Yesterday I saw a 90 year old woman in consultation. She presented to the emergency room in September with abdominal pain, and in the process of working her up, a chest X-ray was taken which showed an infiltrate in her lingula, part of the left lower lobe of her lung. As it turned out, there… Continue reading How Old is Too Old?
Tag: Radiation
Dammit Janet
There is cancer. And then there is CANCER. The first refers to the ones we discover early, excise completely and move on—a tiny rent in the whole fabric of a life, easily mended or patched but never quite forgotten. But the second, CANCER in capital letters—these are the ones that can never be discovered early… Continue reading Dammit Janet
How Do I Know This is Working?
This is the question I get asked the most: “So Doc, how do I know that this is working?” Sometimes my patients come to me with visible or palpable disease—something on the skin that they can see fading away, an enlarged lymph node in the neck that shrinks visibly during treatment, a lump or a… Continue reading How Do I Know This is Working?
TANSTAAFL, or There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch!
Robert Heinlein got it right. In “The Moon is A Harsh Mistress”, sometime in the future, we colonize the moon. But we don’t send our best and brightest, we send our criminals, our misfits, our dregs of society. They eke out a hard living in this future penal colony: their language becomes muted, shortened; their… Continue reading TANSTAAFL, or There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch!
Blame it on the radiation!
“Blame It On The Bossa Nova” (Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) I was at a dance when he caught my eye Standin’ all alone lookin’ sad and shy We began to dance, swaying’ to and fro And soon I knew I’d never let him go Blame it on the bossa nova with its magic… Continue reading Blame it on the radiation!