On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 6:39:02 PM UTC-5, is this stalker John Baez? UC Riverside; spending more time stalking and airhead posts than doing physics
> fifty-seven minutes after you,
> does not constitute stalking, but
> I wish that I had another stocking ... mass_sub_s-sometning
>
So I was reading about Richard Feynman's liposarcoma in Wikipedia, where it says he had an abdominal mass the size of a football.
Funny, I had a liposarcoma mass removed in March of this year, the size of a small watermelon. I thought I was just putting on weight during the winter months.
The only thing that caused me to go to the doctors, since all my life I never had any illness or disease and visited the doctors only twice in my life-- broken leg age 21 and a checkup at age 60 to see if my prostate was good. So I never went to the doctors, only if really really sick. I went in January 2016 because I could not get rid of a cough. A cough that had dogged me for about a year. After the removal of the tumor, the cough was completely absent.
What had happened was the tumor-- a right rear peritoneal liposarcoma, a fat cell cancer had pressed my kidney and liver up against my diaphragm and causing the lungs to cough whenever I kneeled down.
Before I had the CAT scan to prove I had a mass, I said to myself that I did not have cancer because of the simple fact that when I slept at night, no cough. When I got up and started the day, the cough would return.
So I wonder, if Feynman also had a cough to alert him if something was wrong?
Now Feynman lived from 1978 to 1988 with the liposarcoma, which is ten years, and I hope I can live another 10 years. But it looks as though mine is a dedifferentiated mass which is easy to metastasize.
With cancer, I suspect the most horrifying news is metastasize. When you are told "you have cancer" it takes a long time to sink in, that you are in a fight for your life. But when the news is -- metastasize-- it is all over, but the crying.
If mine metastasizes, it probably will show up in the lungs. I have switched all my handkerchiefs to white so that I can immediately recognize blood from my lungs.
Now did Feynman's liposarcoma metastasize and was it the lungs. Wikipedia says he had two surgeries after the removal surgery. And surgery seems the best treatment of liposarcoma rather than a chemotherapy regimen.
Did Feynman have the cough? Did Feynman's mass metastasize into the lungs?
Did Feynman ever raise suspicions of what caused his cancer? Did he think chemicals such as DDT, or 2,4-D or pesticides?
I probably will never definitely know what caused my mass, but I will always question and look for an answer.
I heard that the Mayo clinic is researching into 2,4-D as a cause among many causes for breast cancer.
Is our modern day research good enough to whittle down the cell that caused my tumor and to find out what in that single cell went wrong-- was it DDT in chocolates or 2,4-D in foods or pesticides in food?
Can we research the cell that grows a tumor the size of a football (Feynman's mass). Or mine, the size of a small watermelon?
Now medicine has advanced a lot since Feynman's 1978-1988. So I may have 10 more years, but when it comes to cancer, be a realist and prepare for the worst.
If anyone knows anything about Feynman's fight with liposarcoma, his son or daughter, I would really be sincerely appreciative of any information.
I wonder if it is true that UK survey shows a spike increase in liposarcoma-- 14 percent rise in the past 10 years, which would indicate a chemical in the environment is the main culprit.
Any information or answers are appreciated.
It is reported that Feynman's last words were: "I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring"
Maybe mine would be: "I'd hate to have more surgeries, for IV needles and catheters are horrors, and no need to watch a horror movie-- just have IV and catheters insertions" And I think Feynman was suffering from a lot of pain at the end there, not boredom.
AP