CANCER TRENDS? SOME GOOD NEWS AND BAD FOR BOOMERS

Cancer trends for boomers? Doctor, please. Like we need to know more about disease trends.

The coronavirus pandemic and quarantine aren’t enough?

The ‘Big C’ vs ‘little c?’ It all depends on exposure.

The Associated Press gives a reminder on sex-related cancers.

It is what it is, and it’s not good.

What’s driving the HPV cancer trends is the youthful sexual behavior of baby boomers before the vaccine was out. The vaccine works best when given at younger ages before people are exposed to HPV through sexual activity, so it arrived too late for the boomers.

Youthful sexual behavior? Of baby boomers? I took this quote from further down the article. It sounds slightly precious, but they got down to the problems earlier with this block:

Oral sex is helping fuel more cases of mouth and throat cancers in men. For older women, anal cancer and a rare type of rectal cancer caused by HPV may be more common than cervical cancers by 2025.

There it is, the culprit, the conduit, the language, the cancer trends. Oral sex is the source of the HPV cancer problem in men. I’ll let a lady blogger address older lady cancer. I know my limits.

Is sex cancer a big deal? I’d say yes after getting radiated and chemoed halfway to hell to kill the business that took up residence in my neck.

Results were released Wednesday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology ahead of presentation at its annual meeting next month.

I’ve Got Your Cancer Trends Right Here

This is a letter I didn’t write to myself, so I’ll write it to you and someone you know.

Dear Buddy With A Neck Lump,

Did you notice something different one morning during a shave, brushing your teeth, or just admiring your own manly self in a mirror?

Muscle growth? On one side of your neck? Like a crustacean with one big claw and one little claw? The good news it you see it, the bad news is doing something with it.

Are you a DIY guy? A Do It Yourself-er? That’s good in general, not good with this specific thing.

A lump may go away, may clear, on its own. The experts agree:

HPV, or human papillomavirus, is the nation’s most common sexually spread infection. Most HPV infections cause no symptoms and go away without treatment.

If it persists, get help. The first source of help could be online advice from quacks with an agenda. It may work, but may not.

If nothing changes over the time you spend on alternative cancer treatment, it’s still time on the cancer clock.

That clock never stops

And you can’t go back.

“Sexual trends began changing and liberalizing in the late ’60s, and continued into the ’70s and ’80s, until the HIV epidemic” caused people to be more cautious, said Dr. Ernest Hawk, cancer prevention specialist at MD Anderson, who was not involved in the study. 

“People had many more partners and many more types of interactions,” Hawk said.

Go ahead and explain to anyone who asks how you think that lump showed up.

Holding hands? Dancing? Talking? No. No. And no.

Seeing a movie? Going to dinner? Traveling? No. No. And one more time, no.

Being giving? Sharing? Being fair? Probably.

Now that we’ve got that part of cancer trends out of the way, back to the fixing part.

You know that cancer is a killer waiting for its chance to rise up and kick ass.

Once the cancer rot starts, your weight drops. If you skip cancer treatment for too long, and weight loss has began, it could be a long haul to recovery.

Chemo and radiation are hard to absorb in the best of health. Get on that train late and it’ll be gone because cancer won’t wait and you won’t be a viable candidate.

I’ll say it another way: submitting to cancer treatment isn’t the same a protesting Big Pharma.

Cancer doesn’t care about anything except growth and spread. In your body. It doesn’t belong there.

Drive it out using best practices

In closing, my friends, I’ll simply say that if you find a lump in your neck that wasn’t there yesterday could be a big problem today.

And tomorrow.

Meet your ENT, get that ultrasound, tissue sample surgery, fine needle work, and settle in for the long haul. You may beat cancer. That’s the goal.

But, at the same time your results may vary. They call it practice in medicine, and sometimes practice doesn’t go as scheduled.

Get a second opinion after the first. Compare results, then pick what’s best.

You can do this. It won’t be easy, but lock it down. Be a good listener, ask good questions, and support the effort.

Most of all, and this is key, get used to the idea of showing up for everything on time. Stay on schedule.

You’ll meet people you’ll never see again, feel things you’ll never felt, see things you never wanted to see.

And you’ll feel love, real love. Is that worth sticking around for? Yes. Yes, it is.

Be safe and be smart.

(Sending thanks to my research colleague S.C. for the update.)