God's Not Listening, Folks

These past two months have been difficult for our family.  My brother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver Cancer and given 6 months to live.  My husband's nephew died suddenly from a massive seizure.  Two days later, we got a phone call from my husband's niece who said that her younger brother had just died from a heart attack.  He was only 49 years old.  Then a family friend died from colon cancer - she was 39.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that my husband was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and just completed six months of chemo.

Throughout all of this, everyone kept saying, "We're praying for you."  On Facebook, requests were made for everyone to "say a prayer for fill-in-the-blank."  Even after a death, people are still praying.  Doesn't anyone ever realize that if there is a God, he's not listening to all those prayers?

The most fervent Catholic members of the family plead for prayers every time their daughter, who has cystic fibrosis, is in the hospital.  They ask us to pray for her lung function to improve, when all her life they have known that it is the doctors, nurses, and medical technology that bring her lung function back to normal.  Do they ever, ever, post something that says thanks to the medical team?  No, they thank all those who prayed.

As for me, I try to stay open to new knowledge.  I talk to others about their experiences.  I read about new approaches in genetic treatments, since I have come to understand that your DNA has more to do with your health than your reputation with God.  Recently, I did some research on cannabis oil as a treatment for cancer.  Perhaps God directed me to google "cannabis and cancer."  

I wish someone could tell me what their feelings are when all their friends and family members are praying their asses off for a person and that person still dies.  Do they think God didn't pay any attention?  Or did God decide that He/She needed that person in heaven to do some tasks that only they could do?  

Follow Up on Do You Really Need a Mammogram

By MARIE MYUNG-OK LEEFEB. 14, 2014

I HAVE never had a mammogram. I’m almost 50 — nearly a decade into the age when the screening is recommended by the American Cancer Society. I’m college educated, adequately insured. And I am the bane of my health care providers. Once, my midwife went so far as to request that I never speak of my decision in any space where other patients might hear.

This week, I was vindicated. On Tuesday, a Canadian study, one of the largest ever done on mammograms, was published in the British Medical Journal. The study found that mammograms did not reduce breast cancerdeaths in women around my age compared to physical exams, and that one in five women screened was overdiagnosed, possibly leading to unnecessary surgery or radiation.

It seems astonishing, but it reinforced what smaller studies had told me, as someone with no family history of breast cancer: that getting a mammogram was unlikely to affect my chances of dying from the disease. What it would do is increase the probability of my mistakenly becoming a breast-cancer patient.

When I was in my late 30s, my midwife suggested I get a baseline mammogram, followed by annual screenings. I was ready to do it. I assumed my research into it would be mere due diligence.

This kind of research was a new habit of mine, born of necessity. When our son was 18 months old, he developed a devastating tumor on his spinal cord. We waited for the doctors to tell us what to do, but the diagnoses and suggestions were scattered — it’s cancer, it’s not cancer, it’s half cancerous, we need radiation, we don’t need radiation, it’s life-threatening, it’s benign. We opted for surgery, and it was deemed a success. Doctors waved us out of the hospital with balloons. But a few weeks later, we were urgently summoned back. The oncologists had decided that he needed another operation to make sure they had removed all of the tumor.

It made me realize that, despite the surety with which the medical professionals had presented things, it was all a best guess based on the available information. So I started doing my own research, to try to make the best decisions for our baby. I soon began to wonder why I didn’t study my own health care decisions as thoroughly as I did his.

So I started looking into mammograms. The more I found, the more I doubted. I was stunned by a 2001 Cochrane review — considered to be the gold standard for evidence-based studies — that concluded, “The currently available reliable evidence has not shown a survival benefit of mass screening for breast cancer.” Everywhere, I saw pink ribbons and the message that mammograms save lives. But no matter how many times I read the numbers, I wasn’t convinced that I should get one.

Over the years, my choice has spurred concern from health care practitioners as well as the person who is most worried about my health: my mother, who, in her 80s, is still a religious mammogrammer. She has described how nerve-racking the post-procedure waiting room is — you shiver in the cooled air until you’re sent home or get the ominous “The doctor needs to talk to you.” One day a few years ago, she was the one called to stay. They had found something “suspicious,” and she felt her world falling apart.

When my mother told me this, the first thing I thought of was the high rates of over- and misdiagnoses, and I told her so. But she still spent over a month in a panic — waiting for the follow-up, which then was somehow done incorrectly and had to be repeated one more time. Finally, multiple painful mammograms later, they concluded it had all been a mistake. And oddly, the false urgency has continued: She has been getting notices reminding her to make an appointment for another mammogram in six months because she is now “high-risk.”

Patients want reassurances. We feel we have to test, so we can find out if we’re sick. We rarely consider that the test itself might make us sick — perhaps through repeated exposure to radiation — or that there are health advantages for the nontester like me, who gains time, sheds stress and potentially dodges the harm of a false positive or unnecessary treatment.

This isn’t the answer for everyone. But as parents and patients, we have no choice but to try to become conversant in medicine, even if it makes some doctors bristle. Our medical experts are an invaluable resource, but in the end, it’s up to each of us how we want to proceed.

I now have a new primary care physician who still refers me to the mammography center, but when he hands me the slip, he smiles and says, “But I suspect you won’t do it,” and I get the feeling he respects my reasons. I wonder if, some day in the not too distant future, he’ll say, “This test actually seems to have more risks than rewards,” and stop handing out that slip at all.

Another excellent article found here:

This Mess Has Got Me Depressed

Depression is not a word that generally applies to me. My marriage is good, my children are healthy, my grandchildren are perfect in every way, my life is busy and filled with laughter and happiness. So why do I feel depressed?

It's this economy and what it's done to people - and I mean people I know and love - not some "people." First, though, is the fact that I am sad about the death of Ron's sister, Betty, in Florida. She was a victim of old age. After selling their home in Myrtle Beach, she and her husband, Frank, moved to St. Petersburg and bought a condo in a high-rise by the water. They were fine for several years, then Frank got a diagnosis of lung cancer and died within two years. And those last two years were extremely hard on his wife, since she never left his side except to go grocery shopping.

After Frank died, we all thought Betty would move to California to live with their daughter. But the timing was off. The housing bubble had just burst and the condo that had been worth $400K was now unmarketable. She had it on the market off and on for two years, and wouldn't come down to a price that might have drawn buyers, saying "I'm not going to give it away." So she stayed there, waiting . .. waiting.. . waiting. Then she got an infection that spread to the plastic valve in her heart and then she was terminal. She wasn't strong enough to survive the heart surgery to replace the valve and antibiotics can't work on plastic. So, after two months of pain and suffering and (although it's not important, probably a bill of about half a million) she passed away.

There are so many "if only's" in that story, it just makes me sad. Now her kids will sell the condo for $150K and that will be that.

And my daughter's mother-in-law is facing foreclosure on her condo, she's walking away from her car lease, and declaring bankruptcy. My friend and her husband are walking away from their house that three years ago they were thrilled with, but now see as a really bad investment since it's worth about half what they paid for it. They found out this weekend that about 5 or 6 of their neighbors are going to do the same thing. My son refinanced his house to pay off his ex-wife to get her out of his life, and was hoping and praying that the market would recover before the loan adjusted so that he could either sell it or refi it again into a 30-year fixed. But no. He's going to try to short sale it.

I feel like I'm on an island and the tide is coming in. Where can we move? I can't bear to watch what's coming - I don't think the worst is over.

And forget about the kids that are looking for jobs!