Hi everyone , my blog took a little rest while I spent some time hanging out with friends, and you may spot if you have been here before, that there is a new cause, literally very close to my heart…research and funding for lung cancer treatment.
In England alone, there are around 34,000 new cases every year, this year around 224,210 adults (116,000 men and 108,210 women) in the United States will be diagnosed with lung cancer. It is the second most common cancer in the USA and kills more than the next four top cancers put together…breast, prostate, pancreatic and colorectal.
However, each year, in both countries, thousands are cured, or treated with such success that they live for longer and with a better quality of life than once would have been possible.
Lung cancer is not choosy, it does not care who it goes for, yet of many forms of cancer it gets less sympathy, because it is assumed that patients brought it on themselves by smoking…an image not helped by the charities and support groups that use fag ends and ash trays as their logos. Lung cancer is a serious illness… not a fault finding mission…
Over half of lung cancer diagnoses occur at a late stage...and this can be a problem in prompt, successful and as least grueling as possible treatment. Considering how common an illness this is, symptoms that include such possible warning flags as a cough that will not go away, breathlessness, repeated respiratory infections, rapid weight loss and exhaustion should always ring alarm bells with patients doctors. In the western world, nobody should be diagnosed as late as stage 2, 3 and even 4.
Even these late stage diagnosis’s can be and often are successfully cured or treated so successfully that life is prolonged for far longer than would have been the case in years gone by, but there is more chance of a cure the earlier a diagnosis is made.
Lung cancer patients and their families fight positively with overwhelming, inspiring courage, faith, and hope during what is an exhausting journey. Treatments can involve cycles of weeks of hours of chemotherapy and daily radiotherapy, with resulting side effects from these as well as the illness. They deserve, as indeed do all cancer patients… that their battle is our battle and that we will do all we can to bring about the day when a diagnosis is prompt, and followed by immediate treatment and complete recovery, also that money and resources are poured into preventative treatments such as vaccines and early screening for those identified e.g. by family history to be at risk…The days when cancer was talked about in hushed whispers are long over.
We must never stop believing in a future of preventative screening and treatment such as gene therapy and vaccines, prompt recognition of symptoms, early treatment and complete cures. Lung Cancer and other cancers can and indeed do see miracles happen every day …patients have a lot of living to do …
I am Supporting: The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
And…The Lung Cancer Initiative of North Carolina… http://www.lungcancerinitiativenc.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment