Raising Awareness of Colo-Rectal Cancers
Tom Evslin, one of my favorite bloggers, has son-in-law that is working on a technology that uses ultrasound as an alternative to surgery. The ultrasound waves are aimed at cells and heat up cancer cells and they die.
You can read more about it here.
By now, everyone in the Internet space has read Brad G’s Peanut Butter Manifesto at least once. It is a great read, here’s mine.
I’m sick of peanut butter. I’m sick of Peter Pan and I’m sick of hearing how a couple of hundred people got sick from eating it. It sucks, but with the coverage that it is getting, you’d think that the Black Death was upon us. This year alone, roughly 60,000 Americans will die from colorectal cancer. For those keeping score, that comes out to about 165 people a day. I realize it isn’t throwing up a bit over some bad Peter Pan, but it’s pretty bad.
In an effort to get Americans to change their behaviors, I propose that the New York Times put health facts in the top corner of every issue.
# of Americans to die this year from heart disease: 1,200 people per day
# of Americans to die from cancer: 1,300 per day
# of Americans to die in a car accident: 115 per day
# of Americans to die due to bird flu: probably not a whole lot
# of Americans to die due to bad peanut butter: probably fewer still
Of course, no one wants to be reminded of their mortality and stopping at McDonalds and grabbing a Big Mac and fries is easier than stopping at Whole Foods and grabbing a sandwhich, but at some point, society (all of us), needs a wake up call.
Is some of this spoiled grapes? Yes, of course. I want my wife’s disease to get all of the attention. Another part of it is that I want the media to be more responsible for what they are putting out there. The media in this country has a tendency to peddle fear for profit. They always have because it sells, but at some point, there needs to be a responsibility checks and balances put into place.
If you were reminded every couple of days more risks, how would you change your life?
The intention of this site is to raise awareness of colorectal cancer and how it impacts people, not to create a political discussion. However, my mom works for Sen. Ron Wyden (D - OR) and I got the letter from my insurance company outlining all of the things that have been covered and the costs associated with those things had we not been insured. I bring up Sen. Wyden because he is working on passing the Healthy Americans Act, a proposal that will provide all Americans with quality health insurance at an affordable price. Without health insurance, cancer is more of a death sentence than it already is.
Our first bill for the first half of radiation treatments alone cost more than the 3/4 of the BMW line of cars. Adding the second half on to it, will exceed anything that they produce except F1 cars. Vegas should start an over / under line on our total cost. We have one in the family right now, winner gets golf or spas.
I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had insurance for all of my life. Unfortunately, 45.8 million people in the US don’t have any health insurance at all. If you don’t have insurance and are diagnosed with cancer, you are in deep shit. There isn’t another way to say it. It is a Sisyphean effort for you too. Without insurance, you aren’t going to go to the doctor for regular check ups. Without insurance, you are going to put off that lump, that cough, that headache, that blurry vision or your fatigue until you just can’t deal any longer. Then you will go to some doc in the box who may misdiagnose you because she is too busy with other patients that also don’t have health insurance. At which point, it may be too late to do anything anyway.
And what if you catch it early? Chemo, radiation & surgery bills add up quicker than a bar tab on quarter night.
Studies say that there is a 7% risk of getting colon cancer in your lifetime. If 7% of the 45.8 million Americans currently without health insurance have colon cancer and don’t know it due to all of the reasons stated above, there is a good chance that this disease will kill over 3 million people. 1% of the US population. 0.5% of the population is diagnosed annually with cancer. That is 225,000 people with no insurance who know that they have cancer, but can’t afford to be treated adequately.
This is a shame, this is sad and this can be prevented. We all point to Canada or France as bastions of socialized health care. Why can’t we build out a similar system here in the US?
[Ed. - I received the following message from my mom shortly after posting this:’…be sure not to equate RW’s plan with socialized medicine. In his plan, instead of employers paying for insurance, they give the money to the employee who then selects a plan best for him. RW’s plan doesn’t have govt running hospitals, doctors’ offices etc. as does socialized medicine.’ Again, be sure to read about this at his site linked above and below. ]
Read a high level overview of the HAA here (.pdf)