tests and they found nothing. It then got so bad she went to the ER in excruciating pain and suddenly they do a scan and find it.

They immediately put a port in her and are giving her chemo. Chances are very slim she makes it and while I do know that some immunotherapy with special cocktails these days, her outlook is poor.

I'm stunned and this is another of our cursed family with cancer. Like 12 of our family.

Just live your life and enjoy everyday because if you keep postponing things until the future, it may never arrive.......

I have always believed I will have a short life like so many in our family so I live it up like my time on this Earth is very limited.

Just completely stunned..........

[Megatron96]

Damn, buddy, sorry to hear that your family is going through so much pain.

[Zebedee DuBois]

I understand the sentiment! It sucks

[Peter Gibbons]

So sorry to hear this.

[Why Not?]

There are very few things all human being agree on. **** cancer is one of them. Sorry pal. I agree with you. Enjoy life while you can because you just never know

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

If it would save them money and provide more efficient services with lower premiums, which would happen in a competitive landscape, a company would be offering this now. No one does, because healthcare would be unaffordable. We have a pretty darn good healthcare system. My brother received great care during his journey.

Scho, I now a fella who recovered from stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Prayers sent.

How much would a yearly ultrasound, scan and cancer screenings cost out of pocket?

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

I mean no resources would really be wasted. Early detection of cancer would save insurance companies billions upon billions, but they'd never go for it. They only care about money they saved in the present and don't give a shit about future savings if it gives them a bad quarter.

There are like 350 million people in America. Imagine every single one of them requiring a full body MRI or imaging scan or whatever it would take to detect cancerous lumps each year.

Then think about all the wasted resources we’d spend on all of the benign lumps that would inevitably pop up.

I’m no expert on the subject but I’d imagine you would end up spending a lot more on what amounts to nothing than you’d save on preventing extended treatments.

[IowaHawkeyeChief]

Originally Posted by BWillie

How much would a yearly ultrasound, scan and cancer screenings cost out of pocket?

Depends on location, but between $3-6k.

[frozenchief]

I am really sorry to hear that. Words are really inadequate in these circumstances.

[scho63]

Thank you everyone for the kind words.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest cancers to find early. It hides, hard to detect in the pancreas, and usually only symptoms at the late stage.

The key would be for science to figure out a way to detect early on. That is the key.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I hate the way we treat cancer in our society. We just wait around until we find out we have it. We know something is wrong, tell our doctor and they are like meh you are PROBABLY fine. Not as motivated as they should be to turn over every stone.

We should be getting ultrasounds and scans done every year regardless of health.

CT scans cause about 2% of all cancers in the US so not using them as a screening tool would be best practice , there are some cancers that are just hard to diagnose early or some can progress rapidly within months or weeks , if you do have symptoms don’t wait , get second opinion etc.. but screening every person , every few weeks would just collapse most medical systems.

As for the OP sorry about your loss , my uncle just died from Stage 4 pancreatic cancer , had testing 5-6 months ago which shows nothing and they found it incidentally and lung screen CT in Feb , lasted about 1 month after that Cancer sucks , 27 years finding cancers on friends and family is not something you get used to

[RunKC]

My grandfather died of this and I saw him basically wither away. To his credit he made it a year and was only given 3 months, but he lost so much weight and could only consume endure.

I have a real fear of going out like that

[Kman34]

Sorry to hear this scho... Prayers sent to you and your family..

[Bump]

Sorry to hear it, prayed for them.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by BWillie

How much would a yearly ultrasound, scan and cancer screenings cost out of pocket?

You would need them more frequently than that and screening the whole body that often would be impossible. I already feel like we are screening too much , thyroid nodules/cysts/fatty liver /cirrhosis etc .. our system won’t survive everything is getting more expensive.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

There are like 350 million people in America. Imagine every single one of them requiring a full body MRI or imaging scan or whatever it would take to detect cancerous lumps each year.

Then think about all the wasted resources we’d spend on all of the benign lumps that would inevitably pop up.

I’m no expert on the subject but I’d imagine you would end up spending a lot more on what amounts to nothing than you’d save on preventing extended treatments.

Pretty much much every CT or ultrasound has as incidental benign finding that ends up needing more imaging or follow ups that will never amount to anything . Thyroid nodules are probably the cancer we spends the most money on and there hasn’t been a change in mortality or morbidity in 50 years , been doing yearly ultrasound on the same people for 25 years even the ones that do get there thyroid removed for cancer we still do yearly F/u for possible recurrence, which I think I have see once in that time span.