Gita,

I liked your post and loved the snippet of poetry. Very appropriate. I agree with everything you say. I think Cathy also makes an excellent point in that living with cancer, whether you have active disease or not, has to be dealt with as a chronic condition. Not only because of the disease itself, but also because the treatments can be so debilitating with far-reaching after affects.

Cancer treatment must encompass the entire organism of the person not just the malignancy. With that in mind and given the plural nature of cancer, I think the entire industry needs a paradigm shift towards a "total organisim" focus. In treating the cancer, focus must be placed on what makes one person's cancer unique and construct a treatment plan from there, rather than relying on "cookie cutter" approaches which ultimately leads to an unacceptably high number of treatment failures. What works for me may not work for you because we are all unique and our cancers are unique to ourselves. Additionally, rather than using new and different poisons or radiation to the point of increasing the risks for other cancers, more emphasis needs to be placed on less invasive approaches to cancer treatment such as methods, which exist right now I might add, that enlist our own immune system to combat the cancer. And cancer research must be more tailored to support increasing and improving these types of treatments.

Cancer care must be structured to provide the patient with all options, not just the one's approved by some HMO. As an example, I had heard about amifostine and I asked for this as part of my radiation treatment plan. This drug has been proven to help preserve syliva in head and neck radiation patients. However, had I not asked for it, I would have never received or even been told about it. And I was treated at the top cancer center in the country. Mind you, I'm not running them down. I think they are doing a great job within the current framework of the industry.

I think part of the problem is the medical community and the oncologic community in particular is chronically under staffed. I think another part of the problem is how cancer research money is distributed, but I'll save that for another rant after I researched it further.

Thanks, Gita, for keeping this thread moving. I think it definately warrents further discussion....maybe from some of the "long ball hitters" on the forum.

-Brett