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monster
Supporter
Username: Monster
Post Number: 2367
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 11:17 am: | 
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/03/07/obit.reeve.ap/index.html
WHITE PLAINS, New York(AP) -- Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her "Superman" husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis, has died of lung cancer at the age of 44. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12766
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 11:45 am: |
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And she never even smoked!
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LibraryLady(ncjanow)
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 3083
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 12:56 pm: |
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Larger thread in the Entertainment section. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 2435
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 1:53 pm: |
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You can not smoke and get lung cancer. You can eat vegetables and roughage and get colon cancer. You can eat organic produce from Whole Foods and get stomach cancer. You can be a man and get breast cancer. You can practice every healthy habit going and get cancer.
Getting cancer is not completely and utterly about one's personal behavior, and folks need to stop assuming it's somehow utterly within one's control. What? Are going to be less sympathetic to those who ate Wonder bread? Who smoked? Who worked in construction? Save our deepest sympathies for those behaved rightly?
Sorry. That remark hit a nerve. |
Pizzaz
Supporter
Username: Pizzaz
Post Number: 3274
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 1:58 pm: |
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Yet, we are saddened by her untimely and very unfortunate death. R.I.P., Dana. You were a class act! |
papayagirl
Citizen
Username: Papayagirl
Post Number: 503
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 2:29 pm: |
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http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lung-cancer/DS00038
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, among both men and women. It claims more lives than colon, prostate, lymph and breast cancer combined.
Yet most of these lung cancer deaths could have been prevented. That's because smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer cases. Although your risk of lung cancer increases with the length of time and number of cigarettes you smoke, quitting smoking, even after many years, can significantly reduce your chances of developing the disease. Protecting yourself from exposure to other leading causes of lung cancer, such as asbestos, radon and secondhand smoke, also decreases your risk.
Cynicalgirl - my apologies if you're particularly sensitive about the subject. But one could easily understand how someone could be surprised when a non-smoker dies, especially so quickly, from something like this. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 2436
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 3:06 pm: |
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Yep, I'm sensitive, and it's perfectly natural to raise the question/exclamation. Sorry, Tom! I just heard this remark around the office so much already I'm ready to scream.
I think I've grown generally sensitive on the subject of cancer (being personally affected) because of the shock folks evidence when an apparently healthy or right living person gets one form or another of it. I know too many people who fit that description, who don't have a good handle on their family history which may be just as pertinent, if not more so. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12770
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 3:10 pm: |
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It's OK, Cynicalgirl, because you're in a good position to be angry at the situation. But let me explain anyway. I wasn't asking how this could possibly happen. I'm extremely aware of how one who is not in the traditional risk group can get cancer anyway. As you know, my wife had breast cancer, and she was angry and confused, because her exercise habits and diet are absolutely exemplary. My remark was along the lines of "damn, this just isn't fair!"
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 2437
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 4:23 pm: |
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Similarly, my husband was PO'd because he'd been so good about colonoscopies (despite being not so "good" about other things). He knew the inherited risk. But! Didn't know at the time the type of cancer giving rise to his colon cancer AND trusted the doc who was just doing the guidelines as regards frequency. Bingo bongo major colon cancer. Older and wiser, and given recurrence, we are tres vigilant. And, he coulda been eating All Bran all this time, never touched a drink, running marathons and not smoking and still he would have got what he got the second time.
I guess generally I get bugged by the American urge to assume we control more than we do regarding our health, and almost putting the burden of sympathy proof on the sick person. That's where I was coming from. I find Dana Reeves' passing extremely sad, not because she was a non-smoker and "undeserving," but because she'd been through so damned and has a kid who is now twice orphaned. I can too relate. Sometimes life blows. Screw the colored ribbons. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12775
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 4:34 pm: |
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Yes, I think you nailed the lesson of the day.
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greenetree
Supporter
Username: Greenetree
Post Number: 6865
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 4:41 pm: |
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Cyn- I get really angry about that, too. In my mom's case, it is indeed quite likely that she contributed to her illness. But that doesn't make her any less deserving of compassion, medical care, etc.
I was amazed that there are so few support groups for people with lung cancer. One reason is that the survival is so crappy; the other is that many people with lung cancer don't talk to anyone about it because they feel ostracized and blamed. And being hidden and less vocal means less funding for research.
It reminds me a lot of AIDS in the 1980s: there were those who "deserved" it (men and women who had unprotected sex) and innocent victims (babies, hemophiliacs).
No one "asks" for it, even those who have riskier behavior.
Maybe between Dana Reeve and Peter Jennings, some of the stigma will lessen. I think that we've heard so much about the progress in cancer diagnosis and treatment (i.e., breast cancer) that we are taken aback when we hear about very aggressive cancers. There is such a long way to go in this war. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 2438
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 4:50 pm: |
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Good, durned points greenetree. I think your AIDS analogy is very apt. And, yes, even my sister-in-law who should know better said that until her mother died of the cancer my husband has (this is going back a couple of decades) she thought cancer was something they, well, cut out and off you go.
We Americans don't like un-success stories much. I had to tell her her colonoscopy wasn't enough as she was staying a little willfully in the dark about how "their" kind was different. People really, really need to get as thorough a family health history as possible for a buncha reasons. I've been known to speak to friends' husbands (at the friends' request) about getting their asces to the doctors lest they find themselves where I do. I have no problem with stern talk in these regards! |
Just The Aunt
Supporter
Username: Auntof13
Post Number: 4250
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 7:56 pm: |
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Cyn-
I understand where you're coming from but. I don't know why it is in almost every news story I've heard today about Dana Reed, for some reason the fact she didn't smoke comes up. Like I said, I don't know why. It shouldn't matter. It's sad either way. |
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