topic Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia in Wellness

Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

jackiejenny — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 21:35:34 GMT

Brain cancer replaces Leukemia as the leading cause of child deaths. This is very sad, but not totally unexpected.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

January121 — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 21:38:15 GMT

@jackiejenny wrote:
Brain cancer replaces Leukemia as the leading cause of child deaths. This is very sad, but not totally unexpected.

@jackiejenny I not surprised ... probably due to the over use of cell phones?

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

jackiejenny — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 21:44:08 GMT

@January121 wrote:
@jackiejenny wrote:
Brain cancer replaces Leukemia as the leading cause of child deaths. This is very sad, but not totally unexpected.
@jackiejenny I not surprised ... probably due to the over use of cell phones?

@January121 That is what I believe.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Buck-i-Nana — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:06:04 GMT

The change is due to the increasing successful treatment of childhood leukemia, thus reducing deaths.

In contrast, there has been little to no increase in the understanding of brain cancer or in treating it.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

jackiejenny — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:24:32 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
The change is due to the increasing successful treatment of childhood leukemia, thus reducing deaths.

In contrast, there has been little to no increase in the understanding of brain cancer or in treating it.

While I agree with most of your post, many neurologists believe children using cell phones at such a young age, combined with constant use, may have contributed to the increasing cases of brain cancer.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Buck-i-Nana — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:29:51 GMT

@jackiejenny wrote:
@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
The change is due to the increasing successful treatment of childhood leukemia, thus reducing deaths.

In contrast, there has been little to no increase in the understanding of brain cancer or in treating it.

While I agree with most of your post, many neurologists believe children using cell phones at such a young age, combined with constant use, may have contributed to the increasing cases of brain cancer.

They're guessing. You'll find just as many that are attributing the increase in childhood cancers to the increase in use of pesticides and chemicals.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

hoosieroriginal — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 23:56:52 GMT

In my lifetime, two of my bosses have had young children with brain cancers. The first, about 25 years ago, the parents were told the child had 6 months to live (brain stem tumor). (Thankfully, one of his teachers noticed he was holding his head slightly to the right and told the parents to take him to a neurologist.) My boss went online and found a specialist in NY who operated on him. He is still alive today and doing well. My second boss's son had brain surgery but is having a lot of difficulties with his speech, walking and with school. It's reallly hard on the entire family.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Brooklynny — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 01:25:13 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
@jackiejenny wrote:
@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
The change is due to the increasing successful treatment of childhood leukemia, thus reducing deaths.

In contrast, there has been little to no increase in the understanding of brain cancer or in treating it.

While I agree with most of your post, many neurologists believe children using cell phones at such a young age, combined with constant use, may have contributed to the increasing cases of brain cancer.

They're guessing. You'll find just as many that are attributing the increase in childhood cancers to the increase in use of pesticides and chemicals.

That's too great a generalization, and much more research needs to be done. My 86-year old mother was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in early 2013, the deadliest form there is. Out of the blue. Never sick a day in her life. No cancer at all in her family history. Hospitalized only twice, for my sister's birth and tonsil removal (I was born at home -- it was another era). Her geriatrics doctor boasted that she was the healthiest patient he'd ever had. We got her a cell phone for emergency use, but she never used it. She didn't work in a factory, was not around pesticides or chemicals.

The doctors couldn't explain it because they didn't know the reason. Her own doctor was shell-shocked when he saw the diagnosis. Her life expectancy was 18-24 months, and that's how it worked out. The brain is the most complex organ in our bodies. There's too much that is unknown about brain cancer, why it happens, how it affects people differently depending on what part of the brain is attacked, and how to at the very least arrest its development until it can be cured.

Cell phones, cell towers, pesticides, and chemicals may be possible causes, but blaming them is not the whole picture. I've seen the 60 Minutes stories about the polio virus being used on an experimental basis with limited success, but a lot more work needs to be done about causes, therapies, and cures.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Buck-i-Nana — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 01:35:27 GMT

@Brooklynny - You're right. At this stage it's still pretty much all guessing regarding anything with brain cancer. I lost my husband 16 years ago from inoperable brain cancer. It was a glioblastoma on the corpus colosum. Like your mother, my husband was never sick. The difference in his case was he did work for a petroleum company and ran a truck stop. A lot of bad environmental factors in his case. He didn't have a cellphone.

Through the 15 months from diagnosis until his death, he was pretty much a guinea pig, not that they tell you that. Unfortunately, the time frames involved with brain cancer patients, as in the case of my husband and your mother and the majority of cases is so short that it doesn't provide much time for study.

In the case of children and the desire to try and pin it on primarily cellphones, it just doesn't wash for me. For adults, yes, I could see a possibility given that adults are more prone to talk on cellphones, holding them up to the head. Children are primarily texters and the phone is not held next to the head and the power of the emanations from a cellphone aren't strong enough to have an affect unless held to the head.

Sadly, whenever I hear a diagnosis of brain cancer, I'm still always dismayed that after 16 years, the outcome and timeframe is still the same as it was for my husband even for those with access to the best health care money can buy.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Brooklynny — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 01:56:45 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana, I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sure it must have been as much of a living nightmare for you as it was for us. I became my mother's primary caregiver. I can tell you I was utterly unprepared to deal with what we faced, and it was the most difficult challenge I've ever experienced. It changes you. Any challenge that comes to me after this will be a walk in the park to me. My mother wanted to die at home, and we eventually had to bring in hospice at home when her needs exceeded our abilities to meet them. She passed three weeks after hospice came in. Brain cancer is a very cruel, vicious, and evil disease, and it is a guaranteed death sentence. It must be urgently researched until a cure is found. I believe it can be, just as other previously fatal cancers can now be cured. It's just a matter of time.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

jackiejenny — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 02:33:29 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
@jackiejenny wrote:
@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
The change is due to the increasing successful treatment of childhood leukemia, thus reducing deaths.

In contrast, there has been little to no increase in the understanding of brain cancer or in treating it.

While I agree with most of your post, many neurologists believe children using cell phones at such a young age, combined with constant use, may have contributed to the increasing cases of brain cancer.

They're guessing. You'll find just as many that are attributing the increase in childhood cancers to the increase in use of pesticides and chemicals.

While I am in complete agreement that the widespread use of chemicals and pesticides have contributed greatly to cancers of all kind to both children and adults, one can't dismiss cellphones as a possible cause.

I was amazed at how liberally they were spraying that certain Zika virus area in Florida with pesticides. I thought, well, now that you think you have that tamped down, how many people will have cancer now?

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Buck-i-Nana — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 13:03:45 GMT

@Brooklynny - Thank you and let me apologize for not acknowledging your loss in my previous reply.

Yes, it was the most heartbreaking experience of my life. Like you I was my husbands sole care-giver. The generous people I worked with all donated leave to me so I could stay with my husband from day 1.

I felt like we were battling a cruel vindictive intelligent demon. For every step we took to compensate for a loss of function, the joy would only last a day or two before not only did that change not work anymore, but he would take yet another step backwards. Add to that what I felt were the horrors of our medical system in that I found we could never leave him alone in the hospital, not even ICU. I came back to ICU after going home to shower to find every alarm in the room going off and nobody around....NOBODY. At that point, my children, dil and I made sure one of us was by his side every moment. The medical appliance company the insurance company required we deal with were criminally inept IMHO. When we finally gave up the fight and went with hospice our hospice nurse took one look at the hospital bed ARIA delivered to us and got right in their face and demanded they remove it and bring a specific bed that actually was large enough for my 6'4" husband. The only bright moment in the nightmare.

Physical changes and loss of function, combined with mental changes were horrifying.

I cannot wrap my mind around anyone having to deal with such horror with a child. I doubt I would have survived losing a child in such a manner.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Laura14 — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 13:07:54 GMT

I read a memoir a year or two ago by an actress who lost her little sister to brain cancer and it was just heartbreaking to read that part of the story. I can't even imagine and I just read a small bit of what life was like for them during that time.

Here's hoping St Jude and all the other organizations can start wiping out brain cancer just like they've done with most of the blood cancers.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Brooklynny — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:48 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana, thank you, but no need to apologize. It's OK. The only time my mother was hospitalized was when she first had the seizure that resulted in the diagnosis. Then I took her to the hospital every morning for six weeks for radiation treatments. She was at home for the duration. Chemo and surgery were not an option. Three months after radiation, she came down with a killer case of the shingles which debilitated her like the radiation treatments didn't. Then the behavioral and personality changes began and worsened, and her physical condition deteriorated until she died. I certainly was not trained to deal with this, and when I talked to her doctor, he would say "it's the progression of the disease." No other support or advice until I told him we couldn't take it anymore, and he began the hospice at home process. Even then, we had only four hours a day of an aide's assistance. We were in this on our own, and we did the best we could.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

Buck-i-Nana — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:39:40 GMT

@Brooklynny - Sadly, your experience I believe is still the norm. It took me years to come to terms with what I had gone through and to forgive myself for praying that God would take my husband not just for his sake but for my own.

Sorry @jackiejenny for derailing your thread.

Re: Brain Cancer Replaces Leukemia

jackiejenny — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 21:28:57 GMT

@Buck-i-Nana wrote:
@Brooklynny - Sadly, your experience I believe is still the norm. It took me years to come to terms with what I had gone through and to forgive myself for praying that God would take my husband not just for his sake but for my own.

Sorry @jackiejenny for derailing your thread.

@Buck-i-Nana...No problem what so ever.

My sincere condolences for your loss and all you went through.