Fuck Cancer

[Millsie]

Thank you, guys for all the kind words. Hopefully something good will come along to help. Good Luck to you, Meadow Skipper! 5 years is a long time.

Dan, that is just horrible news. Kids do not deserve this shit that is cancer.

[huckbucket]

Thanks for doing what you do.

The only issue I have (and this is a 'from the hip' statement) is that it appears that our FDA is too conservative when allowing people with life threatening cancer to give any drug a chance. I was just speaking with a guy who's family member was getting a drug from Canada because it was not allowed in the US. To me that is just crazy. His family member was given months to live and when he took this injection from Canada he lasted 5 years. Maybe it wasn't all the drug, but just the course of his disease or both, but still it just seems we have too many roadblocks. I'm blaming our litigious society.

Fuck cancer and sorry to all those that are effected by it currently.

That's a common complaint of the drug approval process. I don't know enough to comment about it, but would caution that prior to drug approval, everything is essentially a test. That's true even if given to one person in what's called "compassionate use." The FDA and drug companies tend to avoid tests that aren't well powered or well controlled for fear of false positives and false negatives both of which can have long term consequences on the fate of drugs and patients. In the case of the FDA, their only mandate is safety. As concerns the drug companies their primary interest is protecting their shareholders.

[Dantheman]

Got the call this morning, biopsy results confirmed melanoma. God damn motherfucking fuck fuck fuck.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

So sorry Dan, can't imagine going through something like that.

[abraham]

Oh fuck, I'm so sorry

[Meadow Skipper]

Dude...

No words.

[AK47bp]

Got the call this morning, biopsy results confirmed melanoma. God damn motherfucking fuck fuck fuck.

sorry to hear about your niece. I have a one year old daughter and would be ultimately ruined forever (if I didn't kill myself or become a drug addict alcoholic). Even though I'm a staunch atheist these are the times I'd wish I had faith.

[hatchgreenchile]

My daughter just turned 1, can't imagine what you're going through Dan, sick kids are the worst.
The worst pain is not being able to take it from them and deal with it yourself.
Mrs and I will say a prayer for you.

Uncle just got diagnosed with sarcoma in his quad. 8 weeks of radiation then surgery to take any leftovers out. Feel they caught it fairly early.
Worked with him when I was a teenager, learned about about landscaping and excavation, tremendous man and a great dad.
Fuck Cancer.

[Millsie]

So sorry Dan. Tears in my eyes.

[huckbucket]

Damn .... fucking sucks.

[Dantheman]

Thanks everyone. Of course there's always a chance of a miracle happening and we will hold out hope until the end, but there's no denying the reality that virtually no one survives stage 4 melanoma. She was born just a few months after our own daughter was stillborn at full term, and she's always held an extra special place in my heart because of that. We spend a lot of time with her family so she always felt like the daughter I never had.

This isn't entirely unexpected, unfortunately. She was born with a large mass on the back of her neck that was eventually diagnosed as an atypical nodular melanocytic proliferation. Getting that diagnosis took 6+ months and a cross-country effort since no one had ever seen anything like it before, and they way I understand it that's really just a fancy medical term for "we don't really know what the fuck this is." It was stable for about 18 months, then started growing and she went through several surgeries to remove it. They tested it extensively after removal and genetic tests showed several markers that were consistent with melanoma, but the cells themselves did not appear malignant. Thus, she's had MRIs every 6 months her whole life. Her last MRI was negative, but when she went in again last week they saw something concerning and followed up with a CT scan. The CT showed nodules all over her lungs.

She is otherwise a perfectly healthy happy little girl. Fortunately, she's in good hands. She's had a team of top docs at the U's Primary Children's Medical Center her whole life, and my SIL's sister's husband is a geneticist at Stanford.

[Art Shirk]

Dan, so so sorry. Something so insidious attacking something so innocent. Fuck.

[Tri-Ungulate]

I'm sorry DTM, that's awful. At the very least, the field of melanoma treatment has advanced amazingly since even the recent past when we lost plakespear. Hoping for the best for her.

[Danno]

This thread fucking sucks. Fuck cancer. No words of comfort that feel like they have any meaning.

[delco714]

Considering I work I surgical oncology.. I let my karma be my work not my tongue

[altachic]

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words. Our little niece is SO innocent and has already been through the ringer in her three short years of living.
As Dan said, she's almost like a daughter to us. I spend A LOT of time with their three girls and I can't imagine life without her.
I do have hope, faith and I know miracles do happen, but this is just ugly and heavy right now. I hope I can take some of the burden off my sister and help in any way possible.

[detrusor]

So very sad, fuck cancer

[Dantheman]

We had high hopes that an experimental immunotherapy drug (Nivolumab) was going to help Ruby. But, a follow-up PET scan Tuesday after two months of treatment showed that her 40+ tumors have grown and some new ones have appeared. Outlook is bad, very bad. There is simply nothing left to try. Thankfully the Nivo treatment had no real side effects so she wasn't subjected to any needless suffering. From the outside she still appears to be a healthy happy 3 y.o. We don't know how long that will last, but probably not very long.

There's a fun run/bike parade fundraiser happening this Saturday, June 11 at Butler Middle School if any Utards are interested in showing support. Besides the run and bike parade there will be a bunch of fun activities for kids, it should be a great time.
https://www.facebook.com/RallyRuby/
http://www.active.com/cottonwood-hei...6-T1-PL7-L1120

[BmillsSkier]

Fuck, I'm so sorry.

[Meadow Skipper]

Fuck. That sucks, DTM.

[Dantheman]

Bump for the Ruby Rally tomorrow.

[SkeezeBall]

Fuck Im sorry.

An old friend's 5 year old daughter just got diagnosed with leukemia.

Fuck cancer

[huckbucket]

Wish I could be there.

Fuckin' cancer. It's bullshit.

[smitchell333]

Damn. I'm sorry to hear about everyone's health challenges but the little kids, man that's tough. So innocent and so much potential ahead of them. DTM/AC your niece looks just like my own daughter at that age. Anything that we can do to support from afar?

[Dantheman]

Anything that we can do to support from afar?

It's too late to sign up as a "Virtual Runner" on the active.com link, but you can donate to their GoFundMe page (https://www.gofundme.com/RallyRuby) if you want to make a monetary donation. It also has the address of a charity that will match funds 20%. Alternatively, Make-A-Wish is also going to do something for them (was going to be a trip to DisneyWorld in early October, but they can't risk waiting that long), and Millie's Princess Foundation is helping them out, so you could donate to either of those.

It still doesn't feel real yet since she still acts and looks totally normal