Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Another medical thread - Angelina Jolie
There's been an outpouring of public and celebrity support for her and the Twitterverse really cares. Hollywood is really patting itself on the back but let's get one thing straight, Angelina Jolie is not coming across as your typical Hollywood airhead and not too many celebrities can even write a decent Op-Ed piece in the Ole Gray Lady. Writing about her recent decision to get a preventative double mastectomy she's definitely adding substance to the discussion and I find her much more useful than K-Dash or even Madonna. She's also hopefully helping us move past our national Hefnerized adolescence, a culture obsessed with boob jobs and longtime love interest Brad Pitt is coming across as noble, as being a good character. I don't have a good knowledge of this area, BRCA 1&2 and the 87% chance of breast cancer and 50% chance for ovarian and all that so I'm rendering a nondecision here. IMO breast cancer gets far more press and attention than say prostate cancer, that's another issue but having said that I find her quite articulate in her cause. This ain't a case of Sean Penn writing down his deepest thoughts with crayons or Rodman palling around with the North Korean Psycho and so since we've been covering alot of medical ground here lately I've been thinking of starting the Z-man Foundation for the Research and Cure of Tinnitus. I also never got the whole current conservative fixation with reading NY Times editorials, as an old Times ad used to say read what you like.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
87% is powerful odds. IMO, she did the right thing. There is a simple
ReplyDeletecalculator
available as a pre-assessment. As for tinnitus, they have a questionaire
which is more a list of complaints:
but you can get an appointment with
the experts their in your locale.
That's a serious decision. I think she did the right (and courageous) thing. She's not the first... Christina Applegate made the same decision (though I can't remember if she actually did have cancer). Either way I think it's a positive, putting substance over appearance, it's definitely sending a message that sex appeal is not the be all and end all, and that is a thought that needs to be injected into today's culture.
ReplyDeleteI give her a lot of credit. That has to be a difficult decision to make, I mean, seriously, no matter who or what you are there's still the matter of body image and it can't be easy.
And good on him for sticking by her.
And you're right, the boobs get far more attention than any other body part when it comes to cancer and I have a cordial hatred of Komen. Nobody cares about un-sexy cancers like colorectal cancer or kidney cancer or retinoblastoma.
Yeah you can't argue with the 87% number and now she's getting her ovaries removed too. As for tinnitus yeah you can go to endless docs over this and that, humming in your head and loose stools but that's gonna run you into some money and some things you can just live with. I told my primary doctor this and I really don't think they know what causes tinnitus or tinnitus-like conditions anyway and when I hear things like earwax that's so much bullshit.
ReplyDeleteRead in the paper yesterday preventative mastectomies are not always covered. She has the money so she had that rare extra procedure to save the nipple. Testicular cancer on the other hand, hear much about that lately?
ReplyDeleteOncological research is broad and
ReplyDeleteexpanding, but IMO, the natural
immune response is an area which
still looks promising. A peculiar trait of testicular cancer is that
its occurrence peaks between age
30-34; unlike the probabilities of most other cancers which continue to increase with age. Gotta be some sort of clue there....
& which celebrity man will become the poster child for this form of cancer? Not only the immune response area seems promising but glad to see they're finally focusing on the genome, figuring out faulty genes' role in causing cancer and so maybe the whole barbarity of chemo will eventually go into the dustbin of history.
ReplyDeleteWhich celebrity man? OK, I'll be the straight guy: Lance Armstrong-
ReplyDeletetesticular cancer at age 25, spread to brain & lungs. Extensive
chemo, declared cancer-free. So,
weird bicycle seats? OD's on performance enhancing drugs?
Unlucky coincidence? Am familiar
with a couple other cases-both cured.
We note that the orchiectomy is much rarer than the mastectomy: the familial testicular cancer being much rarer than the random sporadic
occurrence. [a few more med type
posts may qualify you for med school, Z-Man]
When I was growing up we had a local priest who had a cancer operation and was then declared totally cancer-free but just in case they said and they blitz him with another round of chemo and in two or three weeks he died. Dunno, if I were a prosecutor...
ReplyDeleteMy mom was just given the five year stamp of 'cancer free' from her oncologist. It has not been an easy road.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they're finally turning the corner on genetics and getting to the root of the various cancers that afflict the human race. Some commentators are saying that while what Angelina Jolie did was commendable and brave that the average woman following the medical advice of a Hollywood A-lister is unrealistic and impractical. She has the money they don't.
ReplyDeleteTis cheaper far to do the mastectomy than try to treat the cancer later down the road.
ReplyDeleteInsurance companies would do well to recognize the fact.
To my knowledge the preventative mastectomy sometimes it's covered sometimes it's not. I wonder too if the average woman has enough dough to have that extra op to save the nipple and if insurance covers it.
ReplyDeleteIt's not really an extra procedure, it's more like a modification of the procedure. I think a whole lot of that depends on the doctor, and yes, reconstruction is reconstruction and as far as I know it's covered.
ReplyDeleteWell few years back I had a rather large cyst removed from my neck, turned out to be benign and not a tumor but anyways insurance didn't cover it as they deemed it electable minor surgery. In my mind though it was important as how do you know what you're dealing with until after they get it out and it's biopsied? I think if there's any rationale or wiggle room to not cover a certain procedure that's the way they're gonna roll.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why the entire medical industry needs to be nonprofit. Once you bring a profit motive into the picture, patient care gets trumped.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the English gent who is a Jolie copy cat .
ReplyDeleteI was gonna comment on this, I mean why not have ALL unnecessary organs removed because of the risks down the road? Do I really need two balls??
ReplyDeleteProbably started with Matthew 5:30-
ReplyDeleteIf thy hand offends thee, cut it off and through it away-
It's a fact that a lot of times when someone's having an abdominal surgery, at the same time they're in there they will go ahead and take your appendix out. This happened to me when I had my big surgery. Their standard procedure is to take your gallbladder and appendix at the same time they do the gut surgery. I'd already had mine out so all that was left was the appendix. It makes an awful lot of sense when you think of it; in the event I ever come up with an acute abdominal problem we can instantly rule out appendicitis. This is particularly important to me because the anastomosis of my small intestines is in that general right lower quad area and it cuts the time to diagnosis way down if we know already my appendix is in no way involved. So yeah, in a lot of cases it's a good plan.
ReplyDeleteAccording to one of my bug field guides when you get bit by a black widow one of the symptoms can mimic acute appendicitis. Fun.
ReplyDelete