Dying of other cancer...

Adriana Mangus · 01-25-2012, 11:48 PM

Jackie,

First of all my condolences for your loss.

I totally agree with you. Although I tested negative for the BRCA 1 and 2, I have to be vigilant for other type of cancers.

On my father's side all of my uncles, ----his brothers either died of stomach or colon cancer. My father passed away from a stroke at the age of 79 and was healthy almost to the end of his life until the stroke took him almost immediately.

I am seeing the obgyn and internist for ovarian/cervical and colon cancer . The obgyn keeps telling me that I will "never" develop ovarian cancer. I wish I had seeing her before 1994, perhaps she already knew (you know crystal ball), I had breast cancer before I even discovered myself. SHe's a nut!! She eventually signs the referral for the transvaginal ultra sound but each time I have to fight her. Oh well.

The internist does not mind seeing me, I have a strong patient-doctor relationship with my primary doctor and since she's the one referring me, I have never had a problem with the internist. He just writes the little paper and I get schedule for the colonoscopy.

We are the ones responsible for our health, and WE must remember that no one cares about you, but yourself.

Take care,

Love,

Adriana

Jackie07 · 01-29-2012, 03:26 AM

Another cancer incident of my college basketball team...

The Captain a year behind me e-mailed us pictures of Houtzu's funeral. Included was a picture of her and another teammate who had also attended the farewell service. This teammate, a college instructor in the midst of working on her advancement dissertation, is also a breast cancer survivor (surgery in 2006). Her mother passed away two years ago from stomach cancer.

So far, out of the 12 members of the 1982 team, we've had 4 cancer incidents - all gynecological cancers. All three members with breast cancer (one also had ovarian cancer, and I've had life-long brain tumors) are alive and well (8 1/2 years with recurrence - me, 4 1/2 years, 5 1/2 years respectively.) All four of us have family members/relatives who have been diagnosed with cancer (lung, NHL, Colon, and Stomach) - makes me wonder about the HNPCC connection: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lyn...H0001895/drome

This is pretty close to the statistics of cancer incident in Taiwan http://www.asiatoday.com/pressreleas...er-rise-taiwan except that we've all just passed the half century mark (instead of the cut-off age - 74 - used in the statistics) None of us has the risk factor of alcohol use, betel nut consumption [major cause of oral cancer in Taiwan] or obesity. Hopefully we've matched the statistic and no more teammates will be diagnosed with cancer in the future.