November 29th Chemo; The Blood Count and Thoughts About Cancer Research

Scott was not going to be around tomorrow, so he moved my treatment up one day. Today was my seventh chemo (and hopefully last) treatment. I left the house at the usual time...8:35, had radiation at 8:50 and went to chemo by 9:15. I got home at 3:30 PM and took a two hour nap. I feel fine. I am starting to wonder if they put any drugs in those bags! Actually, I got pretty sleepy from the benedryl and slept for a large part of the time. The treatment room was busy and I could not get my usual chair in the sun, so I sat in a chair near the nurses. The room was freezing and, even covered in a blanket, I was cold. Those nurses are wonderful. I can't imagine doing what they do all day everyday...but I must say they are very professional and competent and treat you like you were the first patient they ever had.

Not being able to find a chair made me think of all the people being treated for cancer. You have to wonder where the incentive is to find a cure. This is very big business. I never really realized just how big a business cancer is -- I might have intellectually known it was big, but I never really saw it on a day to day basis as I am now. The sheer number of cases out there is amazing. The incentive to find a cure I suppose is the dollars that will be saved in the health care system. We need a cure rather than a treatment.

In the meantime, Scott and Dave have a business model that just won't quit. They don't have to go out and do seminars and scratch and claw to find new business like I do; it comes waltzing in the front door every day. Their waiting room is bigger than the Morgan Stanley office in Punta Gorda! (I should ask both those guys to put their money where there mouth is and let me manage their retirement programs!)

Anyway, I was thinking about all this and, after watching the ridiculous Republican presidential debates last night, it occurred to me that our national priorities are really screwed up. According to the National Cancer Institute, estimated federal funding for cancer research by type of cancer in 2007 was as follows:

• Breast Cancer: $560 million
• Colo rectal Cancer: $253 million
• Lung Cancer: $260 million
• Prostate Cancer: $309 million

These were estimated numbers in 2006. I think the actual numbers this year are somewhat higher, but the point is how much is being spent per cancer type and that ratio has not changed.

The National Institute of Health has a $28 billion budget. Over $2.3 billion is going to AIDs research; all cancer together is about 4.3 billion. Lung cancer kills more people than all other cancers combined, yet has the lowest funding. Try these statistics on for size: The 5 year survival rate for breast cancer it is 88%; for prostate cancer it is about 98%; for colo rectal cancer it is about 63%; for lung cancer it is 15%. The incidence of cancer for lung and breast cancer per 100k population in the US is about the same: 64/100k for lung and 69/100k for breast cancer. If you do the math, and assume a US population approaching 300 million, that would mean there are about 192,000 cases of lung cancer and 207,000 cases of breast cancer that will be diagnosed this year. Of the breast cancer cases, 12% or 24,000 cases a year will succumb to the disease within 5 years. For lung cancer, the number of deaths within 5 years will be 163,000. Good God Why don't we put more money into fighting lung cancer, which is going to affect and KILL more people? If you want to see where I got these numbers, vit this web site: http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2004/results_merged/topic_survival.pdf

It is well documented that lung cancer is not getting the research dollars needed. Should we stop or reduce the funding for breast cancer or prostate cancer research? No. Should we spend LOTS more on lung cancer? You betcha. With these kinds of numbers, you would think that the government would get serious.

Now, you want to hear the kicker that adds insult to injury? The Federal government collects nearly $8 billion a year ($39 cents a pack) on cigarette sales...hmmm. Seems like my tax dollars have gone to something other than helping me quit smoking or cancer research. I think smokers and former smokers need to demand that the sin tax be used to help find a cure for lung cancer. What do you think? I would spend most of those dollars first to find ways of safely detecting lung cancer early -- perhaps finding a genetic marker or blood marker (like the PSA for prostate)? The statistics for 5 year survival would surely improve dramatically.

I read something really interesting. Because cancer grows geometrically, you can think of it like an algae that doubles in size. Eventually the cancer takes over the organ it has invaded, so the earlier you catch it the better off you are. The article was saying that if the algae was on a lake, and the algae grew to cover the lake in 30 days, how long before the lake was covered would you want to detect the cancer? Half way? That is on day 29. One quarter of the lake is covered? That would be day 28. Most people only find the cancer (allegorically) 3 or 4 days before the lake is covered.

One million cancer cells are smaller than the head of a pin. One billion cancer cells are the size of a pea and weigh about the same as a paper clip. To illustrate: 1 ...= The inception of cancer - one malignant cell growing ........uncontrollably. One to the 1st power is 1 X 10 =10; 10 to the second power is 10 X 10 = 100; 10 to the third power is 10 X 10 X 10 = 1000; 10 to the 4th power is 1o X 10 X 10 X 10 = 10,000 etc. 10 to the 9th power is the size that cancer can normally be detected by X-ray, scan, mammogram or feel. 10 to the 13th power is the stage at which the patient is generally dead. That is why early detection and prompt treatment are at the heart of treating the disease successfully. Early detection is what mainly accounts for the differences in survival rates between the various cancers out there.

What is OBVIOUSLY needed is a better way of detecting lung cancer. X-Ray is simply too crude and NOT good enough. I had an X-ray 2 years ago and nothing was detected. Had I had another X-ray in 2006 we might have found the tumor earlier. I was given an order to get an X-Ray in 2006, but I got busy and never did it! Maybe I would have caught the tumor a year ago...or maybe not given how quickly they grow. Yoko's mother had lung cancer but she survived 15 years because she had a surgery where they removed a section of her lung. They caught the cancer at an early stage and she lived until she was 77 years old. Stanford University is working on a project that would be very useful. The image on this blog was taken from that research at: http://biomath.stanford.edu/lung_adeno_ca2.html Check it out. This is not a hopeless problem.

Anyway, sitting there in the chemo treatment room, filled to the brim with cancer patients, I started thinking about what we need to do. We need some national leadership on this. Write to your congressman and senator and presidential candidate. Send them this blog.

Then what we should do is get Peter Jennings as a national spokesman for lung cancer...but, oh damn, he's not available....

My brother Frank wants to send my blog to the oncologists he knows in Boston; be my guest. Dr Ben Li, my cousin's husband who is an oncologist can share this with people if he thinks it would be worthwhile. I don't really care who sees this or I would have made it a members only. I want people (especially family and friends) to benefit and learn from my experience. We need to increase lung cancer awareness.

And now for the blood count: I am still looking good and this is a positive result because I am expecting my blood count to normalize once I am off chemo (starting from today). My weight today was 147...but I did not wear any sweatshirts (as I should have), which accounts for at least one pound...maybe two. I probably lost a little weight because of the slight difficulty I am having eating. I definitely did not eat as much this week.

Have a good evening. Yoko is calling me to bed!

PS... I ran the blogger spell check program for phlegm (flem)... and the only suggestion was that it should be CAPITALIZED. Now there's a hint!

Result Value (Previous) Normal Range

• WBC 4.1 (3.9) 4.2 - 10.0
• ANC 3.4 (3.1) 1.4 - 6.5
• Gran% 82.7 high 39 - 78
• HCT 36.3 (36.5) Low 41 - 51
• Hgb 12.1 (12.1) Low 14 -18
• Lymph # 0.5 (0.5) Low 1.2 - 3.4
• Lymph% 12.6 (14.4) Low 15 - 40
• MCH 28.2 (28.4) 27 - 34
• MCV 84.7 (84.8) 80 - 94
• MCHC 33.3 (33.3) 32 - 36
• Mono# 0.2 (0.2) 0.0 - 0.6
• Mono% 4.7 (5.4) 0.0- 10
• Plat 259 (241) (407) 140- 440
• RBC 4.29 (4.3) Low 4.5 - 6.4
• RDW 17.2 (16.9) High 11.5 - 15.0