Advances

Working in the technology industry definitely skews your vision. I'm used to computers improving on what seems like a daily basis, and naturally assumed medicine was experiencing similar advances. When a great deal of your life revolves around technology, it's easy to draw erroneous conclusions.

In reading about Lance Armstrong's cancer treatment, I had this notion that since he was treated with cancer in 1994, that eleven years worth of advances would have made today's treatment much more effective. Hah. If you were stricken with testicular cancer, you'd most likely be given the exact same treatment Lance underwent.

Then, when I was looking up side effects of my main chemo drug 5FU, I read that it was over 40 years old. That means the year I was born, some medical researcher was concocting the brew pumped daily into my veins. Hard to imagine that something better couldn't have been developed in those four decades.

The real advances have been in detection and in drugs that help you cope with chemo (and radiation) side effects. Chemo isn't the cure for most cancers, surgery is. Chemo helps increase the success rate of the surgical procedures, but can't currently cure cancer.

I remember growing up thinking that we'd all have flying cars by now, colonies on Mars, and cures for all our ills. That seems so long ago...

love,

Cj