What is a family conference?
Cancer is not an individual’s disease; it is the family’s disease. Everyone is affected: parents, siblings, children, caregivers, coworkers, neighbors, and friends.
How can I avoid developing cancer?
Why do I need chemotherapy?
Should I get a Second Opinion?
Should I get a second opinion?
In the ideal world, yes.
But it depends on what kind of cancer you have, and what kind of resources are available to you. At the very least, the pathological diagnosis should be confirmed. 2 different pathologists should review the biopsy slides, and if they have any doubt, they should be sent to a 3rd expert to review. The pathological diagnosis is the foundation on which all future decisions are made.
What is a CBC?
How to deal with advice?
How to deal with advice?
When you get a cancer diagnosis, you need time to digest all the information that is being provided. Your life and your emotions have been handed a whopper, and you have to find a way of combating this disease.
Advice from well meaning friends and relatives is a double-edged sword. Obviously they mean well, but I’ve had numerous patients who have been driven to distraction by the advice that is thrown at them: drink this, don’t eat that, I have special tea that boosts your immunity, my aunt had this treatment and did horribly, etc, etc.
How to prepare for cancer treatment?
What is a clinical trial?
Clinical trials are a process by which different treatments being evaluated against each other, or a brand new drug, to decide which is the best treatment for that particular disease, for that particular stage.
All current treatments have been selected as the standard of care, because they went through a clinical trial, and were found to be better that what they were being compared against. At any time, patients are offered “current standard of care” or enrollment in a clinical trial, to see if something better is out there.
What is Performance Status?
What is Performance Status?
It is a score of a person’s Functional State. There are two commonly used scales.
The Karnofsky scale which goes from 0 to 100, where the person who is completely asymptomatic and fully functional scores a 100, and loses points for the onset of pain, mobility, weakness, or other difficulties, which lead to an impairment of function.
What is the Goal of Treatment?
What is the goal of treatment?
In the ideal world we want to cure everybody. But in today’s real world we cannot. So we have to define goals that can be realistically achieved.
I would have liked to hit tennis balls like Federer or Nadal, run marathons, sing like Beyonce, or dance like Michael Jackson, but sadly, I could not. I had to deal with the reality of my limitations.