Wednesday

[BarbaraRose]

Catherine, glad to hear you had a great trip! You missed the hottest weather here. Can't wait to see your pics.

[snowball]

somewhere I found Malia not sure where was going to ask but never did...have read some of her blog but mainly keep up on FB..was so sad to hear of the diagnosis am hoping that the second opinion will give her more options...
as has been said we all leave this world from something or other... cancer just wouldn't be my wishes ..my sister in law went to sleep and didn't wake up...
have a friend that spends winters down in Q her husband loves to fly in those things light something... they live up here in Idaho got word the other day that he had a flying accident so sad alive vitals are good in a drug induced coma but broken back (severed) two rods in it bones taken from hips to help the back 11 broken ribs punctured lung the other damaged and weak
kidney's damaged and liver split and broken ankle but his vitals are good...to early to know if he will be paralyzed or not...body cast...feel so bad for him but at the same time he did love flying those ultra lights (it came to me) so if he dies I will know it was doing something he loved doing and Linda will go into that mourning part where she will be so mad at him!!! Life is meant to enjoy
sheila

[MandysMom]

I'm late to the discussion, but I think Malia is like the 5 th or 6 th Womwn RVer I have heard about who has or has died of cancer. Any thoughts on that?
Velda

[Redetotry]

I'm late to the discussion, but I think Malia is like the 5 th or 6 th Womwn RVer I have heard about who has or has died of cancer. Any thoughts on that?
Velda

I found her blog and noted she drove a 2000 model RV. Older models particularly had high levels of Formaldehyde in them which the EPA says is a 'probable cause' of cancer. I'm not sure when they put regulations in place but think after so many from Katrina became ill from the FEMA trailers. That along with using chemicals in a small place with not enough ventilation could be a factor. Many products people use in their black tanks contain Formaldehyde and other toxins. Research studies suggest the increase in women with lung cancer is related to how many kept a really clean house using products with strong chemicals. But it could also be just that so many people now have cancer. I think of the 50 houses on our block over half have someone who has developed cancer. Interesting in that most were employed for many years at the university which is about a 1/2 mile away and up until about 15 years ago had a coal fired heating plant that had no regulations. Also, one whole wing of the Chemistry Department was finally forced to close because of so much contamination.

[MandysMom]

BJ, the thought also occured to me, I wonder if those living full time in RV tend to get less often health checks and cancer ends up further progressed. Recently when Lynn from Winnie Views died, I reflected on my upset when hearing of her recurrence in that her Drs pronounced her ok without doing any scans to catch recurrence, and it ended up far progressed before caught. Close monitoring is key to stopping recurrence in many cancers today. I wish that were the case with Mel, but his is so rare no one knows what to do because there is no track record of a treatment that works, but many other cancers have new treat,emits that work if caught early.
Velda

[Irmi]

Velda, if we had a "Like" button, I would click your post and BJ's, too.

[Cudedog]

I'm late to the discussion, but I think Malia is like the 5 th or 6 th Womwn RVer I have heard about who has or has died of cancer. Any thoughts on that?
Velda

Hi Velda.

I have been pondering your words for a while, and I wonder the same thing. First of all, as I am sure everyone knows, "cancer" is not just one disease but a kind of "umbrella" name that describes many different types, with many different causes - from genetic predisposition to environmental exposure. "Cancer" just describes abnormal and unrestrained cell growth than can spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer

For example, many types of breast cancer have the precipitating factor when the victim carries something called the BRCA gene (also implicated in ovarian cancers):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRCA_mutation

Other types of cancers are thought to have a hereditary component as well. Colon cancer is another. Colon cancer runs in my family (mother, brother, sister affected) so I have been pretty religious in keeping current with colonoscopies for most of my life. I have had several pre-cancerous polyps removed over the years. Had these polyps not been discovered, and removed, I would not be here typing about it.

Still other types of cancers are thought to be caused by environmental exposure. Formaldehyde, as Readytotry mentioned, is thought to be a contributing factor of nasal and lung cancers. In reading over Malia's blog, she does state that she was a "previous heavy smoker". Although it is not possible to know, but spending the bulk of any 24-hour period, 24/7, living in a motorhome (and thus, with perhaps a more or less constant exposure to Formaldehyde) together with the history of previously being a heavy smoker (she does not define in her blog precisely what this means - one might assume one or more packs of cigarettes per day, consumed every day over a period of many years) may - or, again, may not - have been a causal factor for her illness.

As stated in her blog, the cancer started in her right lung and then spread. Again, possible causal factors for lung cancer are smoking and exposure to Formaldehyde.

Velda, do you know what other cancers have affected the other full-timers you mentioned? Were they all lung cancers, or some other type of cancers? If they were all, or even primarily, lung cancers, it does make one wonder about a causal relationship between full-timers and environmental exposure to Formaldehyde.

I hope my post does not sound too cold or analytical. I am just curious about such things. My own mother was a heavy smoker from before the time I was born, and smoked well into her 60's (she was not an RVer). She was diagnosed with lung cancer in her early sixties, and only then stopped smoking. Of course, although she had lung surgery, it was too late, and she lived only about a year past diagnosis. My sister has been a heavy smoker since she was in her teens, and the last time we spoke (we no longer communicate) about a year ago, she had COPD, but did not believe that cigarettes were a causal factor, even though she had worked in the medical field for many years. Of course, medical studies suggest that smoking cigarettes are a primary causal factor for COPD. Denial, I guess. When last we spoke, she still was smoking two packs a day. She is in her mid-sixties, about the age our mother was diagnosed with lung cancer.

I positively hate cigarettes, and have great sympathy for those unfortunate enough to become addicted, and to suffer the grave health impact that they cause. Although I have sympathy, I refuse to spend any time around anyone who smokes. It brings on asthma and migraines for me.

I had severe asthma as a child (I came close to death more than once) likely because both my parents were heavy smokers. I never lived in a smoke-free environment until I moved out to be on my own when I was about nineteen. Surprise, within about six months of smoke-free living, the asthma disappeared - only to reappear now and again when I encounter cigarette smoke. Due to my health problems as a child I promised myself when I was about seven or eight years old that if I managed to live to adulthood (I was not sure of this, I was ill all the time, and generally missed a great deal of school when growing up because this constant illness), I would never smoke.

And I never have. I have never smoked even one single cigarette.

Thanks for reading.

Anne

[BarbaraRose]

Personally, I think there are a million reasons people get cancer these days. It seems to be an epidemic. I know so many friends and family members who have passed from cancer and none of those were RVers. Some were smokers, some were not. I think the chemicals in our food is a big factor now days and that is difficult to avoid unless you grow your own food in your back yard.

If there is formaldehyde in RV's than yes, that can surely be a factor, being surrounded by it in close quarters on a daily basis. I don't think tho that full-timers need to worry that they have more of a chance of getting cancer than anyone else tho. I think some people are just more susceptible to it than others genetically as well.

[Bethers]

I truly believe our environment and chemicals everywhere are the cause of cancer running rampant now. All the scented products none of which are natural anymore, etc.

[Cudedog]

I know that there are a lot of readers on this forum always looking for a really good read. In view of the current topic of conversation I would like to very highly recommend a book that was on all of the best seller lists that I read a few years back: "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer". Cancer is not a new affliction, but has been with us for many thousands of years.

Although a bit of a door-stopper, it is written in quite accessible language, and often reads more like a thriller than as the non-fiction work that it actually is.

It won the Pulitzer Prize.

https://www.amazon.com/Emperor-All-Maladies-Biography-Cancer/dp/1439170916/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531640312&sr=8-1&keywords=the+emperor+of+all+maladies

It was also made into one of those wonderful Ken Burns documentaries for PBS.

From the Amazon page:

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.

Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years.

The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.

Anne

[monik7]

I think reading that much about cancer would make me very depressed. Just knowing my best friend, whom I’ve known since I was 12 and she 13, has terminal breast cancer is more than I can take.
Sandi

[SoCalGalcas]

My son died from malignant hystiosctosis. I had never heard of it when he was diagnosed. No known etiology, strikes mainly young men between 18 and 25. (He was 18). He lived 8 months after DX. My Dad had a glioblastoma. Yes cancer is a bitch.
Lyn

[BarbaraRose]

Lyn, I am so sorry about you losing your son, especially at such a young age.
My nephew also got a rare cancer at about 20 years old that only hits young people. He had a tumor on his lower back. If it spreads, it usually goes right to the brain, but luckily, they caught it early and were able to remove the tumor and do radiation and he has been cancer free for almost 10 years.