Only in America, but for how much longer?

[timesjoke]

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Winnipeg+woman+half+treat+cancer/3549860/story.html

Janis Ollson shows off the prosthetic leg she uses at her home in Balmoral, Manitoba.Photograph by: Phil Hossack, Winnipeg Free PressJanis Ollson and family are in magazine ads for the esteemed Mayo Clinic for a good reason: She's the first ever to be cut in half by surgeons to remove much of a cancerous midsection -- and then put back together with a happy ending.

Three years ago, the 31-year-old Manitoba mother was pregnant with her second child and had been suffering years of intense back pain when Canadian doctors diagnosed her with bone cancer.

Sarcoma experts in Toronto said they would literally have to cut her in half to get at the untreatable cancer, remove her leg, lower spine and half her pelvis.

The problem was they didn't know how to put her back together again. They consulted with the Mayo Clinic and the Rochester, Minn., doctors decided to attempt something that had only been tried on cadavers.

Ms. Ollson became the first person to receive a "pogo stick" rebuild, with her one good leg fused to her body with the reshaped bone from the amputated leg. Today, she's cancer-free, although she lives with the knowledge it could return at any time. She uses a prosthetic pelvis and leg, a wheelchair, crutches or walker, depending on what she's doing and where she's going.

"I have no problem getting around. If I need to, I'll crawl (up stairs) or scooch like a kid," she said. "I don't want people to think 'we can't invite the Ollsons because they can't get in here with a wheelchair.' I want to live life to its fullest."

Yesterday, she was at her daughter's school near their home in Balmoral to talk to students about the importance of tomorrow's Terry Fox Run.

In 2007, her life nearly ended. "I had pain in my lower back with the first pregnancy. I just thought it was the pregnancy, as did my doctors."

It was only after she travelled to Toronto for a biopsy that it was confirmed: a chondrosarcoma, the size of a Pizza Pop, one of the largest the experts had ever seen.

Chemotherapy and radiation couldn't help. The cancer had spread through several bones, her pelvis, lower spine and into a lot of muscle tissue. Her only chance for survival was to remove it.

Then she got a life-saving phone call. Mayo Clinic doctors asked her to come to the clinic for the experimental surgery.

"The plan was to remove the tumour, splitting my pelvis in half and removing the left half and left leg and lower spine," she recalled.

After much rehabilitation, she put her mobility to the test this May, walking down the aisle of their church on husband Daryl's arm, on her way to the altar to renew their vows on their 10th anniversary.

So the great government run medical system could not help a Canadian with their cancer treatment, but an American system could, but why? Why was the Mayo clinic more advanced than the Canadian system?

The answer is American medical advances are made possible by the ability to make money off those advances, under Government controls, few advances are made because there is no incentive to develop those advances beyond bragging rights. Now that the American Government has decided to step in and meddle with our system, we can easily understand that some of these advances in medical care America is famous for will start going away.

 

[emkay64]

My link

A toronto neuro-surgeon is named President Of The American Association Of Neurological Surgeons. Apparently doctors collaborate on many various procedures...I know this notion is foreign to TJ..but it does happen. He also got his education in Canada, the US and Japan. Specialists are all over the place and collaborating on new procedures is certainly not shameful. A woman went to the states to have a never performed procedure...wait...another Canadian went to Poland to have one done because it isn't done in the States too.

My link

We also have a fraction of your population...it makes sense you would have more specialists.

 

[jokersarewild]

My link

A toronto neuro-surgeon is named President Of The American Association Of Neurological Surgeons. Apparently doctors collaborate on many various procedures...I know this notion is foreign to TJ..but it does happen. He also got his education in Canada, the US and Japan. Specialists are all over the place and collaborating on new procedures is certainly not shameful. A woman went to the states to have a never performed procedure...wait...another Canadian went to Poland to have one done because it isn't done in the States too.

My link

We also have a fraction of your population...it makes sense you would have more specialists.

Only America ever does anything innovative, damnit! Don't ruin his dream!

 

[timesjoke]

Nice try, Canada, Cuba, and other places are touted as better in the medical areas only because they give out free medical care to everyone, but when we look closer we see that the cost of that "free" medical care is lower quality of treatment, long waiting lines, and huge gaps in services.

This Canadian woman had to come to America to get treatments because yes it was never done before, and only in America was the skill available to try and succeed. If the doctors in Canada had tried this, she would now be dead.

By the way, the reason this cancer was so bad was the Canadian medical system failed to catch it and even thought her pain was in her head. She had her first symptoms during her first child with lower back pain and during her second pregnancy she had massive pain and was on the maximum dose of tylenol 3 and still no Canadian doctors would try to actually look at what was causing the pain. After the pain was more than she could take she went back to the hospital and refused to leave until the Canadian hospital admitted her, and even then they diagnosed her with pregnancy sciatica, not cancer.

Her husband took her to hospital in Winnipeg and she refused to leave until she was admitted. A specialist and residents saw her and concluded she had pregnancy sciatica -- caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve. They prescribed morphine to dull the pain enough for her to sleep.
No one suspected she had a form of bone cancer that rarely affects young women -- until she awoke and talked to a neurologist, mentioning in passing she could no longer stand on her tippy toes on her left side.

"It was a huge red flag" for the specialist, she said.

Immediately, she had an MRI and although she was told the results would take a few days, a doctor was in her hospital room to talk about the results the same day. She and her husband were told there was "something" on her lower spine, but no one could say if it was cancer.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/emmiracle-emmom-103194769.html

So after years of back pain complaints nobody thought an MRI was needed until a chance comment by her that got the attention of a doctor many years later? Why not do an MRI on her back back when she was first complaining? Why not do an MRI earlier in the pregnancy before they prescribed the tylenol 3? Why pump massive doses of Codeine into a pregnant woman without even looking at her back to see what is causing the problem? Why later pump her full of morphine to treat the pain but still refuse to find out what is actually causing the pain?

An MRI is a standard test in America, this cancer would not have spread so far into this woman's body if she had been going to American doctors.

 

[builder]

Times : (15 September 2010 - 01:10 AM) I assume eddo that you um....gave a donation.... due to your saving yourself and all that.....lol

I'm okay with a hug, but Builder has to wash first, his coprophilia leaves a bad odor....

Because Builder would never waste a good dump when he can play with it instead, lol

You know Builder, even in Australia, there is treatments for your coprophilia

I bet you like it becuase you get really good turds to play with after eating it right Builder?

Has emkay joined you in that game?

Emaky seems like the coprophilia type too come to think of it.

Not a joke Builder, you have a serious problem that needs proper medical treatment

See how it has infected emkay?

Now even she is stuck on this infatuation.

You guys are messed up.

Why not try to be more normal?

coprophilia is nothign to joke about you two, why can't you take your problem seriously?

Joking it off will not make it go away.

So Builder, do you find playing with animal turds better than human waste?

How exactly does one advertise for partners of coprophilia while traveling?

Do you practice your coprophilia while you sleepwalk as well?

Is your gay lover into coprophilia or do you practice that outside your relationship?

Be careful with emkay, you won't be the first to get a gift that keeps on giving, lol.

Better to stay with your usual men and not be so desperate you need to be with someone like emkay.

So do you do the foot tapping think in bathrooms too Builder?

Or do you guys who love coprophilia have your own special signal?

Maybe a skid mark piece of paper tossed under the divider or something Builder?

Are there parts of your gay bars devoted to those who love coprophilia?

Times : (15 September 2010 - 01:32 AM) Well Builder, time for me to go make some money, have fun and remember, wash your hands before eating, feces is not considered an acceptable spice for food.

 

[hugo]

I think the one thing we can all agree on is America is great abd that Canada and Australia stink.

Five commonly misdiagnosed diseases

CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE

September 26, 2007|By Elizabeth Cohen CNN
Actor John Ritter died in September 2003 from an aortic dissection, a commonly misdiagnosed condition.The celebrity was John Ritter.

The actor died in 2003 of an aortic dissection -- a tearing of the major artery that comes out of the heart. His widow later settled a wrongful death lawsuit against a California hospital, alleging his condition had been misdiagnosed "at least twice."

Experts who study malpractice cases and autopsy reports say certain diseases are misdiagnosed over and over again. It's worth knowing what they are so you won't be a victim.

1. Aortic dissection: Sometimes aortic dissections are easy to diagnose -- a patient feels a distinct tearing sensation in his or her chest. But other times they're pretty easy to miss because the symptoms could point to other diseases, says Dr. Robert Bonow, past president of the American Heart Association. "Sometimes it feels like heartburn," he says.

2. Cancer: In a Harvard study of malpractice claims in the U.S., cancer was far and away the most misdiagnosed illness, primarily breast and colorectal. Study authors attributed this to doctors failing to stick to cancer screening guidelines.

3. Clogged arteries: Sometimes doctors tell patients they're short of breath because they're out of shape, when it's actually coronary artery disease, says Bonow, who's also the chief of cardiology at Northwestern Medical School.

4. Heart attack: Sound strange? How could a doctor miss a heart attack? Bonow says the big and obvious attack -- the one where someone clutches his or her chest and falls to the floor, the one Bonow calls "the Hollywood heart attack" -- isn't always so clear. Sometimes the only signs of a heart attack are a sense of fullness in the chest, nausea and a general sense of not feeling well.

5. Infection: In the Harvard study, infection followed cancer as the most misdiagnosed condition.

 

[timesjoke]

I think the one thing we can all agree on is America is great abd that Canada and Australia stink.

While we all have our turns at messing up, my point in this sotry is the woman would have had a MRI many, many years earlier in the American system. I got an MRI on my knee a couple years ago just because I had a lingering pain that did not go away after a few weeks, this woman had bad back pain for years without a singly advanced measure to find out what was causing her pain until it was too late to do anything about her cancer.

Advanced tools like MRI's are severely rationed in Canada not because they don't know they are great tools but becuase it costs too much to let everyone get one to diagnose their problems like we do so often here in America. In America a MRI is like a cast, just a regular medical tool doctors use.

But foe how much longer will American doctors have these tools available to them? The more we let the Government step in and regulate payments and costs the more tools like this will be eliminated from the choices doctors have such as what has happened in Canada.