John McCain

[BoSoxGal]

Diagnosed with brain cancer, news is saying.

https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/ ... ncer%3Famp

Best wishes to him for positive outcome in treatment. I hope he is compelled by this to be a real lion in the Senate, standing against the Trump corruption - it would be a great last political battle for him to fight.

[Lord Jim]

Very sorry to hear this....

John McCain has been one of my favorite politicos for a long time...

And a genuine American hero, in an era when heroism is frequently confused with mere celebrity...

Maybe he can do the same sort of treatment that seems to have worked so well for Carter...

[BoSoxGal]

It's glioblastoma, so prognosis isn't likely to be great - it's an aggressive, incurable cancer.

Carter's brain cancer was lesions in the brain and liver from mestasteses of melanoma, different cancer altogether. I'm not sure that the new immune system implicated treatment that put Carter in remission is applicable to glioblastoma.

Whatever his options I'm sure he'll get the very best care available because he's wealthy and a Senator - there won't be any cans on shop counters or community dinners to fund his care.

eta: I threw that out there because I had a friend in Montana whose family had to fundraise that way to get him treated when he was diagnosed in his early 40s. He didn't live long.

According to the Mayo Clinic's online cancer guide, prognosis for glioblastoma multiforme is death ~ 14 months, with treatment. Depending on the stage they'll create a treatment protocol and he might live longer or die much sooner.

The diagnosis definitely explains his odd behavior recently.

[RayThom]

My SIL is a glioblastoma survivor. Now, two, long, hard fought, years since the surgery her prognosis is that she she may go on for another 20 years relatively healthy. And by that time, there will probably be even better treatment and/or a cure for the disease.

That said, my SIL was seen as a good candidate due to her age -- she was 43 when she went under the saw. Due to McCain's age I can't see the doctor's performing such a radical procedure on the old guy. On the other hand, he does have a health insurance plan that would easily cover it -- regardless of its benefit, or lack of same. Regardless, if McCain has honest doctors, they will tell him about the stresses related to recovery and how it will really beat him up -- or even kill him. If he's smart he'll opt for mainstream treatment -- chemo and radiation -- and use his remaining lucid months to get his affairs in order. It's no longer 'if' but 'when.'

Once McCain is out due to his health I'm hoping Ann Kirkpatrick might resurrect her political ambitions and run for the open Senate seat. She impressed me as a knowledgeable and personable Democrat. Coupled with Lord Dampnut's poor performance she stands a good chance of winning.

One door closes -- another one opens.

[Lord Jim]

Thanks for the info BSG...

Ray, McCain is a tough old bird who has survived a lot, and if he's given a choice between a surgery that might kill him but also might let him live to 90 or older, or a treatment that will provide him with a few months to "get his affairs in order", I very much suspect he will pick door number one...

[Lord Jim]

Apparently the tumor has already been surgically removed...

Sen. John McCain has brain cancer, aggressive tumor surgically removed

By Susan Scutti, CNN

Updated 4:30 AM ET, Thu July 20, 2017

(CNN)Sen. John McCain, 80, has been diagnosed with a primary glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, Mayo Clinic doctors directly involved in the senator's care told CNN exclusively. The doctors spoke directly to CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

The senator underwent surgery to remove a blood clot on Friday at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Lab results from that surgery confirmed the presence of brain cancer associated with the blood clot.
Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive tumor that forms in the tissue of the brain and spinal cord, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.

A pathologist was in the operating room during the procedure, a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision, said his doctor, who added that the surgery lasted about three to four hours. Post-surgical brain scans show the tissue causing concern has been completely removed.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/19/health/gu ... index.html

[Econoline]

[Guinevere]

This is the same kind of brain cancer that ultimately killed Ted Kennedy, another tough old bird. Kennedy lived 15 months after his diagnosis, exactly the median. But, while he worked for the first half of that time, the second half he struggled, was experiencing strokes, and other diminishment of his abilities. It's a horrible disease, and I wish John McCain a better outcome.

[Guinevere]

Similarly, Kennedy had surgery, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. That's the standard of treatment for this type of brain cancer.

[RayThom]

... Ray, McCain is a tough old bird who has survived a lot, and if he's given a choice between a surgery that might kill him but also might let him live to 90 or older, or a treatment that will provide him with a few months to "get his affairs in order", I very much suspect he will pick door number one...

I'm sure McCain would thank you for your support. I, too, wish him well. However, this cancer recurs in all who experience it. Even though he is now diagnosed "100% cancer free" this is merely the spin doctors use when cancer can no longer be detected on a microscopic level. What lies within the very murky cellular/chemical level may not be quantifiable but always present. Good doctors are loath to mention this, because it interferes with healthful recovery.

Due to McCain's advanced age I will stand by what I said above. "Tough old bird" or not, and with or without treatment, he will live for maybe no longer than another eighteen months. I seriously doubt he will elect to have aggressive treatment that will be zapping his strength from now and until the end.

Other than blood-borne cancers, and given the ubiquitous nature of the disease, it is incurable at the moment. Constant remission is all that modern medicine can hope for at present. Until metastases can be controlled cancer will win every single time -- it is unavoidable.

Thank you for your service, Sen. John McCain. Now go take care of business.

[BoSoxGal]

I wonder if he'll consider adding a WFPB diet to his cancer battle; I know I've become evangelical but I've been stunned by all the stories I've been reading about people, including physicians, who have beaten their cancers with such an approach. WFPB diets repair the immune system to high functioning, which assists the body in attacking and destroying cancer cells. Since the most cutting edge drug treatments for cancer - like the one given to President Carter - also involve immune system stimulation to allow the body to kill cancer more effectively, it only makes sense to fuel the immune system naturally as well.

Here's one story from the film about how diet and exercise can cure metastisized cancer:

https://www.forksoverknives.com/how-i-w ... gs.99PQ5=c

Again, glioblastoma is a really deadly cancer with something like a 4% 5-year survival rate for people McCain's age, but if he is to have every advantage I hope he considers going vegan to power his body's best immune reaction. It's really amazing how fantastic our bodies are at preserving health when we aren't poisoning them on a daily basis.

[Scooter]

This is the same terrorist that took my Mitch from me. It's not a death I would wish on anyone.

[BoSoxGal]

See the OP for evidence of what a horrible human being I am, as according to Joe Guy.

And this piece sums up exactly what I think of John McCain now:

Last modified on Tuesday 25 July 2017 19.37 EDT

John McCain often gets cast as a truth-teller to Donald Trump, but his voting record says otherwise. And nowhere was that more clear than on Tuesday when, despite his own ill health, when it came to the decision of whether to take other people’s healthcare away, he cast a decisive vote in the wrong direction.

Addressing his fellow lawmakers, McCain called passionately for a return to regular order, and for senators to work constructively across the aisle. “Why don’t we try the old way of legislating in the Senate, the way our rules and customs encourage us to act,” he said in his Tuesday speech. “If this process ends in failure, which seems likely, then let’s return to regular order!”

Though he has often railed against Trump as if he can’t actually affect what he is complaining about, McCain isn’t a helpless observer – he’s an influential senator. And on Tuesday, as the country draws closer than ever before to the death of the Affordable Care Act, he was a pivotal one.

Had McCain simply voted no to the question of whether the Senate should begin debate on a repeal or replacement of Obamacare, which squeaked by in the Senate with a vote of 51-50, the chamber’s leader Mitch McConnell might well have been forced to do the very thing McCain claimed to want: restore the chamber to order.

Instead, McCain, who was recently and tragically diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, and who returned to DC explicitly to help save the GOP healthcare bill, voted yes.

To put it another way, faced with a rare opportunity to make a real tangible difference, he risked traveling amid failing health to make possible the very thing he decried.

More damningly, he voted yes to take away healthcare from millions of Americans – including an untold number of other cancer patients – even as he continues to access benefits of the quality care afforded him as a senator, care subsidized by American taxpayers.

Never mind that at this point in time Republicans have little idea what the bill they would replace Obamacare with will contain. Never mind that we have arrived at this point through a secretive process devoid of public hearings, or even that Republicans would have the healthcare of millions of American women dreamed up entirely by men.

Politics appears to have triumphed over logic. Sadly, the politics that won out today are is not even a sort personally dear to John McCain – that much was made clear in his floor speech. It’s not even his own electoral politics that won out, either; after a tough re-election battle, he won’t be up again until 2022, freeing him up as much as electorally possible to act solely with his moral compass as the guide.

Instead, McCain did the very thing he had just railed against, acting out of partisan loyalty.

There are many reasons to respect McCain, a former prisoner of war who endured torture in the five and a half years he spent captive in North Vietnam, and has campaigned against torture by the US. His 2008 campaign against Barack Obama now looks like the very model of civility in the wake of Trump.

But even his remarkable stoicism and service can’t excuse what he just did.

The grim reality is that health insurance is of the utmost importance when it comes to surviving cancer, the second leading killer in America after heart disease. Put simply, the uninsured are much more likely to die than those with insurance – and sooner.

A recent study in the journal Cancer found the uninsured were 88% more likely to die of testicular cancer than those with insurance. For patients with Medicaid, the number dropped to a 58% greater chance of dying than privately insured patients like McCain.

The study found the same trend held true for patients with glioblastoma, the malignant brain cancer McCain was recently diagnosed with. It’s a terribly disease with a median life expectancy with his type of just 15 months, and that’s as true for McCain as anyone, but the uninsured still die faster than anyone.

Voting to subject any one of millions of Americans to go to meet such a fate without even the benefit of the best tools medicine has to fight it is cruel, given McCain’s new-found appreciation of the benefit.

The estimated cost of McCain’s recent surgery to remove the cancer above his eye is a sum that would bankrupt many Americans, using the Medicare rates for which McCain qualifies.

There’s a way to fix the fact that many Americans under the age of 65 don’t have access to any such care: let everyone under it buy in, a scheme for which many on the left have argued. But on Tuesday, McCain helped move the country in precisely the opposite direction.

We still don’t know which of several bills Republicans will bring up for a vote, but all of them involve millions of Americans losing the very sort of health insurance upon which McCain depends.

The only question is whether it’s a matter of 22, 32, or “just” 15 million people who will lose access. What we can say with confidence is whatever version moves forward, McCain’s lost more than his good health – he’s lost his decency.

[Joe Guy]

See the OP for evidence of what a horrible human being I am, as according to Joe Guy.

The OP was before you wrote this:

I had hoped his impending death would awaken a conscience in him with regard to this issue, but clearly not. I don't really care anymore how quickly his glioblastoma kills him, he's sentencing hundreds of thousands of people to an unnecessary early death by his support for repealing ACA.

Bastard.

Put simply, the uninsured are much more likely to die than those with insurance – and sooner.

People who aren't treated for a terminal illness are more likely to die than those who are treated. Is that a scientific conclusion? If so, was the study done in Santa Cruz?

[BoSoxGal]

Go fuck yourself, Joe. Enjoy your continued pathetic fun trashing me on ignore - you have nothing to say about anything that I want to waste my time on.

[Joe Guy]

by Joe Guy » Tue Jul 25, 2017 5:09 pm

I think now is the time for you to say you're putting me on ignore...

by BoSoxGal » Tue Jul 25, 2017 6:16 pm

Go fuck yourself, Joe. Enjoy your continued pathetic fun trashing me on ignore - you have nothing to say about anything that I want to waste my time on.