Re:447 Days Ago, I Found Out I Had Cancer
by hef19898 on Friday February 15, 2013 @03:32AM
(#5225161)
Depending on the cancer type, oncologists let you off the hook after some years. As far as I know that more or less means that if you got cancer after that set period, this new cancer is considered unrelated to the first one. Don't know how much statistics are behind that, so.
And yes, I guess you have to be a very special peronality type to become an oncologist. Nothing to say of becoming a child oncologist.
Completly agree with the last sentence, only that most people consider cancer a special cause of early death that scares the hell out of them. At the same time nobody worries of comuting 30 miles one-way day to work, all around the year and don't give a shit if there's black ice half the time in winter.
Interessting how far human self deception goes.
How much can patient with treated cancer live varies greatly. Each cancer is at least few new species of life. Personal predictions are not possible, especially not before trying some treatments.
Even giving average survival is bullshit because you can't factor in all the things you know about given patient (or his cancer) into the average. Often there is very little to know about the particular cancer you have. Looking at cancer cells taken from the point of biopsy doesn't reveal much. Even sequencing DNA doesn't say much because 3 centimeter off the site of the biopsy, cancer cells can have different genome.
If you have cancer you don't know how long you are going to live. Same way as nobody does. And even if you beat cancer you'll still have more than 1 chance in 1000 of dying next year for whatever reasons like the rest of us.