[Leica] health

[j2m46 at hotmail.fr (Jean-Michel Mertz)]

All the best to you, Herb! The 100 arrival line is close!
JM

Jean-Michel Mertz
Strasbourg


> From: kanner at acm.org
> Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:04:07 -0800
> To: lug at leica-users.org
> Subject: [Leica] health
> 
> Since everyone regards LUG as family and reports their health issues, I?ll 
> throw mine in. This won?t be real short, because the details are 
> interesting.
> 
> In 2001, my PSA jumped and I had the uncomfortable needle biopsy via 
> ass-hole. Of nine needles, one picked up a couple of millimeters of malign 
> cells which were pronounced to be aggressive. I then had many sessions of 
> what is misnamed ?Intensity modulated radiation therapy?. Actually what 
> happens is the source of the radiation rotates in a vertical plane around 
> the patient and during the rotation, the shape of the beam is modulated by 
> a diaphragm of tungsten fingers so as to always concentrate the radiation 
> on the desired site. One time, I was really scared because the treatment 
> was delated due to a computer crash, and when I asked what the computer 
> program was housed in, they said Windows 2000.
> 
> Every year since, my PSA was checked and my prostate poked by the 
> radiation oncologist.
> 
> A couple of months ago, I felt a sore muscle in my left thigh; I just 
> thought it was a pulled muscle, and Naproxen relieved it. But just one 
> day, it was so sever that I was limping, so I thought it would be a good 
> idea to go to my primary care quack and check it out. When she pulled my 
> leg outward, I yelled ?ouch? and she ordered a hip X-ray to be done on my 
> way out.
> 
> By the time I got home, there was a frightful message on my answering 
> machine. I was to go asap to the Stanford Hospital site in a neighboring 
> city (Redwood City) where an appointment had been set up for a CAT scan. 
> Then I was to drive straight to the Main Hospital at Stanford (Palo Alto) 
> and see the same radiation oncologist. Also they were setting up an 
> appointment, probably for the next day, for a radioactive bone scan.
> 
> The radiation oncologist showed me the X-rays and Cat scans on his 
> computer screen. First there was a large lesion on my left femur. Then 
> there was a bunch of little dots in my lungs that were not there two years 
> ago. I said I was appalled. He said he was appalled. He then opined that 
> my hip was about to break, that he checked that an orthopedic surgeon was 
> available on or immediately after the weekend, and that the quickest way 
> to get admitted to the hospital was via the emergency room. He had his 
> resident wheel me there.
> 
> Well, on the way in, the rent-a-cop confiscated my Swiss army knife, and 
> when it was apparent with a packed ER that I?d be there for a while, I got 
> around to phoning my wife. They were so packed that I had to wait until 
> there was a free bed.
> 
> After the routine things, mainly a blood draw, an orthopedic guy showed 
> up. He said that there was no danger of a fracture, that I should go home 
> and have a normal weekend, and that an appointment had been made to see an 
> orthopedic surgeon on the following Tuesday. I guess it was probably 
> thirty years since the radiation oncologist had learned to interpret that 
> sort of X-ray.
> 
> On that day, my wife went along for moral support. Interestingly enough, 
> all three of us in the room had something in common: doctorates from the 
> University of Chicago, mine in physics, Lee?s in biochemistry, and the 
> surgeon whatever real doctors get. The latter spent most of the forty-five 
> minutes teaching me how to read the X-ray, primarily why it showed that 
> there was no current risk of a fracture. When I inquired about either 
> surgical support of the bone or just drilling to get a sample for a 
> biopsy, he said that the risks outweighed the benefits. He said it was 
> probably metastatic prostate cancer, slow-growing, and tending to deposit 
> bone. Next appointment in a month with immediately preceding X-ray to 
> assess fracture risk.
> 
> I finally got to see a medical oncologist. She indicated that this kind of 
> cancer without PSA rising is very rare, but does happen. She felt that we 
> had to know what we were dealing with, and if the surgeon reported that 
> there was no way to get a sample with a needle, she was going to make the 
> assumption that those dots on my lungs were not an infection residue but 
> were the same tumor, and one of them was very accessible to a cat scan 
> guided needle.
> 
> I?m waiting for that and will keep you posted. I?ll be 93 in June. I doubt 
> that I?ll make 100.
> 
> Herb
> 
> 
> 
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
> 
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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