Was It Just Me That Heard That?

Tonight, I saw a commercial on TV for a cancer treatment center that I will not name here. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable of what they speak. I wonder how much of what they present in their commercial is lost on the general public. I would suspect that due to the saturation of their commercials, should someone be diagnosed with a form of cancer, if that particular facility is not available in their area, they may consider that facility for a second opinion.

However, one part of their commercial jumped out at me, causing me to follow up. They mention that on their website, you can find survival rates for various cancers. I checked it out. Some are listed on their website (and that part of their website is not necessarily easy to find) and a large amount of them are not. Mine was not. I did peruse the stomach cancer link and noted that the statistics are only of their patients and the time period is from 2000-2005.

That doesn't work for me. That is a period of 7-12 years ago. Too much has happened in cancer research since then.

I recently spoke to someone who was about to begin chemotherapy and radiation treatments for throat cancer. I advised him to 1) stay off the internet except for sites recommended by his doctor; 2) do not read published material that has a copyright date of more than 2-3 years in the past as things are changing that quickly; 3) do not concern yourself about how someone else reacted to treatments that may be similar to yours as the treatment process may not be personalized to the individual, but since there are enough variables in physical makeup between each patient, "portion sizes" and reactions will vary by patient.

I was once annoyed (and still am) by what cancer does to the individual. But what troubles me even more these days is what individuals, who listen to erroneous information, allow cancer to do themselves.

"We're just knocked out. 
We heard about the sell out. 
You gotta get an album out. 
You owe it to the people. 
We're so happy we can hardly count. 
Everybody else is just green, 
Have you seen the chart? 
It's a helluva start, 
It could be made into a monster 
If we all pull together as a team. 
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy, 
We call it 'riding the gravy train' " - Roger Waters