{"id":591,"date":"2010-08-20T12:47:55","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T16:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henryalford.com\/?p=591"},"modified":"2010-08-20T15:38:15","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T19:38:15","slug":"cancer-the-upside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/?p=591","title":{"rendered":"Cancer: The Upside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two recent articles take a not-so-traditional look at cancer.<\/p>\n

A piece in Wednesday\u2019s New York Times <\/a>reported that according to a study published by The New England Journal of Medicine, \u201cpatients who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared \u2013 but they also lived nearly three months longer.\u201d The study showed that patients with fast-growing lung cancer who received treatment for the physical and psychological symptoms of the disease experienced \u201cless depression and happier lives as measured on scales for pain, nausea, mobility, worry, and other problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrary to the rumors that engulfed the debate over last year\u2019s health care reform – “Death Panels” looking to “pull the plug” on Granny – the study showed that proper end-of-life care could actually be more effective in extending life than typical treatment. The authors theorized that \u201cpatients whose pain is treated often sleep better, eat better, and talk more with relatives,\u201d minimizing their depression, which has been \u201cknown to shorten life.\u201d Also, those who had undergone counseling and had discussed their options at length with their doctor typically chose to forego more aggressive treatments as their condition worsened, keeping them out of hospitals, which \u201care dangerous places for very sick people; they may get fatal blood infections, pneumonia or bedsores, or simply be overwhelmed by the powerful drugs and radiation attacking their cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

And over at Salon.com<\/a>, Mary Elizabeth Williams has declared the week following her cancer diagnosis \u201cthe best week of [her] kickass life.\u201d After announcing that her doctor had discovered melanoma on her scalp, Ms. Williams received an overwhelming number of emails, phone calls, and visitors with bottles of wine in hand. Strangers wrote in with everything from their \u201cown stories of living with disease and beating the odds\u201d to recommendations for \u201calternative healers in Illinois.\u201d Her friends offered her the use of their medical marijuana cards and assured her that \u201cwig sex is hot.\u201d Though she has yet to undergo surgery, and is even unsure about how far the disease has spread, Ms. Williams writes that the love coming from the people around her has \u201ckicked lousy news in the face\u201d and given her the strength to tell cancer that it \u201cpicked the wrong crazy bitch to mess with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two recent articles take a not-so-traditional look at cancer. A piece in Wednesday\u2019s New York Times reported that according to a study published by The New England Journal of Medicine, \u201cpatients who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared \u2013 but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":595,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henryalford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}