O/T: Our health & lives

[DeSelle]

We would all buy the book

 

[ratbldr427]

Joe ,sounds like you caught it in time and are in good hands. Catching these things early is so important especially as you get older.Best wishes for a speedy recovery and don't let the depression monster get you, BTDT. Sounds like you are an active guy mentally and phisicaly and that is half the battle.

My younger brother had a small sore on his chest about 20yrs ago.He went to two local doctors(to him) and both said for him to watch it and see if it changed then check back.Turned out it was a melanoma. Not satisfied he went to the VA hospital and a young Dr looked at it and told him they would have to operate on it. He asked if they could do it within a couple of weeks. He said "no we will do it tomorrow! If you come back in a few weeks I may not be able to help you".They operated and removed some lymph nodes and he has been healthy since. He was a helicopter mechanic in Viet Nam ,68, and told me that he had worked on the agent orange sprayers and they didn't really pay attention to being very careful handling it.Maybe caused it maybe not.

My older brother was just diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer a month ago. He has never smoked or used any tobacco products. A few years ago he had cancer in his lower jaw which they treated with radiation and apparently cured it. My sister told me he was on chemo therapy. So I went to see him last friday and at lunch asked if the chemo messed up his eating. He said no he wasn't on that any more instead he was on proton therapy and he thinks that it will cure him. I sure hope so.

 

[surplusjohn]

Joe. Great letter, as always. You may know that my daughter passed from a glioblastoma type four. It was very fast. Then when we were at her memorial in LA, i had a intestinal blockage that almost killed me., I am fine now. In both cases my daughter and myself had good insurance, good records, savings, support. Neither of us had to worry about paying our Bill's or ending up in the street or going home alone. Tragically Alot of people don't have that support and resources.I feel that being organized made it easier on my daughter and allowed her to have the very best care. [Ronald Reagan at UCLA] even though it was hopeless.
In December when Lauren was having surgery at UCLA, i was walking to the hospital very early in the morning and i came across a middle aged woman sitting on a wall looking like a wreck. She asked for money and explained that she had been released from the hospital the day before and didnt know what to do and had beed sitting there all night long. I know there must be resources for.people like her but she didnt seem able to figure this out. I gave her a few bucks. I know alot of people who are OK because someone is looking out for them but if not for that support would be in the same place th IB s woman was.

 

[Joe Michaels]

Surplus John:

My hearfelt condolences to you on the loss of your daughter. I cannot imagine what you and your family have had to experience and live with.

Many of us are fortunate to have good insurance, but a large segment of our population does not. I am surprised that the UCLA hospital did not have a social worker meet with the woman you encountered to setup some kind of post-release program for her. I am also surprised that hospital security of law enforcement did not act to investigate why that woman was sitting outside the hospital all night. On the other hand, if the woman were mentally ill, cycling thru ER's, maybe being admitted for a short stay on the psych floor and then discharged to the streets is the norm. A lot of the homeless people living on the streets are mentally ill. Due to budget cuts and a resulting lack of services for them, they wind up rotating thru a cycle of ER visits, and wind up back on the streets with nowhere to go and no idea or ability to solve the situation.

You were lucky to be in a place where your intestinal blockage could be addressed properly and expeditiously. When we are young, I know I (and probably the greater number of people) do not think of things like health crisis happening to them. I look back on my time working overseas and realize that had an accident or serious illness befallen me there, I would likely not be here today.

I get my CT scans every 6 months, and take my 'targeted immune cell therapy' pill each morning. The surgery removed about 95% of the cancer, but left cancerous lesions on my liver. These were deemed to risky to go after, at least during the surgery to remove the major tumor and anything it touched. The immune cell therapy pill is holding the lesions 'inactive', and I am 'stable'. I am at full activity levels and then some. I also give thanks each day for what may be either an extension to my life or a new life. I know that had this cancer occurred 20 years ago or so, I would not be here. I see two oncologists. One is at Sloan Kettering, the other is a local oncologist. The local oncologist told us that he is at retirement age, but 'oncology is getting exciting'. As he told us, for the major part of his career, oncology was grim and boring. In the past few years, a wave of advances in diagnosis and treatment of cancers has made oncology exciting. Unfortunately, there are some cancers for which effective treatment regimens have yet to be developed.

I consider each moment of my life as a blessing, try to weigh my words and actions, and rely on a strong faith in God. As I have come to believe, God has a plan for each of us. It is easy to accept God's plan when it goes our way. It is a test of faith and requires strength and courage to accept God's plan when it does not go our way and seems cold and cruel. I wish I could offer more than words to you given your loss.

Joe Michaels

 

[surplusjohn]

Thank you Joe

 

[surplusjohn]

Joe, I was just re reading this thread. In regards to current treatments. I recall as ap kid hearing of a relatives " with the cancer" and a few months later going to a funeral. In 5th grade a fellow student dissapeared and a few months later is was rumored that she had died. Apparently from leukemia, but it was all very hushed up.
Like heart attacks, strokes and car accidents, it just seems like something that happened and that was that.
Over the past few years I have known a few guys who had serious strokes and are back at work in a couple of weeks! Several guys with serious lymphomas that went "full bubble boy" and are considered cured, and who knows how many breast. Prostrate cancers "cured". Unfortunately my daughter wasnt in any of those spaces. After her surgery when the surgeon told us he removed a tumor the size of 3 golf balls from her pre frontal lobe and it was a glioblastoma type 4. [Aka gbm] we knew it was a runaway freight train. 30 days later, 30% had grown back. Exactly 60 days after her surgery swelling caused by radiation treatments caused a massive stroke. So she was spared months of agony. We knew there was no hope, looking back, I dont think I would of encouraged her to get treatments, but it was hard to imagine not doing so at that time.
She was a beautiful, talented , brilliant and accomplished person, who lived life to the fullest. Hundreds of friends came to her memorial.

 

[SIP6A]

Even given all the problems in the world today if you have health issues these are wonderful times we live in.

 

[Joe Michaels]

Over this past weekend, a member of our congregation came to my shop. He is making a slabwood table from live-edge hardwood slabs, and wanted a means of joining the slab/legs to the slab/top. He had an idea about using short pieces of steel angle with slots milled in them, so I invited him to come to our home/shop. This fellow is a graduate of Harvard Medical School, in his early 60's. He always talked in a very low and hoarse voice, so we had figured something was amiss with his vocal cords. I really did not know this fellow too well, but wanted to help him out. Down in my shop, we got underway with the job. As things progressed, this fellow remarked to me that he and I were members of "the same club". I asked if he meant "the cancer club". The doctor replied: "not exactly.... it's the rare cancer club..." He then proceeded to tell me about his own cancer. At age 32, while in a residency in Chicago, he was diagnosed with a cancer of the salivary gland(s). He said about 5 or 6 new cases of this cancer are diagnosed in the WORLD each year. The result was he had his vocal cords, lymph nodes and plenty more removed. He then underwent radiation treatments and remained cancer free for another 30+ years. In the past few years, he felt an unusual pain in some of his abdominal muscles. Turned out the cancer was back, situated in some of his '6 pack muscles'. Another surgery and rounds of radiation followed. He said getting used to working and moving around with those muscles gone took some doing. I told him I had what was considered a rare cancer (G I S T, or gastrointestinal stromal tumor), with 5000 to 6000 new cases being diagnosed in the USA each year. I also told him he had me beat as far as having a very rare cancer. I then asked this doctor what it was like to go from being a doctor to being a patient. He said it was quite an experience and gave him a perspective many doctors never see, and it had helped him in dealing with patients (his specialty is infectious diseases). We both agreed we were fortunate to be living in the USA and fortunate to be living in this day and age with medical advances. I told the doctor I consider each moment a blessing, and he said he had the same belief. Life has changed for my family and me. We go 'scan to scan', with a CT scan done every 6 months. It is a different way of living, and can make a person realize how precious and limited our time is, and to use what time we have wisely and to good purposes.

A few weeks back, I was at Hanford Mills as we were going to run the steam plant. It was the first time in the few years that the Pandemic had come on the scene. I got to the steam plant, and a man I knew from the Hanford Mills 'Steam Team" was there. I had not seen him in maybe 3 years. He greeted me with that same greeting: "We are members of the same club". I asked the same question: "Do you mean the cancer club ?". The fellow said yes, and it turned out he had a cancer of the pancreas. He was fortunate in that his primary care doctor saw something in blood work or other examinations that sent this fellow for tests in a hospital. It was an early detection, about the time my own cancer was diagnosed. He underwent a 'modified Whipple procedure" to remove the cancerous portion of the pancrease, followed by chemo. Like me, this fellow goes for 6 month scans and is about 2 1/2 years out from his surgery. We both remarked that usually, cancer of the pancreas moves fast, is only diagnosed when it is too late, and is fatal in a relatively short time. This fellow said he had some great doctors, and like me, also has a doctor of integrative medicine on his team. We get things like mushroom supplements, green tea, and foods with lots of turmeric prescribed by the integrative medicine doctors. This fellow and I took crankshaft strain gauge readings on the steam engine, checked and adjusted main bearing clearances, and had a great time working and just being back to what we love doing. There is no rhyme nor reason to how cancers occur. This fellow's father was a pipefitter welder in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WWII, exposed to asbestos and plenty other hazardous substances. As the owner of a fab shop, he ate plenty of weld smoke, grinding dust, read lead paint and more. The father lived to be 98 and died of something unrelated to any hazmat or workplace exposure. This fellow had also been a fab shop operator, done plenty of welding and all that goes with it, so figured it was not surprising he'd developed cancer. The doctor who was in my shop said he could not figure any specific cause (such as exposure to hazmat or the like) as the cause of his cancer.

As we all agree, life and the chances of developing cancer are a crapshoot. People who break every rule as far as personal habits and exposures to toxic environments live long lives, and people who 'eat healthy', exercise and 'do all the right things'- like this doctor- wind up with cancer. Fortunately, we are living in the USA in 2023, and that is a huge blessing.

 

[TowersMetalworks]

Thank you Joe, That was really well written.

I had a bout with an auto immune disease that only 1 or so people get in the US every few years or so, that almost took me out , but made it through,so far without any lasting issues. Thank you for your story

 

[jim rozen]

As an aside - if one reads up on the 'whipple procedure' the main effect is to make your hair stand on end. An aquintance recently went though this.

 

[SMFKT205SA]

Joe,
Go ahead and write that book with all those stories of your work with all the photos you can cram in. I have always looked for your posts and found them to be very interesting. Keep making progress with your health. We need you here.

 

[tvalen1432]

For being such an old post I'm not sure why it popped up for me to read but it surely hit home. My father, whom some of you may actually have known, Dwight Carter in California, (a tool and die salesman for 30+ years and machinist from way back) recently passed from Gallbladder Cancer.(He worked at anywhere from Valenite 40 yrs ago, to D&D tool, Sanvik, and a few more). He was 79 years old and still had not retired. A walking book of tool knowledge and application. He attended a daily email of jokes to a list of hundreds of customers/friends religiously in hopes it might make someone smile or laugh that day. 6 months prior to him passing you would have never known he had cancer growing in his body until the day he was to get his gallbladder removed and they saw it in surgery. Stage 5 advanced. He continued to work from home up until 2 weeks before he passed. At times he was in the hospital with one complication or another and I would catch him on his phone with a customer or had fallen asleep texting a customer phone still in hand. LMAO.
He too had everything in order such as the house in a trust for special needs as my brother is Epileptic. He also left a lot of catalogs and tools of which I eventually will let go of the tools once I get a log of what there is. Life is too short! He was this work-aholic machine I would tell him and should have took the time to enjoy life more. Blessed to of had him as a father and role mottle.
Thank You for sharing your story with us! Glad to hear God saw it fit to bless you with more time with your loved ones and share your story with us!
God Bless,
TValen1432

 

[SouthBendModel34]

I, too, just found this thread.
Somehow, the "LIKE" button just can't express how glad I am to hear of Joe's journey, and how glad I am to see the outpouring of warmth by so many people I respect.

John Ruth