Stats

Just a few facts today - we'll let them speak for themselves:

FACTS ABOUT SOME WOMEN I KNOW:

I joined a support group for newly diagnosed breast cancer people a few months ago. Sandy. Harper. Estella. Diane. Leah. Peg. Donni. Amy. We are now friends. We are in various stages of breast cancer treatment. The typical narrative is: surgery, chemo, radiation, then 5-10 years of a hormone suppressing drug like Tamoxifen. Some did chemo before surgery to shrink tumors first. Some did not do chemo and went from surgery to radiation. We are all on the same path at different places and we help the others along. 

We met for dinner last night. One is done with chemo and today is her last day of radiation - her hair is growing back, it's dark and silky. She wears a cotton washcloth under her clothes to keep the skin under her breast dry and not splitting open any more. One got hit by a car while crossing a street, a few weeks ago. A slow moving car whose driver did not see her. She turned and saw the car as it touched her and then slowly but quickly broke her pelvis in three places. She had to go to the hospital right away and then to rehab for a few weeks over the holiday. She was looking forward so much to completing her last chemo treatment but it had to be put on indefinite hold while she learned how to walk again. Her hair has started to grow back in and she now walks with a walker and is not sure when she will have to/get to complete her chemotherapy and then get to/have to start radiation. One got an infection from radiation that caused the doctors to put her on a medicine that is the same stuff that ate the oil in the gulf during the oil spill. It comes back. Other things going on in this group include an impending double mastectomy with reconstruction plus another surgery at the same time thrown in, dealing with side effects of anti estrogen meds and the fear of one of those effects which is another cancer, wondering why hair hasn't started growing back a month or two after chemo ended, forced menopause, and anxiety (all share this experience). We ate and laughed and planned future hospital and restaurant visits.

Another friend started chemo last week. The evening before she began the dreaded beginning, she went for a walk by the river and a pit bull walked up to her and bit her hand. Bloody bite marks. The next day her oncologist looked at the bite and decided it was still ok for her to start chemotherapy, so she did.

QUOTES FROM AN ARTICLE I READ:

I read an article that was written in The New York Times on January 4th 2014 called: "Why Everyone Seems to Have Cancer" By GEORGE JOHNSON.

A few friends sent it to me to read. 

Here is a quote from this article in a section that talks about heart disease versus cancer, as killers:

"But there are reasons to believe that cancer will remain the most resistant. It is not so much a disease as a phenomenon, the result of a basic evolutionary compromise. As a body lives and grows, its cells are constantly dividing, copying their DNA — this vast genetic library — and bequeathing it to the daughter cells. They in turn pass it to their own progeny: copies of copies of copies. Along the way, errors inevitably occur. Some are caused by carcinogens but most are random misprints."

Here is the link if you woukd like to read the entire article:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/sunday-review/why-everyone-seems-to-have-cancer.html

NUMBERS:

We got an itemized bill for (only) some of the recent treatments I have received. We have insurance that helps pay a lot of it. The treatments have varying costs - here are some of them:

Doxorubicin liposoma (Adriamycin), one syringe: $11,214.00

Taxotere, 1 MG - $5,762.00

Cyclophosphamide 100MG - $1,215.00

Doxorubicin: $495

Taxotere: $4,343.00

Aloxi, 25MCG: $440.00:

Neulasta 6MG: $5,662.00

Kytril 100MCG: $300.00

These are a few from the three single spaced pages. Most of these will be six time drugs. I do not know why the same item sometimes has different costs. I do not understand this bill, any of the charges, how our insurance works, why we have insurance, why others don't, what insurance is, my cancer doctor's accounting philosophy, my doctor's philosophy, cancer drugs, dividing cells, cancer, health insurance, our culture's interpretation of ethics and health, life, or death.