Well This Is Interesting

I received a letter today from Group Health. Mind you, it's been eighteen months, give or take, since I've been a Group Health member, but they wanted to let me know of a drug recall. Teva Pharmaceuticals has recalled a specific lot of capecitabine that was sent to pharmacies sometime between June 6 and June 9, 2014. Group Health can't tell who got drugs out of that lot, or even if they actually did, but since I was prescribed capecitabine they wanted me to know.

Great. I know. Not that there's much that can be done about it now. It's not like aspirin or something, where you buy it just to have it on hand. If you've got capecitabine, at $100+/pill, you're taking it. Well, unless, like me, you opt out of chemo. But that was later. Any pill I was given in 2014 I took. 

So what was wrong with the pills? The particular lot in question was apparently found to be "unstable." The letter doesn't say what's wrong with unstable capecitabine, but it does assure that serious health problems are "unlikely."

Which is good. I can't afford anymore serious health problems. 

But I actually could've done without knowing the extent to which drugs tend to get recalled. Scary. Some things you just don't want to Google...

Question of the Day

Say you have stage IV cancer so you get scanned every quarter, and, in addition to the cancer tumors in your liver, your scans also show some spots on your lung, which the radiologists and oncologists all agree are "no cause for concern."

Now say you go off your cancer treatment and roughly three weeks later develop a cough. Do you a) assume that's just a summer cold (despite the lack of any other symptoms) and not worry about it, or do you b) worry that it might be time to start worrying about those spots?

Personally, as much as I'd like to go with "a," I have to admit that it's awfully hard to let go of "b." I guess we'll find out for sure which it is next week when I'm once again scanned.

Science!

Ok, I lied. I said I was done with videos, but I just found some more. Only instead of amusing songs about poo, this time I found...science. Or perhaps more accurately, talking heads talking really fast about the things scientists have learned about cancer. Now, not being a scientist, I can't really say whether any of the things said in these videos are, in fact, true, but they seemed pretty convincing to me.

Appropriately science-y. And, actually, reasonably entertaining. 

So here you go: the SciShow, talking about cancer (and, for the record, I don't care what it does to me, I'm not giving up bacon)...

Need More Proof That Everything's Relative?

The copyrights to thirty albums (give or take), untold songs released both by him and by others, and three movies (give or take); the rights to a variety of trademarks; a record label; a recording studio; and a reported "vault" full of unreleased material. All in addition to the typical rich people stuff (e.g, cars, houses, etc.). 

No (known) children, no living parents, a sister and seven half-siblings (give or take), two ex-wives, and heaven only knows how many significant others.

A society prone to the proliferation of vultures. 

And, so far at least, no identified will or other estate planning documents, though a decedent who was known to be generally on top of relevant legal matters. 

Yeah, I would not want to be the person (or, more likely, people) who winds up managing the distribution of Prince's estate. 

But reading about it all sure makes my car, retirement fund and condo full of crap seem a lot less relevant. 

Since Everything Has to Come in Threes...

...here's one last video about cancer. Moreover, it's kind of a counterargument against some of the others pointing out that, despite all the scary headlines and instructions like "test your poo," most of us don't really need to worry. 

Well, I need to worry, but most people reading this probably don't. 

But before I get to the video, having spent a fair amount of time searching YouTube for cancer videos, I'd like to first post a quick open letter...

Dear Songwriters,

While I appreciate all of your efforts -- truly, I do -- I have a few small constructive criticisms that you may want to bear in mind for your future efforts in cancer-related songwriting: 

1. Please, no more songs about angels, butterflies, phoenixes, or really anything that flies. If the patient is flying, it's fair to say the treatment didn't work -- unless, of course, they're on a jet headed for Barbados to celebrate their successful treatment, but that's a different sort of song.

2. Please also, no more plodding introductions played in a minor key, especially on piano backed by strings. Depressing the patient so much they kill themselves is not, actually, a preferable alternative to whatever they might be dealing with as a cancer patient.

3. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but as nice as hope and love may be, they're not really substitutes for treatment. Emoting is good, but let's not go overboard.

4. While songwriting is a fairly rare, and potentially valuable skill, I feel the need to remind you that ownership of a rhyming dictionary and knowledge of a few chord progressions doesn't really give you a direct line to the heavens. So let's perhaps try to avoid trying to explain why this is happening or what God wants or similar claims to knowledge you can't possibly have.

5. Finally, please don't go overboard on the remembrance. I agree that it is sad when people die. And most of us do want to be remembered. But not forever, and not obsessively. Death is the unavoidable consequence of life; you don't get the one without the other. And given that fact, it's a pretty happy coincidence that humans are pretty much programmed to move on. Embrace that programming, 'cause the inability to do so isn't romantic or caring; it's dysfunctional. Just sayin'. 

For what it's worth...

And now for my last cancer video -- at least for the time being:

It's Too Bad I'm Not Scottish

If this PSA is any indication, the Scots take their colon cancer -- or rather, bowel cancer -- screening very seriously. It makes you wonder if, had I been Scottish, might my cancer have been diagnosed earlier than it was as American. 

Perhaps.

Of course, on the flip side of that equation a) it seems that the screening was mostly focused on older people (which might have made sense at one point, but increasingly doesn't) so might not have been directed at me, and b) the steps the test required -- click the link at the end of the video below for another video showing testing procedure -- is probably the sort of thing I would've avoided if at all possible. Anything that involves "catching your poo before it hits the water" is probably not something I'm going to be rushing to the front of the line to participate in, so even if I could've been tested I very probably wouldn't have been. So maybe I wouldn't have been diagnosed any earlier.

Who knows? And really, who cares? It is what it is, and so we roll along. 

But in any case, the Scottish bowel cancer screening effort gives me an excuse to post their PSA (which I found amusing) and, once again, gives me the chance to identify yet another advantage of "socialized medicine": in a single payer system, this kind of broad uniform screening is way easier to do than in a system that requires hundreds of entities to first agree as to who's going to pay for it. (Everybody's answer: "Somebody else," and therefore it never happens.)

So now, without further ado, I give you "The Poo Song":

I Got Nothin'

There is a downside to going off chemo: it doesn't really give you much to write about on your cancer blog. Add to that the fact that I've got no trips planned and Kevin is being boring, and there's really not much to write about. 

So instead I'll post a video (well, more like an audio, with transcription):

How Did It Get To Be Friday?

Time flies when you're not paying attention. Actually, it flies regardless, but it seems particularly airborne when you're occupied elsewhere. So what's happened in the last few days? Let's see...

The queen turned ninety. Apparently a big deal, but I can't imagine why. I mean, ninety is impressive and all; and everyone should have a happy birthday; but let's not go overboard.

Prince passed away. As a sophomore in high school when Purple Rain came out, I'll admit to feeling the loss. But most of what I'm feeling at the moment is curiosity. It's been striking just how much press space has been devoted to his career, and I'm trying to figure out why. It can't be just that he was talented; lots of talented people have passed away without this kind of attention. It can't just be that he was young; plenty of younger people have died. It might be that he was transformative -- as one article I read argued, pretty much everything we hear on the radio now owes some sort of debt to Prince -- but, again, other transformative artists have passed away without this much attention. It could be the combination of the three, but I almost wonder if this doesn't have as much to do with the journalists writing as it does to Prince himself. In any case, may he rest in peace.

Former wrestler Chyna passed away. Again, can't say this impacts me much, but it was kind of an object lesson on the power of the news cycle. A word to the wise: if you're famous and want to be broadly mourned when you die, don't do it on the same day as Prince. And one more time, rest in peace.

I'm sure the clown show that is the US presidential primary season continued marching forward (in its big red shoes), but I'm trying to limit my exposure to such things -- you wouldn't think insanity is communicative, but the evidence of this election season so far suggests otherwise -- so I can't address any specifics. 

Finally, some friends threw a painting party, so I have a few more squares. I left them behind to dry, so I can't post more detailed pictures now, but I'll update the periodic table once I get them back. 


And with that, I think we're more or less caught up. 

We're #11

Nope, not one. 

Eleven. 

As in, colon cancer is the eleventh most deadly cancer when deadly is defined by the percentage of patients who will die within five years of diagnosis. 

Pancreatic is still number one (don't feel obligated to cheer). Intuitively, wouldn't you expect brain cancer to be the number one? I mean, my pancreas hasn't worked for thirty years so it's not like the organ itself is so crucial, but a brain, well, that's hard to live without. So why should cancer of the pancreas be number one and brain cancer number six? 

Go figure. 

Anyway, here's the rundown I found:

#1     Pancreatic cancer, 93%
#2     Liver cancer, 83.9%
#3     Lung cancer, 83.4%
#4     Esophageal cancer, 82.7%
#5     Stomach cancer, 72.3%
#6     Brain cancer, 66.5%
#7     Ovarian cancer, 55.8%
#8     Leukemia, 44.3%
#9     Laryngeal cancer, 39.4%
#10   Oral cancer, 37.8%
#11   Colon cancer, 35.1%
#12   Bone cancer, 33.6%
#13   Colorectal cancer, 33.5%
#14   Cervical cancer, 32.1%
#15   Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, 30.7%
#16   Kidney cancer, 28.2%
#17   Bladder cancer, 22.1%
#18   Uterine cancer, 18.5%
#19   Breast cancer, 10.8%
#20   Skin cancer, 8.7%
#21   Thyroid cancer, 2.3%
#22   Prostate cancer, 0.8%

Happy Tax Day!

By my count there are fifty-three minutes left for those on the west coast to click the submit button on their federal tax returns. I assume most people have already filed, so I thought I'd pass along this little graph I found from the CBPP that explains where the money goes. It seemed timely. And as someone who works in the field of science and medical research, may I just say, thank you for your two percent.  

Forty-seven minutes now...