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Post by everso on Mar 31, 2011 14:39:24 GMT
Women living in ignorance of bowel cancerWorth reading. My mum died of bowel cancer and it wasn't discovered until it was too late to treat. Bowel cancer isn't a 'woman's' cancer so there are no fancy ribbons to wear on your lapel, but it kills over 16,000 men and women annually. As a cancer, it's the second largest killer after lung cancer and the third most common.
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Post by housesparrow on Mar 31, 2011 19:47:21 GMT
No, bowel cancer doesn't distinguish between men and women, so why does the survey focus on women, do you think?
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Post by aubrey on Mar 31, 2011 20:47:02 GMT
Probably because it was in Femail?
And the assumption is that woman aren't generally in ignorance of cancer, but men are? I can't see how anyone doesn't know about bowel cancer, though - there's been loads of stuff about it on TV. I can see why people wouldn't go to the Drs, but that's different - just piles, it'll clear up.
A colonoscopy is not bad fun, though: you get some good drugs, and egg and chips afterwards. Well, I did.
The Dr said I wasn't to drink in the evening. Me, stoned out of my tiny, asked why, and he said, "Because you'll carry on feeling like you do now." Some Doctors really have no idea, do they?
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Post by jean on Mar 31, 2011 21:40:00 GMT
When you're over 60, they send you a little kit so you can take samples yourself and send them off for testing.
It's a bit messy to do (don't ask) but I reckon it's worth it, as bowel cancer is easily treated if it's detected early enough.
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Post by jean on Mar 31, 2011 21:48:44 GMT
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Post by everso on Apr 1, 2011 0:00:15 GMT
Probably because it was in Femail? And the assumption is that woman aren't generally in ignorance of cancer, but men are? I can't see how anyone doesn't know about bowel cancer, though - there's been loads of stuff about it on TV. I can see why people wouldn't go to the Drs, but that's different - just piles, it'll clear up. A colonoscopy is not bad fun, though: you get some good drugs, and egg and chips afterwards. Well, I did.The Dr said I wasn't to drink in the evening. Me, stoned out of my tiny, asked why, and he said, "Because you'll carry on feeling like you do now." Some Doctors really have no idea, do they? I've had a couple of those, Aubs. I tell everyone not to worry if they have to have it done. As you say, the drugs they give you (which felt to me like pethedine, which I had when I was in labour with my kids) are great and you really couldn't care less what they do to you - I wouldn't have cared it they'd been doing it to me in the Albert Hall on the Last Night of the Proms. I'm booked to have another one when I'm 65. |
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Post by everso on Apr 1, 2011 0:02:09 GMT
When you're over 60, they send you a little kit so you can take samples yourself and send them off for testing. It's a bit messy to do (don't ask) but I reckon it's worth it, as bowel cancer is easily treated if it's detected early enough. Some people I know have passed up the chance. I mean, what's wrong with them? Any test going and I'm all for it. Although, to be honest, I didn't do this one because I'd only just had a colonoscopy. Colonoscopies really are the new black, you know. |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 1, 2011 6:19:34 GMT
Oh - I see that men were surveyed and they are even more ignorant about the symptoms than women. I was just struck by Everso's remark:
"Bowel cancer isn't a 'woman's' cancer so there are no fancy ribbons to wear on your lapel"
Woman's Hour (I think) once did a feature on how prostate cancer had become the "poor relation" of breast cancer, with far less money spent on both treatment and research, with sufferers having to wait longer.
It has been suggested that this has less to do with sexism than ageism, because breast/cervical cancer tends to attack younger people .
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Post by jean on Apr 1, 2011 9:07:15 GMT
I think this thread really ought to be in the bathroom - only there isn't one. ... the drugs they give you (which felt to me like pethedine, which I had when I was in labour with my kids) are great and you really couldn't care less what they do to you... That's good to know. I'm having my hip done next month, probably with an epidural. I'd start a thread about it, but I can't decide where. |
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Post by jean on Apr 1, 2011 9:11:31 GMT
It has been suggested that this has less to do with sexism than ageism, because breast/cervical cancer tends to attack younger people . Cervical cancer especially hits young women at the age when they think they're invulnerable - or did until Jade Goody got it. Isn't prostate cancer a bit problematic because sometimes it develops so slowly that it's best left alone? Mind you, I have heard the same about breast cancer - but you don't know in advance which ones will be really destructive, and which would not become rampant unless you disturbed them. |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 1, 2011 18:16:00 GMT
I think this thread really ought to be in the bathroom - only there isn't one. ... the drugs they give you (which felt to me like pethedine, which I had when I was in labour with my kids) are great and you really couldn't care less what they do to you... That's good to know. I'm having my hip done next month, probably with an epidural. I'd start a thread about it, but I can't decide where. Good luck! Do start a thread; I suggest the bedroom, where one can get a little more personal. |
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Post by jean on Apr 1, 2011 20:56:48 GMT
I'm going to Italy for a week or so; I'll do it after that.
Otherwise you might all be bored with the subject by the time I get back.
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Post by everso on Apr 1, 2011 21:11:12 GMT
I think this thread really ought to be in the bathroom - only there isn't one. ... the drugs they give you (which felt to me like pethedine, which I had when I was in labour with my kids) are great and you really couldn't care less what they do to you... That's good to know. I'm having my hip done next month, probably with an epidural. I'd start a thread about it, but I can't decide where. Hopefully, Jean, they'll give you something to relax you (like pethedine). Good luck with the hip op. I'm assuming you suffer with arthritis? So far only my thumb lower joints are affected, but it's damn painful at times. I dread other joints becoming affected. |
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Post by riotgrrl on Apr 1, 2011 21:19:19 GMT
I think this thread really ought to be in the bathroom - only there isn't one. That's good to know. I'm having my hip done next month, probably with an epidural. I'd start a thread about it, but I can't decide where. Hopefully, Jean, they'll give you something to relax you (like pethedine). Good luck with the hip op. I'm assuming you suffer with arthritis? So far only my thumb lower joints are affected, but it's damn painful at times. I dread other joints becoming affected. I also dread the day that my joints aren't quite up to scratch. but so far they're fine. And I'm about to roll another one. (I'll be blind before I have athritis. That's a comfort. Of sorts.) |
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Post by everso on Apr 1, 2011 21:33:24 GMT
Hopefully, Jean, they'll give you something to relax you (like pethedine). Good luck with the hip op. I'm assuming you suffer with arthritis? So far only my thumb lower joints are affected, but it's damn painful at times. I dread other joints becoming affected. I also dread the day that my joints aren't quite up to scratch. but so far they're fine. And I'm about to roll another one. (I'll be blind before I have athritis. That's a comfort. Of sorts.) My auntie (who incidentally was over to us today and we've just arrived back after taking her home) is blind and has arthritis in just about every joint in her body. I think she'd probably be prepared to go drug-free and put up with the acute pain if she could only see. It was a real effort shoe-horning both her and my 91-year-old uncle into my car. Bloody hell, it's scary the thought of becoming so incapacitated. |
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Post by jean on Apr 1, 2011 21:36:56 GMT
I feel quite a fraud because I only have arthritis in that joint, and it hardly hurts at all.
But I'll tell you about it next week.
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Post by aubrey on Apr 2, 2011 8:57:25 GMT
I've got rheumatoid arthritis and I was a bit worried when it was first diagnosed as to what it would be like in 20-30 years, but after developing for a while it now seems to have stopped. My hands don't hurt like they used to, anyway, and now it is nearly 30 years since it was diagnosed. It could have caused the kidney failure, though. The arthritis stopping coincided with a couple of years when I had 1-3 spliffs every night.  |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 2, 2011 9:52:59 GMT
I feel quite a fraud because I only have arthritis in that joint, and it hardly hurts at all. But I'll tell you about it next week. It is the idea of operating without a general anaesthetic that bothers me a bit. A neighbour had a heart operation while fully conscious: necessary, but a horrid thought. I want to be properly out, with a pre-op jab in the bum (that if I remember was always the best bit; not the jab, but the lovely feeling it gave); comfy bed, cup of tea on awakening and no visitors except mum and dad. Well, being visited by my mum and dad now would be the sign of serious post-op trauma. Maybe I'll go for the epidural after all. |
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Post by aubrey on Apr 2, 2011 9:59:57 GMT
Those brain operations while the person is conscious. You know there's a reason for it, but still.
I've never remembered much after I've been given whatever it was got those probes - first couple of minutes, and then nothing until afterwards.
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 2, 2011 14:00:24 GMT
Yes, I remember seeing one of those operations on TV. The top of the patient's head had been sliced off like an egg, and she was awake and responding to the suregeon's questions as he probed part os her brain to removea tumour.
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