Founded in 1970, East Valley Community Health Center East Valley Today East Valley , via its two clinics in West Covina and Pomona
Jumat, 30 September 2011
About East Valley
Rabu, 28 September 2011
East Valley "Come Grow With Us"
East Valley is coming to Villaocorta Elementary school. We will be opening a new clinic facility at Villacorta in March 2012. During school hours, school children will be seen; after school hours, the clinic will be open to everyone!
To help us continue to provide quality and accessible services to those in need, please visit us at http://www.evchc.org/. Thanks for your support!
To help us continue to provide quality and accessible services to those in need, please visit us at http://www.evchc.org/. Thanks for your support!
Selasa, 27 September 2011
Health Care Reform
New Innovations to Bring Down Costs
Administrative funding becomes available October 1, 2011
The Independent Payment Advisory Board will begin operations to develop and submit proposals to Congress and the President aimed at extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. The Board is expected to focus on ways to target waste in the system, and recommend ways to reduce costs, improve health outcomes for patients, and expand access to high-quality care.
Senin, 26 September 2011
Kamis, 22 September 2011
Rabu, 21 September 2011
Selasa, 20 September 2011
Senin, 19 September 2011
Facebook Page
If you would like to learn more about our clinic, please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/24healthcenter.
Jumat, 16 September 2011
Kamis, 15 September 2011
MyPlate replaces the Food Pyramid...
The other half of your plate should be filled with proteins and grains, using slightly more grain than protein. Now each of four major food groups -- vegetables, fruits, proteins, and grains - occupies roughly a quarter of your plate. Dairy is the fifth food group in the MyPlate campaign. To remind you that need to include dairy in healthy balanced meal planning, the MyPlate icon shows a glass of milk near your "plate."
The recommended daily amounts of each food group depends on your age, gender, activity level, and other considerations such as whether or not you're pregnant. But the MyPlate plan gives everyone a clear reminder of what a balanced diet generally looks like.
Rabu, 14 September 2011
East Valley
To get more information about East Valley, please visit our website at http://www.evchc.org/ or our facebook page at www.facebook.com/24healthcenter.
Selasa, 13 September 2011
Senin, 12 September 2011
Health Insurance for the Healthy
Health Insurance is a necessary form of insurance for any successful member of modern day society. Medical costs from a slip and fall or accident can bankrupt or at the least cause financial hardship to the average American. Without the protection of major medical insurance a broken wrist can easily cost upwards of $30,000. This leads to a difficult decision for healthy individuals, do I pay $300 - $400 monthly premium to protect myself in the unlikely event that I fall extremely ill or have an accident requiring a surgery? The answer to this question is a High deductible major medical insurance policy with an HSA or Health Savings Account. The HSA plans have three major advantages for healthy individuals, they are: excellent benefits with low regular monthly installments, tax-free attached savings account, and the ability to invest money saved in the Health savings account.
Health insurance plans have a typical structure where the higher the monthly premium the lower the initial out of pocket deductible is before health benefits begin. An example of this kind of major medical insurance is: Lauren a 40 year old mother has a $1,000 deductible with a monthly premium of $377. Lauren would spend $ 4,524 ($377 *12= $4,524) dollars a year on this coverage, this would be excellent health coverage for a young mother, but would turn out to be a waste of money if she were to remain healthy for a period of 10 years. Lauren would spend $45,240 on health insurance premiums over the ten year period.
HSA's are structured to allow individuals to save on monthly premiums while still protecting clients from catastrophic financial losses associated with a severe illness or injury. HSA's have a much higher deductible and also a significantly lower monthly premium. An example of an HSA health insurance policy is: Lauren has a similar health insurance policy with a $5,000 deductible health insurance policy for a monthly premium of $171. Lauren would spend $2052 a year on monthly premiums. If Lauren were to remain healthy for a period of 10 years she would spend $20,520 on monthly premiums. This represents a significant savings over a traditional health insurance policy.
The savings on the monthly premiums that is provided by a HSA compatible major medical insurance plan is designed to be deposited into a HSA account at a Bank of America or other financial institution. The money that is deposited into this sort of HSA account is tax deductible! In our previous example Lauren spent $45,240 on traditional health insurance premiums and $20,520 on HSA, high deductible health insurance account premiums. This is a savings of $24,720 over a 10 year period. The $2,472 of yearly savings is tax deductible on a yearly basis.
The HSA accounts that are issued through Aetna place their accounts at Bank of America. Bank of America has a policy that once a HSA has a balance of $1000 it can be invested in select mutual stock or bond funds. This is similar to the treatment regarding money that is saved in an Ira. This is a large advantage of a HSA account, the ability to invest money on a tax free basis that can be used to cover future medical expenses.
Most Effective Health Insurance Plans
What is the most important thing in life? It is, of course, health. What we eat and where we step foot can cause incurable illnesses, not to forget the fatal car accidents we hear about everyday. It is therefore no surprise that we spend a major part of our income on medical expenses. Sometimes it becomes a burden because the bills cannot be paid with what one earns. One, therefore, needs to plan for these expenses. No matter how careful you are you will in one way or another fall sick. It is therefore, prudent or wise that you prepare for such expenses in advance.
Many people are of the opinion that health insurance is unaffordable. That is where they are way out of line. They can get affordable medical insurance if they look around for it. If you pick and choose the most affordable health insurance, you will be saving tons of money and avoiding the possibility of going into debt and bankruptcy.
The most effective medical insurance plans should cover the medical needs of each individual. The plan should be cheap and affordable without compromising on coverage. The premium amount should be low and suitable to a family budget. The terms and conditions of the medical insurance plans should be clear and specific. There shouldn't be any hidden rate or norms. If there is so then it may lead the unsatisfied customers to drop from the health insurance plans at any time. The purpose of taking the health insurance plans will be of no use for the customers and the insurance firms will also loss a good business.
The most effective medical insurance plans should cover all the expenses incurred in the hospitalization and on medical treatment. Moreover the health insurance plans should cover family members and the individual against any kind of financial constraints that are arising from medical treatment and emergencies. If a health insurance policy holder is suddenly hospitalized, becomes ill, meets with accident, then the existing health insurance plan should generally take care of all the expenses on ambulance, blood, medicines, oxygen, hospital room, various medical tests, treatment expenses and almost all other costs that are incurred.
The most effective insurance plans should make the policy holder ensures that if he regularly pays the prescribed amount of health insurance premium monthly or quarterly or half yearly or annually depending on the policy holder's age, then the insurance firm will allow him to certain limit of medical expenses. Therefore the policy holder needn't spend his own pocket and keep the saving safe. A common man should understand that medical emergencies under any circumstance cannot be neglected or postponed. It is to be noted that an unforeseen expense becomes really inevitable in some situation if medical insurance plan has not been availed by a person.
Sabtu, 10 September 2011
Asbestos Exposure Mesothelioma - What Causes Mesothelioma
If you have watched television at some point in the past few months, then I am sure that you have seen the many commercials soliciting those who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma. These commercials are for legal services and target people who have been recently diagnosed with mesothelioma through an exposure to asbestos. So, maybe you have wondered what mesothelioma is and what the issues are surrounding it. It is simply another form of cancer. Most of those who get diagnosed do not realize that they have it until it's too late because this form of cancer can go undetected for decades and can even be caused by just one incident in which one was exposed to asbestos. I have heard of cases were 20 years had passed since being exposed to asbestos to when mesothelioma was diagnosed.
Some people make the mistake of connecting mesothelioma to lung cancer. However, these two diseases are completely different. Mesothelioma develops around the lining that protects the body's organs, which is known as the mesothelium. It is often found around the lining of the lungs, which is why it is mistaken for lung cancer.
So, how does mesothelioma develop? It is primarily caused from asbestos. In most cases, people who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma were exposed to asbestos at various job sites in the construction or mining industry. However, you will find that asbestos can be found in your everyday household items. These levels of asbestos cannot be compared to what can be found in the job related sites and are not significant enough to cause any damage. Asbestos has been around for over 100 years and is used in many items that you would not even consider. The issue is when the amount of asbestos is beyond the normal safety limits.
Because there may not be any noticeable symptoms or the symptoms can be mistaken for other ailments, mesothelioma can take awhile to be detected. However, the common symptoms include unexplained weight loss, shortness of breath, and pain around your chest area. If you notice any symptoms, you should ensure that you speaks to a medical professional as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there have not been any great advancements in technology to help support proper care and treatment for those with mesothelioma. However, the government has supported many laws to ensure that jobs sites minimize exposure as much as possible, including code violations and fines for any violations since the mid 1900s.
Mesothelioma Life Expectancy - What Can Be Done?
A number of factors are used to determine mesothelioma life expectancy of mesothelioma patients and each patient has a unique case. It works continuously in search of better life expectancy for patients with mesothelioma, so the life expectancy for a patient is better today than it was five years ago.
For mesothelioma patients, the average life expectancy once diagnosed is 4 to 18 months. However, each patient is different and there are many things to consider in each case.
Factors that affect the life expectancy of mesothelioma patients include:
- Stage of the disease
- The point at which it is diagnosed
- If mesothelioma is located or advanced (separate)
- Age of the patient
- Patient's general health
- Types of treatment that are feasible for the patient
There is no cure for this form of cancer
The stage a cancer such as with mesothelioma is an important indicator of how long a patient can expect to live. Unfortunately, there is no cure for mesothelioma, and if you or someone you know has diagnosed a patient with localized or advanced mesothelioma, he or she can have a maximum lifespan of just five years. However, there are cases in which mesothelioma patients have lived longer especially with early detection.
Early detection, aggressive treatment
Some studies have indicated that among patients whose mesothelioma is revealed early and treated aggressively, almost half of the patients expect their mesothelioma life expectancy will be two years and a fifth will have a life expectancy of five years. Among patients whose mesothelioma is advanced, only five percent can expect to live another five years. There new studies down all the time and trials to look for cures and improve quality of life while the patient has this form of cancer.
Be examined
The importance of diagnosing mesothelioma at an early stage cannot be overemphasized. If you worked with asbestos at some time in your life, or if exposed to significant amounts of asbestos in non-work environment, you should see a doctor about the possibility of developing mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases, although you do not have symptoms of mesothelioma. For many patients mesothelioma will not reveal itself for twenty or more years after exposure. This means someone can go almost their whole life without a symptom. If you wait until you have the symptoms of mesothelioma are losing the opportunity to treat the disease at an early stage and extending mesothelioma life expectancy.
Lawsuits Involving Mesothelioma
Receiving a diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma can be quite devastating, since there is essentially no cure for this disease. While treatment of the disease in its earlier stages can help prolong life for more than five years, the prognosis tends to be much shorter. Since the costs of treatment can be quite high, it is a good idea to explore any legal options one might have to help offset medical expenses and lost income.
Mesothelioma is typically caused by a long term exposure to asbestos, and this usually occurs in the work place. Since 1977, it has been public record that some corporations have known of the hazards of asbestos, but suppressed the information. In other cases, the corporation simply did not know of a hazard, but should have.
The first lawsuit involving the effects of asbestos exposure occurred in 1929. While there are no extensive records involving this case, it was the first to put a focus on the dangers of asbestos. In 1970, the Clean Air Act was introduced and the Environmental Protection Agency declared for the first time that asbestos was a pollutant, yet did not enforce a ban. In 1982, facing 16,000 lawsuits, the Johns Manville Corporation filed for bankruptcy. Documents in court indicated that company officers at Manville had knowledge of the hazards associated with asbestos exposure, but suppressed this information from their employees. At the time, this was the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. Following Manville's bankruptcy, many other manufacturers soon followed suit due to the growing number of lawsuits.
As recently as 2010, a Los Angeles woman collected a settlement over $200 million due to negligence regarding asbestos. Several other high profile cases have resulted in significant awards in the last several years.
If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, then it is a good idea to hire an attorney who has experience in dealing with mesothelioma lawsuits. In many cases, legal precedent and case law will favor the plaintiff. However, it is often that these cases may be drawn it over a period of years. The purpose of these lawsuits is to improve the financial condition of the patient and his/her family, particularly if they are the primary breadwinner of the household.
Malignant mesothelioma cases tend to have a higher success rate than non-malignant conditions such as asbestosis. While this is a positive, it is still necessary that the litigant have all documents in order prior to filing the lawsuit.
The first step is to be sure that all medical records are in order. The defense will go out of its way to show that your illness was not caused by any actions of their client. They will scour your medical records and insurance claims to cast any doubt that asbestos exposure caused your illness by suggesting it may have been your own actions in some way. The reason they do this is because mesothelioma is caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure, and many plaintiffs walk away from the lawsuit with a favorable ruling and compensation.
With this in mind, it is imperative that your diagnosis of mesothelioma was from a qualified physician such as an oncologist or cancer specialist. The diagnosis should include chest X-rays, CT scan and a biopsy. The medical records should show beyond a reasonable doubt that your diagnosis is mesothelioma, and you had no prior knowledge of the condition prior to the diagnosis.
Since time is of the essence due to the poor prognosis of many patients diagnosed with mesothelioma, the next step is to immediately hire a qualified attorney. Once you have found such an attorney, they will need all your medical documentation to file a formal complaint with the court. This complaint will then be delivered to each defendant named in the complaint.
Typically, the attorney for the defendant will file an immediate motion to have the complaint dismissed. However, an attorney experienced in such cases will leave little room in the complaint to allow the court to dismiss the case. To help be sure that this is the case with your complaint, your attorney may ask you for specific information regarding your job, your job title, the specific asbestos product that may have been handled in your work place, contact information for co-workers, and signed releases that will allow your attorney to review your medical records.
After the defendants receive the complaint, the will respond, or otherwise risk a default judgment. Once they respond, the discovery phase of the lawsuit begins, and both sides will gather, organize and analyze evidence by reviewing records, interviewing witnesses, etc. Knowledgeable experts may be hired to offer testimony and sworn depositions may be conducted. All evidence and witnesses are then available to the plaintiff and defendant. At some point, you, the patient, may be interrogated by the defense attorneys. This may come during the discovery phase, and again during the trial.
No matter the outcome, and no matter the potential for a favorable judgment, anyone diagnosed with this awful disease should seek legal counsel. As mentioned, the treatment costs are high, and if the prognosis is unfavorable, it may help the family deal with the fateful outcome in a better light. Mesothelioma is a dreadful disease where the primary cause has been asbestos exposure in the work place. Therefore, any patient diagnosed with this disease should seek compensation for themselves to help offset the high costs of treatment and loss of income.
A volunteer's reflections: Rice Banks
by Amanda King
Individual volunteer from Illinois
It's amazing how one crop can so define a culture the way rice defines Cambodia — and all of Southeast Asia, for that matter.
Rice is not just a food (that happens to be consumed at least two times a day by the entire populace). It's so much more than that. It's the livelihood for millions of Cambodians. In actuality, it's a way of life.
The crop's sphere of influence reaches far beyond the rice paddies or even the dinner table and into everyday life. So strong is this country's tie to the grain that it is often used as currency to buy goods or services. Loans can be taken out in terms of kilos of rice. Even the Methodist Bible School in Phnom Penh accepts tuition payments in rice (50kg per semester, to be exact).
But Cambodia's standing as a single-crop country also makes it particularly vulnerable to droughts, floods and disease — anything that could adversely affect the rice harvest.
This is especially true of the rural population. Typically, peasant farmers can only afford to raise enough rice to sustain their own families. In this situation, a bad harvest can be devastating.
That's where rice banks come into play. These initiatives, funded by loans through the church's Community Health and Agricultural Development program, help communities build and maintain a rice storage facility, which is filled in times of plenty, then borrowed from when families run out of their own harvest.
These rice loans, given out to needy families in the community, are then scheduled to be repaid in-kind at the next harvest (usually in December). The committee in charge of the bank has the authority to set the interest rate on the loans, but it is usually just enough to help grow the supply in order to help more families the next year.
And that, my friends, is a rice bank.
Individual volunteer from Illinois
It's amazing how one crop can so define a culture the way rice defines Cambodia — and all of Southeast Asia, for that matter.
Rice is not just a food (that happens to be consumed at least two times a day by the entire populace). It's so much more than that. It's the livelihood for millions of Cambodians. In actuality, it's a way of life.
The crop's sphere of influence reaches far beyond the rice paddies or even the dinner table and into everyday life. So strong is this country's tie to the grain that it is often used as currency to buy goods or services. Loans can be taken out in terms of kilos of rice. Even the Methodist Bible School in Phnom Penh accepts tuition payments in rice (50kg per semester, to be exact).
But Cambodia's standing as a single-crop country also makes it particularly vulnerable to droughts, floods and disease — anything that could adversely affect the rice harvest.
This is especially true of the rural population. Typically, peasant farmers can only afford to raise enough rice to sustain their own families. In this situation, a bad harvest can be devastating.
That's where rice banks come into play. These initiatives, funded by loans through the church's Community Health and Agricultural Development program, help communities build and maintain a rice storage facility, which is filled in times of plenty, then borrowed from when families run out of their own harvest.
These rice loans, given out to needy families in the community, are then scheduled to be repaid in-kind at the next harvest (usually in December). The committee in charge of the bank has the authority to set the interest rate on the loans, but it is usually just enough to help grow the supply in order to help more families the next year.
And that, my friends, is a rice bank.
Jumat, 09 September 2011
Microfinance: The Women of Chheur Teal Village
A potato farmer, a grocery store owner, a pastor's wife and a banana seller, all united by one cause: To fund their children's education.
Most of the women of Chheur Teal Village in Cambodia's Kandal Province never had a chance to complete their own schooling. Now, as mothers, they're taking out loans and starting small businesses in hopes that they will be able to give their children opportunities they never had. Here are their stories:
Moung PovAt 30 years of age, Moung Pov is already a small business owner. After much saving, she and her husband managed to scrape together enough money from their annual banana harvest to set up a small grocery store in their home village of Chheur Teal.
Their small stand carries the most basic staples — sugar, flour and eggs — but with the help of a loan from CHAD’s new credit and savings group in her village, Moung hopes to expand into the bigger-ticket items that will produce the revenue she needs to send her three children to school at a cost of about $30 each month.
Nut Silim
Fifty-year-old single mother of three Nut Silim never had the chance to attend college, having come of age in a time when Cambodians with higher-education degrees were singled out for persecution by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
But now she sees an opportunity to give her two daughters the education she never received. A micro-loan of just $100 is all she says she needs to start a banana stand at the local market, which she has confidence will giver her the returns to pay for her 18-year-old daughter's English studies at a university in Phnom Penh. The tuition costs about $400 per year — well over the profit from the average family's rice harvest in Nut's native Kandal Province.
If Nut's business venture proves successful, she anticipates being able to fund her second daughter's college studies when she graduates from high school in two years.
Chheun
g Reth
This mother of six doesn't mind getting her hands dirty if it means providing a good education for her four school-age children. In fact, if she has things her way, she'll be getting even dirtier in the near future, when an anticipated loan from CHAD's credit and savings group will allow her to expand her potato farming business.
Though she is not a church member, Chheung appreciates the value of the church's latest investment in her community and looks forward to receiving a loan of $200 to $300, which she will use to expand her harvest by renting additional land and purchasing extra seeds. With the profits from her expanded business, Chheung will make yet another investment — in her 18-year-old daughter's education, opening the door to send the teen to a private high school where she will pursue her love of linguistics, studying English and Chinese in preparation for the university education her mother dreams of one day providing her with.
Chea Sophal
As the pastor's wife at Chheur Teal Methodist Church, Chea Sophal is proud of the initiative the women in her husband's congregation have shown in starting a credit and savings group, and she looks forward to the day when she can invest her own savings into the group — a gesture she sees as an important vote of confidence in the women.
Chea says the group is both an economic and a spiritual tool.
"It helps group members improve their standard of living, and it helps bring (non-Christians) to God," in a very physical sense, through group meetings held in the church building, she said.
And though Chea sees her role in the group as more of a cheerleader and investor, all the entrepreneurial dreams being floated in group meetings seem to have caught her own imagination, and she now hopes that one day she will be able to take out a small loan of $100 to turn her domestic chicken-raising efforts into a small, for-profit operation, by building a chicken house and purchasing additional chicks.
Like her fellow groups members, Chea too, plans to put away profits from her business toward her youngest son's college education.
Most of the women of Chheur Teal Village in Cambodia's Kandal Province never had a chance to complete their own schooling. Now, as mothers, they're taking out loans and starting small businesses in hopes that they will be able to give their children opportunities they never had. Here are their stories:
Moung PovTheir small stand carries the most basic staples — sugar, flour and eggs — but with the help of a loan from CHAD’s new credit and savings group in her village, Moung hopes to expand into the bigger-ticket items that will produce the revenue she needs to send her three children to school at a cost of about $30 each month.
Nut Silim
Fifty-year-old single mother of three Nut Silim never had the chance to attend college, having come of age in a time when Cambodians with higher-education degrees were singled out for persecution by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
But now she sees an opportunity to give her two daughters the education she never received. A micro-loan of just $100 is all she says she needs to start a banana stand at the local market, which she has confidence will giver her the returns to pay for her 18-year-old daughter's English studies at a university in Phnom Penh. The tuition costs about $400 per year — well over the profit from the average family's rice harvest in Nut's native Kandal Province.
If Nut's business venture proves successful, she anticipates being able to fund her second daughter's college studies when she graduates from high school in two years.
Chheun
g RethThis mother of six doesn't mind getting her hands dirty if it means providing a good education for her four school-age children. In fact, if she has things her way, she'll be getting even dirtier in the near future, when an anticipated loan from CHAD's credit and savings group will allow her to expand her potato farming business.
Though she is not a church member, Chheung appreciates the value of the church's latest investment in her community and looks forward to receiving a loan of $200 to $300, which she will use to expand her harvest by renting additional land and purchasing extra seeds. With the profits from her expanded business, Chheung will make yet another investment — in her 18-year-old daughter's education, opening the door to send the teen to a private high school where she will pursue her love of linguistics, studying English and Chinese in preparation for the university education her mother dreams of one day providing her with.
Chea Sophal
As the pastor's wife at Chheur Teal Methodist Church, Chea Sophal is proud of the initiative the women in her husband's congregation have shown in starting a credit and savings group, and she looks forward to the day when she can invest her own savings into the group — a gesture she sees as an important vote of confidence in the women.
Chea says the group is both an economic and a spiritual tool.
"It helps group members improve their standard of living, and it helps bring (non-Christians) to God," in a very physical sense, through group meetings held in the church building, she said.
And though Chea sees her role in the group as more of a cheerleader and investor, all the entrepreneurial dreams being floated in group meetings seem to have caught her own imagination, and she now hopes that one day she will be able to take out a small loan of $100 to turn her domestic chicken-raising efforts into a small, for-profit operation, by building a chicken house and purchasing additional chicks.
Like her fellow groups members, Chea too, plans to put away profits from her business toward her youngest son's college education.
Kamis, 08 September 2011
An Asbestos and Mesothelioma Statistic
It's 4.45 in the morning, pitch black outside. The alarm clock goes off - the most hated sound at the start of the day. He hits it out, half asleep. Trying to get out of the oh-so-comfortable slumber, all he can think of is how he is going to need a bit more time to get up. five minutes, tops! A minute later, a second alarm goes off, tearing him out of his inertia all over again. Sensing its going to be futile to continue fighting his time, he surrenders to his time-keeper & slowly rolls out of bed.
His wife dozes peacefully, he glances at her a moment - they have been married since high school & he is in still in love with her. Through the painful times, when their world seemed to collapse, he learned to love her even more. He is grateful for having her in his life, but hardly acknowledges it. A tired smirk grows out of the corner of his mouth as he gets up, goes to the bathroom & gets ready.
Half a hour later, he fetches his lunch box from the kitchen, grabs his gear & locks the door as he leaves his home. 'I hope that crazy leakage finally gets fixed today!' he thinks, as he hops into his truck, backs out the driveway & heads to work. A pipeline burst at one shaft near the lift, flooding the central area at the top. Getting in & out of the mine has since become a pain. He has been supervising at an asbestos mine, at mid-managerial level, just shy of 13 years now. He has been working in it, overall, for 30 years.
The time is now 6.00 am & he is just arriving outside. As he puts his hard hat on & walks towards the mine, his foreman meets him, sarcastically jokes about how he did not get any last night again, then briefs him about the day. He takes a look at the roster, sifting through the pages of the activity log. 'Tunnel six approaching 80% completion'
'Whoa! If the guys keep it up at this rate, we will complete the project six weeks in advance.' he thinks to himself. 'Way to go, boys!'
Before he walks up the stairs to his office behind the main entrance, he looks over to his left & notices something he has not happy about at all. The central area is still flooded up & now leaking down the lift.
'Those contractors are in for it!'
Inside his office, he drops his gear in the closet, sinks into his office chair & begins collating last week's record on tunnel 5's output. He has been leading all project management since he was a foreman & despite his vast experience & nearly unblemished track record over his career, he still gets nervous whenever he is running a project. It's the same butterflies in his tummy he has not been able to get rid of, over the years. They've probably been responsible for his high performance, he reckons, so he is not particularly bothered.
three minutes go by & a tiny heap of reports have already piled up in front of him, on his heavily, document-littered desk; he still needs a few more before he meets his team, then phone the agency to break hell on the lousy contractors. Pictures of his daughter, when she was a child, hang behind him, on the wall. Portraits of his wife & son pose besides him. How time flies! Just yesterday, it seemed, he was throwing his daughter up in the air, as she always loved; now she is about to graduate from college, with a major in cybernetic engineering & $23,000 debts. And his son, now a freshman on full scholarship at a leading private university, doesn't stop calling & texting about the girl he's newly fallen for, whom he's this time convinced is the one.
Got it! The last pair of reports he'd been looking for. At the bottom of the pile as always, when you're searching for something. Now, off to brief the guys. He shuts his office door but suddenly feels dizzy & an incredible pain in his chest - like a heavyweight boxing match for the world title, trying to break out of it. He feels feverish at the same time & is, inexplicably, getting out of breath. The day hasn't even started & he usually only feels like this, half way through. It's been a couple of months now like this, but he's been shrugging it off as a normal thing that comes with age. At 59, he is entering a new phase in life & kissing his prime years goodbye.
It's at the point, where he almost gets off the stairs, that he notices how pale his hands are, after wiping sweat from his forehead. Barely able to breathe, he blanks out within a few split seconds & falls head-first to the ground, all the way from the last three steps of the staircase.
The next thing he realizes is that he's lying on a bed, without the usual sounds & noise in the atmosphere. 'The day couldn't possibly be over! Where did everybody go?'
Groggy, he opens his eyes, to notice he's actually not even at work anymore. He's in a private room that looks like a hospital. It's filled with machines, medical equipment, a large window behind him on the left... & his wife sitting next to him, holding his right hand. He really is in a hospital... yet has no idea how he got there!
A doctor then comes in & talks to his wife. She tells her she would like to keep him a while longer, for observation & to run a few tests. His wife becomes agitated & his right hand is now squeezed. 'What's wrong with him?' she asks the doctor, in a crackling voice. 'We don't know yet. At this point, it's too early to say. The tests will narrow down diagnostics & confirm what will have to be done.' the doctor replies. She continues, 'Your husband has been running a high fever, his pale skin suggests, among other possibilities, anemia. Because he's a miner, we're not going to rule out possibilities of developing rare forms of cancer that can be caused from inhaling asbestos.'
'My husband has been working in the mine over 30 years! He couldn't have any such thing!' the wife exclaims. The doctor looks at her a bit surprised about her naivety, then tactfully rebuts 'Alright, but such diseases, if they are present, do take a very long time to fully develop.', then pauses before she carries on. 'Well, like I said. We'll like to keep an open mind & run all necessary diagnostics as a precautionary measure... just to be sure! The tests will include but may not be limited to X-rays & CT/MRI scans. If all goes well, he should be out within a week!'
The miner closes his eyes again, in thought. 'Seven whole days! That should take the leakage off my back & drive some other clown crazy!'
The doctor leaves the room & he begins to relax more. His chest still feels tight, but the boxing match is over for now. It was a probably a draw! 'That fall should have taken me out. I feel like parts of my head are in a coma!' he mumbles. His wife, meanwhile seated next to him again, looks up to him in shock. 'You're lucky to even be alive! The foreman found you on the ground, lying face down from the stairs. The 1st Aid struggled to get you back until the ambulance came & this is the 1st thing coming out of your mouth?' she blurts out. She rapidly becomes so angry, her eyes fill with tears. She gets up, sharply turns away from him as she drops his hand in disgust, walks away from his bed, towards the door, leans her head back with both hands & breathes in deeply, then exhales, once. Great! Now, he's ticked her off. He closes his eyes again, returning to his thoughts. 'Fire in the hole! 3... 2... 1...'
She turns back to him, 'If I were given a moment for every time I have put myself out there for you whenever you were in need, I would get two consecutive lifetimes to make up for myself, you ungrateful,... ungrateful,... you...!!'
He senses he's going to have to diffuse the situation quickly or else the volcano will erupt! He gathers his strength, achingly leans forward and thereafter mumbles, 'Darling... I had no idea.' He stretches out his hand, 'Come on honey... I'm sorry!' His voice drenched in pain. She returns to her seat, wiping her cheeks, he lies back on his pillow & slowly exhales for a couple of seconds. 'Sheers! If I keep this up, I'll take myself out!'
They hold hands again.
A few days go by & the couple is still together in the hospital room. The swelling on his head from the fall has reduced & his fever is gone. His chest doesn't feel too great but he's sure it'll be fine. They just finished having lunch & are discussing how much time he'll take off before returning to work. The door opens, it's the doctor. They greet each other. His wife is not able to hide the smile on her face. She's made her mind up today that they'll be leaving, so she's only expecting good news from the results. The doctor converses with the miner & checks how he's feeling, while in the meantime another doctor walks in. A tall man, holding a large folder. The wife can't make out what's inside it but can recognize an X-ray sheet, peeking out. Instantly, without even trying to doubt herself, she concludes that it's turned out to be more serious than she first thought. Her mood free falls quicker than the '08 market crash. She struggles to keep a hold of her emotions again, sucking her lips in.
The doctor introduces the tall gentleman, 'This is our resident diagnostics officer here at Memorial Hope.' The officer politely nods at the couple, they nod back. She goes on, 'After several hours of examining with the best medical team in the area...' she pauses, then continues, 'I'm afraid we've come to the conclusion that your condition is far more serious than initially anticipated.'
The miner slowly gulps what must feel like an oz of saliva, in fear. He's as tough as can be & has taken his fair share of hits in life & kept going, but was honestly of the opinion they were, thank God, over. 'Wait!' he thinks. 'Don't thank him yet!'
The doctor then announces monotonously, 'Our results conclusively confirm that you have Mesothelioma, a terminal cancer that is affecting your lungs. It has already spread to more than half its area. At this stage, you won't have more than 8 months left!'
Immediately, the miner pants hard, then in the pain to speak, shouts to his wife, 'Get me a bin!'
His wife, already burst up tears, grabs the paper bin from the corner & holds it in front of him. He flings his head just over the ledge & throws up right into it. His wife pats him on the back, throughout. 'I'm really sorry! There's nothing we can do. We have put together a treatment plan that you will be undergoing, which includes ingesting medication to ease the pain.' the doctor says, trying to allay the despair in the hopelessness of the situation. The resident diagnostics officer, blushed with anguish, hunches down to his colleague & whispers, 'This may not be such a good time to show the results, right?'
The doctor, obviously irritated by what she had just heard, gestures hurriedly with her hand that he leave, then consoles the couple.
A few minutes & a bin full of fresh vomit later, the wife, now whimpering uncontrollably, mutters, 'We just finished push... paying our mortgage. Our kids are taken care of... we were looking forward to a holiday cruise! Ha... ha... what are we supposed to do now?', then cries heavily, all over again. This time being embraced by the middle-aged doctor. The wife sits down next to her husband when she gets a hold of herself again & clutches his hand, TIGHT! The miner responds, almost whispering, 'In all of my life, I never thought this would happen to me. It's always the other guy!' while looking out of the window.
It's a bright, sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect to have a picnic, stroll through the park - smell the roses!
At that moment, an eagle lands onto the ledge, outside. Both the doctor & the miner momentarily notice the bird, a bit taken aback. The eagle looks through the window into the room, as if lost & unable to find what it had come to see. Then, unanticipated, the miner & the eagle both lock eyes & observe each other for a moment! The eagle then flies away.
The miner is left with a subtle impression. A couple of seconds later, he turns back. He clears his voice calmly, fighting tears from his eyes as he looks at the doctor, then begins, 'Tell me doc... What can we do over the next period? Less than a year ain't a mighty long time!' He holds his face & finally breaks down to let the tears run their course. Joining his wife, who has been quietly sobbing all along. The doctor, now clearly affected by her patient's misfortune, despite her professional experience, takes a step to his bed.
'Find an attorney! Sue the pants off your employer! It's a long shot taking it up through the union & you don't enough time now anyway!' She stops abrupt, conscious of possibly being insensitive. 'I don't know how to say these things... just fight for your right through a good Mesothelioma lawyer. File a lawsuit that will make up for everything you've lost.'
She turns to the wife & squeezes her hand in sympathy, then looks on to the miner & says, 'You're in my prayers!', then leaves the room.
It's been four days since the diagnosis. The couple are out of hospital, the miner is with his wife at a prominent law firm, in the larger, neighboring town, 40 minutes drive away from home. They have been referred to the firm by the doctor, who personally inquired for a really good attorney from her 'friends at the top' of Memorial Hope Hospital. When she found one & contacted the lawyer, she pleaded that he handles their case pro bono, as a personal favor to her. In the phone call she said, 'They're really good people. Life can be so cruel sometimes. It's a crying shame what happened to them, a real tragedy!'
The couple just finished telling the lawyer their story. He's sitting at his desk, across them, in his corner office overlooking the metropolis skyline. He has been listening intently, without ever interrupting. All through the narration, he had been nodding, while twisting his Mont Blanc pen around his fingers. The miner's wife, who's meanwhile become cynically disposed to life itself, stares at the lawyer from her chair, almost menacingly. Her eyes are dreary but alert. It's evident she has been crying profusely over the past couple of days. The creases beneath her eyes are contoured deeper into her face & she now looks 10 years older. The miner himself is still pale, but now as composed as he usually is. There used to be a youthful vigor about him; that's all gone. Nowadays he appears frail; a shadow of his former self. Like a man his age, working in the service sector, or so.
The lawyer discreetly clears his throat. His face looks like he's in heavy brainstorming. Gently, he lays his pen in front of him. 'What has happened to you is a case of extreme worker negligence. You have been working in hazardous conditions, from which you were not personally protected in adequate measures, over your 30 year career. A rare disease which you could have been prevented from developing, now severely affects you & is in its final, terminal stages.' he says. 'This leaves you with leverage over your employer, to seek the maximum compensation for your losses, both health-wise & financial.'
Then he stops for a moment. The miner's wife, who in the past week has lost all of her natural optimism & become severely bitter from the cards life has played her, opens her eyes noticeably wider, despite her skepticism. The lawyer proceeds, 'There are four ways to go about this, one of which will be the most realistic method to get us to succeed in our legal proceedings. You have to understand that because your disease has developed so late, the other options may not have as great a chance to win your case as the actual one. Think of it like trying to accelerate a car from standstill, in the second gear or even third, if possible, when the highest & most effective amount of torque comes from the first gear.' The miner nods his head in understanding, knowing exactly what he means.
'Mesothelioma lawsuits are complex & every case is unique & cannot be generically given a one-size-fits-all solution. Cases can be broadly categorized in four areas, though. Product liability, professional malpractice, worker compensation & wrongful death. From what your doctor has already told me, in addition to your elaborate statements, I recommend we sue for worker compensation. It is the most befitting litigation in your circumstance so, to give you an example, it will be proven that the mining group would have exposed you to asbestos, illicitly during your job. The company will therefore be fully responsible for your tragic incident & will be made to pay a very high sum in compensation. If a strong case is made, which we will put forward, the management executives will have nowhere to run to, because even if they file for bankruptcy, federal injunctions could be pulled to effect the complete payment. It's bulletproof! And as a personal guarantee... I've been working in this field for 25 years. I understand it from the inside out. My reputation precedes me in the industry. I have strong ties with unions, agencies & health-care providers nationwide. I'm not saying this as an audition to you. I'm saying it because I want you to know who you're dealing with,... and what it means when I say that I'm going to personally make sure that you both get your entitled compensations to the maximum we can squeeze out of them. I'm going to do everything I can. Let's suck them dry... off the record!' The miner manages to reveal a relieved smile. His wife becomes elated, gets emotional again & rushes for some tissue out of her handbag, while she strenuously grips herself together again. With all the crying she has been doing ever since, you'd think she would have become good at it by now!
The miner reaches over & rubs her back. The lawyer had seen it all, but in all the years he had been working with asbestos victims, he's never been able to get over the raw nature of pure human emotion - the grief, the anguish he's experienced in every case. Every single one. Every one had a profound story to tell. None of the clients could truly understand WHY but they all shared one thing in common; they had all been afflicted by an ordeal so catastrophic, that simply none of them ever thought it would happen. But it did & that had become their reality.
The lawyer himself is doing fine. He owns a Carrera & a 5-bedroom, countryside villa in the high-brow parts of town. Business is good & he's been securing his retirement annually with well cared for investment portfolios. His wife, a former national beauty pageant finalist, owns & runs a thriving cosmetics retail chain, which spans across 3 countries. They have no kids. He's in his mid-sixties. He's developed a thick skin from weathering the failures & riding out the successes in the industry. Nonetheless, all his material wealth never totally insulated him from the powerful emotions of simple despair. Every time his clients 'had a moment', it psychologically scooped a chunk out of him as well. And no success can protect you from that! Like inhaling passive smoke: It sucks the life out of you in trickles, exponentially confirming your death sentence... by cancer.
Empathizing with the wife, the lawyer reaches into the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk, brings out a box of luxury tissues & hands it to the miner's wife. 'We thank you sir, we really appreciate your help!' the miner says as his wife grabs a handful of tissue out the box & tries to stop a seemingly unrelenting flow of tears. 'This is just a difficult time for us. We're faced with so much,...' the miner swallows, inhales & exhales once, then continues in his ailing voice; one that's had the joys of a long life evaporated from overnight, in large amounts. 'We don't know where to go from here, so we're just putting everything to God.' A shallow smile briefly surfaces on his face. 'He'll be our support!'
The lawyer adds, 'Given the extraordinary circumstance surrounding you, your doctor urged me to be lenient on your legal fees & I agree. I have therefore determined to represent you, as promised... pro bono!'
The miner flashes his eye-brows as his eyes light up. He clearly cannot believe what he had just heard. His wife, half way in control of her tears now, chips in with a slightly cynical undertone, 'He must be supporting us already!' as she chuckles, while her husband, keeping his eye-brows raised, smiles at her. The lawyer too, but in a defensive, guarded demeanor. 'God bless you, sir!' the miner says. His wife in a monologue speaks semi-melancholic, 'In the depths of your tribulations & miseries, an angel often appears...' Looking out the windows, she begins to hum melodically & drifts into an absence - her new found way of dissociation.
The lawyer presents the miner the contracts & goes over them, while regularly glancing at the miner's wife who seems to make no efforts to return to 'reality'. Her humming in the place she's at is just about good enough for her. She'll stay there a while, if only for a moment. It will summon the strength she needs in herself to continue living out this nightmare. A moment at a time. The miner signs in the spaces where the lawyer's index finger moves to. When he finishes, they both rise & shake hands while the miner's wife, dismayed snaps out of her spell. What could actually be worse: That place or reality?
She gets up while grabbing her husband's arm, braves a brief smile to the lawyer, without shaking hands with him. The couple make their way out of the modern office complex that houses several law firms, Consultancy, an accounting firm & an S.E.O. marketing company. All that swarms around are people in suits & business skirts, walking in & out of the entrance in a frenzy... followed by a couple of casually dressed, obvious geeks. Arm in arm, the senior pair closely hold each other, while they slowly walk through the parking lot to their truck. They gently enter the vehicle; his wife pulls out the keys & ignites the truck. It's an old Durango. They reverse out the parking space & make their way home.
A week later, a worker compensation lawsuit is filed against the mining group by the couple's lawyer. Five days later, the hearings begin, as promised. The lawyer forwards a powerful case against the defendant. The miner at first was at the opening of the case, but subsequently stopped appearing due to his treatments supervised by his doctor at Memorial Hope. His children were now also present with their parents throughout the medical schedule. They were told the news when their parents felt they had everything 'under control', much to the anger of their daughter. A week into his treatments, the miner stopped responding to medicines administered & deteriorated rapidly health-wise. At this point, he swiftly became hospitalized again. His family, not missing a single event, cried in torment through it all. Two days later, he passed on. His family mourned privately for days & buried him at the end of that week. If God rests on that day, they decided, he will too! They say when you die, your life flashes before you. It seems to be no different when someone you love dies, too. All you keep on seeing are pictures of every little, precious time you shared with that special person throughout your life together. Like they fill your mind up & all you see are real images & living memories of that person, in one gigantic, virtual reality simulation in a vivid, high-definition, cinematic experience in 3D.
During the legal proceedings, a further lawsuit was charged against the mining group. It was the litigation of 'wrongful death'. The family appeared at every court date throughout their inexplicable grief. After a period of four months, the jury, by unanimous decision found the defendant guilty on all charges & ordered them to pay an astronomical sum to the plaintiff's family, as well as to incur the legal fees of the entire case, in full. When the lawyer embraced the widow, her daughter & son, he said 'This case may have set a record in payouts from Mesothelioma litigation but it will never fill the canyon of loss you feel in your hearts. I just hope the river that flows at the bottom of it, will be a piece of mind you will reach to, once your pain is dispersed!'
The widow faintly looks up to him & replies 'Pain? The real judgment was already passed when my baby died.'
As she grabs her handbag & moves in front of her kids, she carries on 'We have already become sentenced to pain. We have just became its warden now... because money never takes away the pain of the loss of a loved one, but it may ease it.' As she slowly walks out of the courtroom corridor, her daughter, now the tallest in the family, wraps her arms around both her mom & her little brother.
Outside the courthouse, a small group of local reporters have amassed & haste towards the family upon first sighting. A barrage of questions are asked simultaneously while camera lights are flashing & an electronics store worth of microphones, phones & audio recorders are shoved in the family's faces, which visibly upsets the daughter as she tries to keep her cool. A security guard from the courthouse springs to their rescue & backs the reporters off. A question a journalist yells, behind the 6"6ft sturdy frame of the security guard, sounds, 'Do you feel you have been given justice?' At that point, the daughter, who can't control herself anymore, from the gross insensitivity of the press to their situation, stops, turns to the reporters & shouts 'Justice? What do you care? You'll get your story anyway! And the crimes will continue to be committed by other organizations that will make ten-fold in turnover of what is paid in our 'record' compensation. Another person gets infected & the cycle continues.' She breaks down into tears now & screams angrily, 'WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT MY DAD? HE'S JUST ANOTHER ASBESTOS & MESOTHELIOMA STATISTIC!'
(Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features herein are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if I use one of these terms.)
His wife dozes peacefully, he glances at her a moment - they have been married since high school & he is in still in love with her. Through the painful times, when their world seemed to collapse, he learned to love her even more. He is grateful for having her in his life, but hardly acknowledges it. A tired smirk grows out of the corner of his mouth as he gets up, goes to the bathroom & gets ready.
Half a hour later, he fetches his lunch box from the kitchen, grabs his gear & locks the door as he leaves his home. 'I hope that crazy leakage finally gets fixed today!' he thinks, as he hops into his truck, backs out the driveway & heads to work. A pipeline burst at one shaft near the lift, flooding the central area at the top. Getting in & out of the mine has since become a pain. He has been supervising at an asbestos mine, at mid-managerial level, just shy of 13 years now. He has been working in it, overall, for 30 years.
The time is now 6.00 am & he is just arriving outside. As he puts his hard hat on & walks towards the mine, his foreman meets him, sarcastically jokes about how he did not get any last night again, then briefs him about the day. He takes a look at the roster, sifting through the pages of the activity log. 'Tunnel six approaching 80% completion'
'Whoa! If the guys keep it up at this rate, we will complete the project six weeks in advance.' he thinks to himself. 'Way to go, boys!'
Before he walks up the stairs to his office behind the main entrance, he looks over to his left & notices something he has not happy about at all. The central area is still flooded up & now leaking down the lift.
'Those contractors are in for it!'
Inside his office, he drops his gear in the closet, sinks into his office chair & begins collating last week's record on tunnel 5's output. He has been leading all project management since he was a foreman & despite his vast experience & nearly unblemished track record over his career, he still gets nervous whenever he is running a project. It's the same butterflies in his tummy he has not been able to get rid of, over the years. They've probably been responsible for his high performance, he reckons, so he is not particularly bothered.
three minutes go by & a tiny heap of reports have already piled up in front of him, on his heavily, document-littered desk; he still needs a few more before he meets his team, then phone the agency to break hell on the lousy contractors. Pictures of his daughter, when she was a child, hang behind him, on the wall. Portraits of his wife & son pose besides him. How time flies! Just yesterday, it seemed, he was throwing his daughter up in the air, as she always loved; now she is about to graduate from college, with a major in cybernetic engineering & $23,000 debts. And his son, now a freshman on full scholarship at a leading private university, doesn't stop calling & texting about the girl he's newly fallen for, whom he's this time convinced is the one.
Got it! The last pair of reports he'd been looking for. At the bottom of the pile as always, when you're searching for something. Now, off to brief the guys. He shuts his office door but suddenly feels dizzy & an incredible pain in his chest - like a heavyweight boxing match for the world title, trying to break out of it. He feels feverish at the same time & is, inexplicably, getting out of breath. The day hasn't even started & he usually only feels like this, half way through. It's been a couple of months now like this, but he's been shrugging it off as a normal thing that comes with age. At 59, he is entering a new phase in life & kissing his prime years goodbye.
It's at the point, where he almost gets off the stairs, that he notices how pale his hands are, after wiping sweat from his forehead. Barely able to breathe, he blanks out within a few split seconds & falls head-first to the ground, all the way from the last three steps of the staircase.
The next thing he realizes is that he's lying on a bed, without the usual sounds & noise in the atmosphere. 'The day couldn't possibly be over! Where did everybody go?'
Groggy, he opens his eyes, to notice he's actually not even at work anymore. He's in a private room that looks like a hospital. It's filled with machines, medical equipment, a large window behind him on the left... & his wife sitting next to him, holding his right hand. He really is in a hospital... yet has no idea how he got there!
A doctor then comes in & talks to his wife. She tells her she would like to keep him a while longer, for observation & to run a few tests. His wife becomes agitated & his right hand is now squeezed. 'What's wrong with him?' she asks the doctor, in a crackling voice. 'We don't know yet. At this point, it's too early to say. The tests will narrow down diagnostics & confirm what will have to be done.' the doctor replies. She continues, 'Your husband has been running a high fever, his pale skin suggests, among other possibilities, anemia. Because he's a miner, we're not going to rule out possibilities of developing rare forms of cancer that can be caused from inhaling asbestos.'
'My husband has been working in the mine over 30 years! He couldn't have any such thing!' the wife exclaims. The doctor looks at her a bit surprised about her naivety, then tactfully rebuts 'Alright, but such diseases, if they are present, do take a very long time to fully develop.', then pauses before she carries on. 'Well, like I said. We'll like to keep an open mind & run all necessary diagnostics as a precautionary measure... just to be sure! The tests will include but may not be limited to X-rays & CT/MRI scans. If all goes well, he should be out within a week!'
The miner closes his eyes again, in thought. 'Seven whole days! That should take the leakage off my back & drive some other clown crazy!'
The doctor leaves the room & he begins to relax more. His chest still feels tight, but the boxing match is over for now. It was a probably a draw! 'That fall should have taken me out. I feel like parts of my head are in a coma!' he mumbles. His wife, meanwhile seated next to him again, looks up to him in shock. 'You're lucky to even be alive! The foreman found you on the ground, lying face down from the stairs. The 1st Aid struggled to get you back until the ambulance came & this is the 1st thing coming out of your mouth?' she blurts out. She rapidly becomes so angry, her eyes fill with tears. She gets up, sharply turns away from him as she drops his hand in disgust, walks away from his bed, towards the door, leans her head back with both hands & breathes in deeply, then exhales, once. Great! Now, he's ticked her off. He closes his eyes again, returning to his thoughts. 'Fire in the hole! 3... 2... 1...'
She turns back to him, 'If I were given a moment for every time I have put myself out there for you whenever you were in need, I would get two consecutive lifetimes to make up for myself, you ungrateful,... ungrateful,... you...!!'
He senses he's going to have to diffuse the situation quickly or else the volcano will erupt! He gathers his strength, achingly leans forward and thereafter mumbles, 'Darling... I had no idea.' He stretches out his hand, 'Come on honey... I'm sorry!' His voice drenched in pain. She returns to her seat, wiping her cheeks, he lies back on his pillow & slowly exhales for a couple of seconds. 'Sheers! If I keep this up, I'll take myself out!'
They hold hands again.
A few days go by & the couple is still together in the hospital room. The swelling on his head from the fall has reduced & his fever is gone. His chest doesn't feel too great but he's sure it'll be fine. They just finished having lunch & are discussing how much time he'll take off before returning to work. The door opens, it's the doctor. They greet each other. His wife is not able to hide the smile on her face. She's made her mind up today that they'll be leaving, so she's only expecting good news from the results. The doctor converses with the miner & checks how he's feeling, while in the meantime another doctor walks in. A tall man, holding a large folder. The wife can't make out what's inside it but can recognize an X-ray sheet, peeking out. Instantly, without even trying to doubt herself, she concludes that it's turned out to be more serious than she first thought. Her mood free falls quicker than the '08 market crash. She struggles to keep a hold of her emotions again, sucking her lips in.
The doctor introduces the tall gentleman, 'This is our resident diagnostics officer here at Memorial Hope.' The officer politely nods at the couple, they nod back. She goes on, 'After several hours of examining with the best medical team in the area...' she pauses, then continues, 'I'm afraid we've come to the conclusion that your condition is far more serious than initially anticipated.'
The miner slowly gulps what must feel like an oz of saliva, in fear. He's as tough as can be & has taken his fair share of hits in life & kept going, but was honestly of the opinion they were, thank God, over. 'Wait!' he thinks. 'Don't thank him yet!'
The doctor then announces monotonously, 'Our results conclusively confirm that you have Mesothelioma, a terminal cancer that is affecting your lungs. It has already spread to more than half its area. At this stage, you won't have more than 8 months left!'
Immediately, the miner pants hard, then in the pain to speak, shouts to his wife, 'Get me a bin!'
His wife, already burst up tears, grabs the paper bin from the corner & holds it in front of him. He flings his head just over the ledge & throws up right into it. His wife pats him on the back, throughout. 'I'm really sorry! There's nothing we can do. We have put together a treatment plan that you will be undergoing, which includes ingesting medication to ease the pain.' the doctor says, trying to allay the despair in the hopelessness of the situation. The resident diagnostics officer, blushed with anguish, hunches down to his colleague & whispers, 'This may not be such a good time to show the results, right?'
The doctor, obviously irritated by what she had just heard, gestures hurriedly with her hand that he leave, then consoles the couple.
A few minutes & a bin full of fresh vomit later, the wife, now whimpering uncontrollably, mutters, 'We just finished push... paying our mortgage. Our kids are taken care of... we were looking forward to a holiday cruise! Ha... ha... what are we supposed to do now?', then cries heavily, all over again. This time being embraced by the middle-aged doctor. The wife sits down next to her husband when she gets a hold of herself again & clutches his hand, TIGHT! The miner responds, almost whispering, 'In all of my life, I never thought this would happen to me. It's always the other guy!' while looking out of the window.
It's a bright, sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect to have a picnic, stroll through the park - smell the roses!
At that moment, an eagle lands onto the ledge, outside. Both the doctor & the miner momentarily notice the bird, a bit taken aback. The eagle looks through the window into the room, as if lost & unable to find what it had come to see. Then, unanticipated, the miner & the eagle both lock eyes & observe each other for a moment! The eagle then flies away.
The miner is left with a subtle impression. A couple of seconds later, he turns back. He clears his voice calmly, fighting tears from his eyes as he looks at the doctor, then begins, 'Tell me doc... What can we do over the next period? Less than a year ain't a mighty long time!' He holds his face & finally breaks down to let the tears run their course. Joining his wife, who has been quietly sobbing all along. The doctor, now clearly affected by her patient's misfortune, despite her professional experience, takes a step to his bed.
'Find an attorney! Sue the pants off your employer! It's a long shot taking it up through the union & you don't enough time now anyway!' She stops abrupt, conscious of possibly being insensitive. 'I don't know how to say these things... just fight for your right through a good Mesothelioma lawyer. File a lawsuit that will make up for everything you've lost.'
She turns to the wife & squeezes her hand in sympathy, then looks on to the miner & says, 'You're in my prayers!', then leaves the room.
It's been four days since the diagnosis. The couple are out of hospital, the miner is with his wife at a prominent law firm, in the larger, neighboring town, 40 minutes drive away from home. They have been referred to the firm by the doctor, who personally inquired for a really good attorney from her 'friends at the top' of Memorial Hope Hospital. When she found one & contacted the lawyer, she pleaded that he handles their case pro bono, as a personal favor to her. In the phone call she said, 'They're really good people. Life can be so cruel sometimes. It's a crying shame what happened to them, a real tragedy!'
The couple just finished telling the lawyer their story. He's sitting at his desk, across them, in his corner office overlooking the metropolis skyline. He has been listening intently, without ever interrupting. All through the narration, he had been nodding, while twisting his Mont Blanc pen around his fingers. The miner's wife, who's meanwhile become cynically disposed to life itself, stares at the lawyer from her chair, almost menacingly. Her eyes are dreary but alert. It's evident she has been crying profusely over the past couple of days. The creases beneath her eyes are contoured deeper into her face & she now looks 10 years older. The miner himself is still pale, but now as composed as he usually is. There used to be a youthful vigor about him; that's all gone. Nowadays he appears frail; a shadow of his former self. Like a man his age, working in the service sector, or so.
The lawyer discreetly clears his throat. His face looks like he's in heavy brainstorming. Gently, he lays his pen in front of him. 'What has happened to you is a case of extreme worker negligence. You have been working in hazardous conditions, from which you were not personally protected in adequate measures, over your 30 year career. A rare disease which you could have been prevented from developing, now severely affects you & is in its final, terminal stages.' he says. 'This leaves you with leverage over your employer, to seek the maximum compensation for your losses, both health-wise & financial.'
Then he stops for a moment. The miner's wife, who in the past week has lost all of her natural optimism & become severely bitter from the cards life has played her, opens her eyes noticeably wider, despite her skepticism. The lawyer proceeds, 'There are four ways to go about this, one of which will be the most realistic method to get us to succeed in our legal proceedings. You have to understand that because your disease has developed so late, the other options may not have as great a chance to win your case as the actual one. Think of it like trying to accelerate a car from standstill, in the second gear or even third, if possible, when the highest & most effective amount of torque comes from the first gear.' The miner nods his head in understanding, knowing exactly what he means.
'Mesothelioma lawsuits are complex & every case is unique & cannot be generically given a one-size-fits-all solution. Cases can be broadly categorized in four areas, though. Product liability, professional malpractice, worker compensation & wrongful death. From what your doctor has already told me, in addition to your elaborate statements, I recommend we sue for worker compensation. It is the most befitting litigation in your circumstance so, to give you an example, it will be proven that the mining group would have exposed you to asbestos, illicitly during your job. The company will therefore be fully responsible for your tragic incident & will be made to pay a very high sum in compensation. If a strong case is made, which we will put forward, the management executives will have nowhere to run to, because even if they file for bankruptcy, federal injunctions could be pulled to effect the complete payment. It's bulletproof! And as a personal guarantee... I've been working in this field for 25 years. I understand it from the inside out. My reputation precedes me in the industry. I have strong ties with unions, agencies & health-care providers nationwide. I'm not saying this as an audition to you. I'm saying it because I want you to know who you're dealing with,... and what it means when I say that I'm going to personally make sure that you both get your entitled compensations to the maximum we can squeeze out of them. I'm going to do everything I can. Let's suck them dry... off the record!' The miner manages to reveal a relieved smile. His wife becomes elated, gets emotional again & rushes for some tissue out of her handbag, while she strenuously grips herself together again. With all the crying she has been doing ever since, you'd think she would have become good at it by now!
The miner reaches over & rubs her back. The lawyer had seen it all, but in all the years he had been working with asbestos victims, he's never been able to get over the raw nature of pure human emotion - the grief, the anguish he's experienced in every case. Every single one. Every one had a profound story to tell. None of the clients could truly understand WHY but they all shared one thing in common; they had all been afflicted by an ordeal so catastrophic, that simply none of them ever thought it would happen. But it did & that had become their reality.
The lawyer himself is doing fine. He owns a Carrera & a 5-bedroom, countryside villa in the high-brow parts of town. Business is good & he's been securing his retirement annually with well cared for investment portfolios. His wife, a former national beauty pageant finalist, owns & runs a thriving cosmetics retail chain, which spans across 3 countries. They have no kids. He's in his mid-sixties. He's developed a thick skin from weathering the failures & riding out the successes in the industry. Nonetheless, all his material wealth never totally insulated him from the powerful emotions of simple despair. Every time his clients 'had a moment', it psychologically scooped a chunk out of him as well. And no success can protect you from that! Like inhaling passive smoke: It sucks the life out of you in trickles, exponentially confirming your death sentence... by cancer.
Empathizing with the wife, the lawyer reaches into the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk, brings out a box of luxury tissues & hands it to the miner's wife. 'We thank you sir, we really appreciate your help!' the miner says as his wife grabs a handful of tissue out the box & tries to stop a seemingly unrelenting flow of tears. 'This is just a difficult time for us. We're faced with so much,...' the miner swallows, inhales & exhales once, then continues in his ailing voice; one that's had the joys of a long life evaporated from overnight, in large amounts. 'We don't know where to go from here, so we're just putting everything to God.' A shallow smile briefly surfaces on his face. 'He'll be our support!'
The lawyer adds, 'Given the extraordinary circumstance surrounding you, your doctor urged me to be lenient on your legal fees & I agree. I have therefore determined to represent you, as promised... pro bono!'
The miner flashes his eye-brows as his eyes light up. He clearly cannot believe what he had just heard. His wife, half way in control of her tears now, chips in with a slightly cynical undertone, 'He must be supporting us already!' as she chuckles, while her husband, keeping his eye-brows raised, smiles at her. The lawyer too, but in a defensive, guarded demeanor. 'God bless you, sir!' the miner says. His wife in a monologue speaks semi-melancholic, 'In the depths of your tribulations & miseries, an angel often appears...' Looking out the windows, she begins to hum melodically & drifts into an absence - her new found way of dissociation.
The lawyer presents the miner the contracts & goes over them, while regularly glancing at the miner's wife who seems to make no efforts to return to 'reality'. Her humming in the place she's at is just about good enough for her. She'll stay there a while, if only for a moment. It will summon the strength she needs in herself to continue living out this nightmare. A moment at a time. The miner signs in the spaces where the lawyer's index finger moves to. When he finishes, they both rise & shake hands while the miner's wife, dismayed snaps out of her spell. What could actually be worse: That place or reality?
She gets up while grabbing her husband's arm, braves a brief smile to the lawyer, without shaking hands with him. The couple make their way out of the modern office complex that houses several law firms, Consultancy, an accounting firm & an S.E.O. marketing company. All that swarms around are people in suits & business skirts, walking in & out of the entrance in a frenzy... followed by a couple of casually dressed, obvious geeks. Arm in arm, the senior pair closely hold each other, while they slowly walk through the parking lot to their truck. They gently enter the vehicle; his wife pulls out the keys & ignites the truck. It's an old Durango. They reverse out the parking space & make their way home.
A week later, a worker compensation lawsuit is filed against the mining group by the couple's lawyer. Five days later, the hearings begin, as promised. The lawyer forwards a powerful case against the defendant. The miner at first was at the opening of the case, but subsequently stopped appearing due to his treatments supervised by his doctor at Memorial Hope. His children were now also present with their parents throughout the medical schedule. They were told the news when their parents felt they had everything 'under control', much to the anger of their daughter. A week into his treatments, the miner stopped responding to medicines administered & deteriorated rapidly health-wise. At this point, he swiftly became hospitalized again. His family, not missing a single event, cried in torment through it all. Two days later, he passed on. His family mourned privately for days & buried him at the end of that week. If God rests on that day, they decided, he will too! They say when you die, your life flashes before you. It seems to be no different when someone you love dies, too. All you keep on seeing are pictures of every little, precious time you shared with that special person throughout your life together. Like they fill your mind up & all you see are real images & living memories of that person, in one gigantic, virtual reality simulation in a vivid, high-definition, cinematic experience in 3D.
During the legal proceedings, a further lawsuit was charged against the mining group. It was the litigation of 'wrongful death'. The family appeared at every court date throughout their inexplicable grief. After a period of four months, the jury, by unanimous decision found the defendant guilty on all charges & ordered them to pay an astronomical sum to the plaintiff's family, as well as to incur the legal fees of the entire case, in full. When the lawyer embraced the widow, her daughter & son, he said 'This case may have set a record in payouts from Mesothelioma litigation but it will never fill the canyon of loss you feel in your hearts. I just hope the river that flows at the bottom of it, will be a piece of mind you will reach to, once your pain is dispersed!'
The widow faintly looks up to him & replies 'Pain? The real judgment was already passed when my baby died.'
As she grabs her handbag & moves in front of her kids, she carries on 'We have already become sentenced to pain. We have just became its warden now... because money never takes away the pain of the loss of a loved one, but it may ease it.' As she slowly walks out of the courtroom corridor, her daughter, now the tallest in the family, wraps her arms around both her mom & her little brother.
Outside the courthouse, a small group of local reporters have amassed & haste towards the family upon first sighting. A barrage of questions are asked simultaneously while camera lights are flashing & an electronics store worth of microphones, phones & audio recorders are shoved in the family's faces, which visibly upsets the daughter as she tries to keep her cool. A security guard from the courthouse springs to their rescue & backs the reporters off. A question a journalist yells, behind the 6"6ft sturdy frame of the security guard, sounds, 'Do you feel you have been given justice?' At that point, the daughter, who can't control herself anymore, from the gross insensitivity of the press to their situation, stops, turns to the reporters & shouts 'Justice? What do you care? You'll get your story anyway! And the crimes will continue to be committed by other organizations that will make ten-fold in turnover of what is paid in our 'record' compensation. Another person gets infected & the cycle continues.' She breaks down into tears now & screams angrily, 'WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT MY DAD? HE'S JUST ANOTHER ASBESTOS & MESOTHELIOMA STATISTIC!'
(Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features herein are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if I use one of these terms.)
How Is Mesothelioma Acquired?
Mesothelioma is a deadly cancer than affects individuals who have been exposed to asbestos. Asbestos fibers are extremely dangerous and can pose major risks for anyone who comes into contact with them.
Asbestos has been used for years in many different products, especially construction and insulation. Although the risks were not well known in its earlier use, it is now a common topic with a vast amount of information available about it. Even so, many companies are still using this toxic material in trace amount in different products.
Once asbestos fibers are released into the air, they can either be inhaled or ingested by a human. At this point, the fibers can travel to any one of the main linings of the body. The pleura is a lining that surrounds and protects the lungs. If the asbestos fibers travel and lodge into this lining, a person will develop pleural mesothelioma. The peritoneum is a lining that surrounds and protects the abdominal cavity. If asbestos is ingested and travels to this delicate covering of the abdominal viscera, peritoneal mesothelioma will begin to develop. Finally, the third type of mesothelioma is pericardial mesothelioma. This cancer results when asbestos fibers lodge in the pericardium, or protective covering of the heart. Once the fibrous pieces of asbestos travel to any one of these major linings, they will become lodged and begin to produce carcinogenic scar tissue. At that point, mesothelioma is well on its way to causing numerous health problems.
The dormancy period of all types of mesothelioma is extremely long. This means that the time from exposure to the fibers until the appearance of symptoms can be anywhere from twenty to fifty years long. This fact makes treating mesothelioma extremely challenging because the cancer has normally progressed too far by the time of discovery. Also, the symptoms that come with each type of mesothelioma are similar to the symptoms that other major illnesses and diseases have as well. Most time, mesothelioma is misdiagnosed due to these symptom similarities. For example, pleural mesothelioma may cause shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, exercise intolerance and chest pain. These symptoms are the same symptoms that many major respiratory diseases cause as well. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthmatic bronchitis and emphysema all carry the same symptoms as pleural mesothelioma.
In any case, it is important to find a reputable oncologist that specializes in mesothelioma and the challenges that it brings with it. By doing this, the oncologist and patient can develop a treatment game plan and begin to fight this horrible cancer.
Treatments for Asbestos Poisoning
Asbestos poisoning, or asbestosis, is an illness caused by prolonged and constant exposure to asbestos particles. These sharp, fibrous particles-when inhaled-will puncture and penetrate lung tissues, causing deep scarring and often leading to chronic breathing problems and cancer. Exposure to asbestos or materials containing this mineral may also result to mesothelioma, a cancer unique to such situation that directly affects the protective lining of the major organs in the body. The gravity of asbestos poisoning is directly proportional to the period and concentration of one's exposure, and of course the treatment will depend on the extent of the damage caused by asbestos fibers and particles to the body.
The side effects and health problems brought on by exposure to asbestos do not immediately manifest. Usually, the illnesses will start popping up decades after an encounter with the hazardous mineral. You will only feel the debilitating effects of asbestos exposure twenty to thirty years from now.
People over 50 are the ones who usually exhibit symptoms of asbestos poisoning and mesothelioma. This is because of the long latency period of these illnesses, and also because asbestos was not regulated until several years ago.
Asbestosis is the least serious of all the diseases caused by exposure to asbestos. However, the symptoms and effects of this disease are not to be taken lightly, as they are debilitating and sometimes fatal. Coughing, chest pains, reduced physical stamina, and shortness of breath even while at rest are the typical symptoms of asbestosis-and they worsen over time. Over-the-counter medicines may temporary alleviate the symptoms, but it is recommended that one suffering from such problems consult a physician immediately.
The common "cures" for cancer such as chemotherapy, medication, and radiation therapy will extend the life expectancy of a person suffering from mesothelioma. Surgery can also be an option, though not recommended for people who have been extremely weakened by asbestos-related conditions. Mesothelioma is often fatal, because it is not diagnosed and discovered until the cancer has significantly advanced. It is highly aggressive and a doctor will often prescribe a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy to combat the development of the cancer.
The best treatment-especially for people who have not contracted the disease yet or have not exhibited the symptoms-is to avoid exposure to asbestos at all costs. This includes removing all traces of asbestos in one's environment. If you live in a house constructed in the 1940's and the 1950's, you might want to contact a professional immediately for inspection. Asbestos was not a regulated substance until several years ago, so you might find it in vintage items that have heat and fire-resistant qualities. Insulation materials installed in the roofs, attics, ceilings, and walls might also contain this deadly substance, but you cannot overlook its possible presence in furnaces, fireplaces, siding tiles, and even vinyl and rubber flooring tiles.
Asbestos removal is a job best left to the experts, who have the skills and knowledge on removing asbestos materials safely and decontaminating the structure right afterward.
Rabu, 07 September 2011
Selasa, 06 September 2011
Senin, 05 September 2011
Care for Mesothelioma Patients
All of us are going to die one day. This is a universal truth. We all are ready for it. But why should we die a premature death? And moreover when we are not responsible for the cause of the death. For someone else's benefit, a particular section of the society becomes victim of some deadly diseases.
Mesothelioma cancer is one such disease that can happen to anyone both you and me. But records state the major victims come from the worker class of the asbestos companies, shipping companies and construction yards including mines where asbestos is one of the major minerals dealt with. This is primarily a lung disorder that ultimately takes the shape of fatal cancer.
Caring a Mesothelioma patient is very tough. Caring here doesn't simply mean physical care. A Mesothelioma patient has to be given equal mental and emotional support to fight with the situation. Most of the time it has been observed that the patient completely loses faith in life.
Proper knowledge and guidance
Especially the near and dear ones of the patients must have adequate knowledge about the disease and also know what type of support should be given to the patient. There are doctors to look into the case but they are not available always. It is you who will be by the side of patient in his/her needs.
Treat the patient humbly and give him medicines and food at the right hour. The pain along the chest side is sometimes acute and unbearable. You must have an S.O.S. for instant relief. For Mesothelioma patients, morphine is a very good remedy. But a misconception prevails with the use of morphine and most of us refer it to be a sedative drug with other adverse side effects. Such preconceived notions have to be taken out of mind. Both the patient and the patient's relatives should have a positive mind setup and follow the doctor's prescription in an accurate manner. Otherwise you will welcome further troubles.
Well it is known to all of us that the Mesothelioma patient won't be able to sustain life with this cancer inside the body. But they too have every right to enjoy life till they close their eyes forever. Give them hope and happiness so that they live their life to the fullest even in this short time period. Let depression and despair not make shelter in their minds to blemish the rest of the days they are alive.
The Stages of Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma treatment is tailored uniquely for each individual patient. Often the stage of the malignant mesothelioma at diagnosis dictates treatment options. Staging of a particular disease also helps the medical team in not only planning treatment but also in prognosis estimation as well as in the identification of existing clinical trials that the patient may be eligible for. Three systems of staging are currently being used for pleural mesothelioma. None is being used for peritoneal mesothelioma.
Knowledge of how a particular cancer develops is pertinent to the process of staging. Certain staging systems cover only a specific cancer while others can be used to cover a variety of types. Some common elements are found in most staging systems, namely, location of the primary tumor, size of tumor, number of tumors, lymph node involvement, histology type, grade of tumor and presence of metastasis.
To determine accurately the stage of any cancer, physicians usually rely on a variety of techniques. These include physical examinations, imaging techniques including roentgenograms, CT scans, MRIs, and PET scans. Examination of the patient's blood, urine, serum and biopsy of tissues may also provide helpful clues. Tumor markers may also be used. Pathology reports are very helpful in providing information about the exact size of the tumor, the tumor's extension into neighboring structures, and the tumor's histology and grade. Surgical reports also render aid to staging.
The most common cancer staging system being used for mesothelioma is the TNM (primary tumor, regional lymph nodes, distant metastases) system. Stage I is assigned when the mesothelioma only involves pleura, ipsilateral lung, ipsilateral pericardium, and ipsilateral diaphragm. Lymph nodes are unaffected. Stage II is assigned when the mesothelioma has already involved the nearby hilar lymph nodes on the contralateral side. The lung, pericardium, or diaphragm on the contralateral side may also be involved. Stage III is assigned when the mesothelioma has spread to involve the chest wall, soft tissues, ribs, heart, esophagus and/or other organs in the chest cavity in the ipsilateral side. Lymph nodes may or may have not spread to the lymph nodes on the same side as the primary tumor. Stage IV is assigned when the disease has either already spread into the lymph nodes of the chest on the contralateral side of the primary tumor, extended to the contralateral pleura, or have extended to the organs in the abdominal cavity or neck. Presence of distant metastases is considered Stage IV.
The Butchart System is the oldest staging system for cancers. It is also the most commonly used system of staging for all types of cancer. The extent of the primary tumor mass is the main basis of this system. Stage I is assigned when mesothelioma is located in either pleura, or on the ipsilateral diaphragm. Stage II is assigned when the mesothelioma has spread into the chest wall, esophagus, heart or pleura on both sides. The lymph nodes in the chest may also be affected. Stage III is assigned when the mesothelioma has invaded the diaphragm and has reached the peritoneum. Lymph nodes outside the chest may also be involved. Stage IV is assigned when there is evidence of distant metastases.
The Brigham System is the latest system to be developed. Resectability and lymph node involvement is the basis of this system. Stage I is assigned when mesothelioma is still resectable, with no lymph node involvement. Stage II is assigned when mesothelioma is resectable but lymph nodes are involved. Stage III is assigned when the mesothelioma is unresectable, has spread to neighboring chest structures, and may or may not have extrathoracic lymph node involvement. Stage IV is assigned when there are distant metastases.
Information gleaned from these staging systems must be disclosed to patients. Patients reserve the right to know the exact state of their disease and all parties involved will benefit greatly when such disclosure is made.
What is Mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer found in the mesothelium, a covering that protects most of the body's internal organs. The mesothelium has two layers: one acts as skin to a certain organ and the other is like a sac that surrounds it. These layers produce lubrication so that organs can glide easily against each other. Example: the heart beats while the lungs expand and contract. Mesothelium is called 'pericardium' when covering the heart, 'pleura' when surrounding the lungs, and 'peritoneum' when lining the different organs in the abdomen.
What is Mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma is a malignant disease where cells of mesothelium act abnormal and divide uncontrollably. Most cases begin in the pleura and peritoneum. Pleural and Peritoneal Mesothelioma are common forms of this rare cancer. Although still considered uncommon, the disease often occurs to individuals who have been exposed to asbestos at work. At least about 70 to 80 percent of cases are caused by asbestos exposure. However, some cases have no known causes.
Commercial use of asbestos had begun in the late 1800s and increased during World War II. Millions of American workers were exposed to asbestos dust. People who worked in asbestos mines and mills, factories that produce asbestos products, and the heating and construction industries have greater risk to develop the cancer. Families who lived with asbestos workers are also at risk.
Common symptoms of the disease, which usually appear 30 to 50 years after exposure to asbestos, include: shortness of breath, pain in the chest, weight loss, abdominal pain, swelling of the abdomen, bowel obstruction, abnormal blood clotting, anemia, fever, trouble in swallowing, pain, and swelling of neck and face.
Diagnosing can be difficult because most symptoms resemble other conditions. Medical tests like x-rays, CT scan, MRI, and biopsy are performed on the patient so the disease can be confirmed. After diagnosing, the doctor will then determine how far the cancer has spread. Unfortunately, the disease is not curable. Several treatment options are available: chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery.
Asbestos Mesothelioma
Asbestos is a fibrous material that was often used for it's
great insulating properties. When intact, the fibers perform effectively and
provide no danger to humans. However, the fibrous material breaks down
tremendously with age, and when the individual fibers are inhaled into the
lungs, asbestosis may occur in exposed individuals. Asbestosis is a condition
where the lungs develop scar tissue.
great insulating properties. When intact, the fibers perform effectively and
provide no danger to humans. However, the fibrous material breaks down
tremendously with age, and when the individual fibers are inhaled into the
lungs, asbestosis may occur in exposed individuals. Asbestosis is a condition
where the lungs develop scar tissue.
This scarring can and in most cases does result in the
onset of Asbestos Mesothelioma. One of the most dangerous cancers known to the
medical community, this condition has been the reason for controversy
surrounding the use of asbestos at all. Generally, buildings with asbestos
require complete removal and quarantine of all materials until inspections are
performed.
onset of Asbestos Mesothelioma. One of the most dangerous cancers known to the
medical community, this condition has been the reason for controversy
surrounding the use of asbestos at all. Generally, buildings with asbestos
require complete removal and quarantine of all materials until inspections are
performed.
In this type of cancer, the lining of the lungs becomes
inflamed, cells grow abnormally and the condition is extremely painful for the
patient. The condition can be either benign or malignant, both requiring
treatment although only the malignant variety is known to spread to surrounding
tissues and organs in the body.
inflamed, cells grow abnormally and the condition is extremely painful for the
patient. The condition can be either benign or malignant, both requiring
treatment although only the malignant variety is known to spread to surrounding
tissues and organs in the body.
The incubation period for this type of cancer can range
from twenty to fifty years from the time of exposure. Many new cases are being
discovered every day, however the number of new cases is anticipated to heavily
decline as a result of removal and regulatory efforts regarding the use of
asbestos.
from twenty to fifty years from the time of exposure. Many new cases are being
discovered every day, however the number of new cases is anticipated to heavily
decline as a result of removal and regulatory efforts regarding the use of
asbestos.
Shortness of breath and chest pain are the two most
commonly reported signs of asbestos Mesothelioma, however other symptoms may
include rapid weight loss, abdominal pain and swelling, anemia, bowel
obstruction and unexplained fevers. If you were ever exposed to asbestos and
you experience these symptoms it is imperative to get to a doctor as soon as
possible for testing.
commonly reported signs of asbestos Mesothelioma, however other symptoms may
include rapid weight loss, abdominal pain and swelling, anemia, bowel
obstruction and unexplained fevers. If you were ever exposed to asbestos and
you experience these symptoms it is imperative to get to a doctor as soon as
possible for testing.
If the cancer has spread, you may also experience trouble
swallowing or facial swelling and pain.
swallowing or facial swelling and pain.
Treatment for this type of cancer will vary on the patient,
their general health and the stage of the disease. Commonly used treatment
options are chemotherapy, radiation and in some cases surgery. Prognosis will be
determined after complete testing, and will depend on the severity of the
cancer.
their general health and the stage of the disease. Commonly used treatment
options are chemotherapy, radiation and in some cases surgery. Prognosis will be
determined after complete testing, and will depend on the severity of the
cancer.
Mesothelioma - for terms page
Mesothelioma is cancer within the lining cells of the
lungs, and the chest cavity (peritoneum) or the lining of the heart
(pericardium). Generally, patients diagnosed with Mesothelioma have at some
point in their lives come in contact with asbestos, either at home or at their
jobs. Unfortunately, it takes many years for cancer to develop in these cases
and people who were exposed as long as 50 years ago are just now being
diagnosed. This is a very controversial cancer, resulting in many legislation
changes regarding the use of asbestos and many lawsuits against the companies
that continued to use the substance knowing it presented a potential serious
hazard.
lungs, and the chest cavity (peritoneum) or the lining of the heart
(pericardium). Generally, patients diagnosed with Mesothelioma have at some
point in their lives come in contact with asbestos, either at home or at their
jobs. Unfortunately, it takes many years for cancer to develop in these cases
and people who were exposed as long as 50 years ago are just now being
diagnosed. This is a very controversial cancer, resulting in many legislation
changes regarding the use of asbestos and many lawsuits against the companies
that continued to use the substance knowing it presented a potential serious
hazard.
Cancer Resource: Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that develops in the lining of the organs and internal body cavity, a membrane known as the mesothelium. The main cause of mesothelioma is prolonged exposure to asbestos, which has been used in the construction industry, shipbuilding, and even in vehicle brakes. The most common place inside the body where mesothelioma occurs is the outer lining of the lungs but it can also occur in the lining of the heart, the membrane of the abdominal cavity, and the tunica vaginalis. Mesothelioma was first recognized in the 18th century, but it wasn’t until the 20th century that the causes and characteristics of the disease were more fully understood.
Mesothelioma is an extremely aggressive and painful malignancy, causing pain and discomfort in locations such as the chest and abdomen. Other symptoms of the disease include blood in the patient's cough, fluid effusion in patient's lung, shortness of breath, fatigue and wheezing. If the cancer is not detected early enough, it could metastasize (spread to other organs in the body), and develop into extensive disease. The majority of mesothelioma cancers do not spread to the brain, bones, or the adrenal glands. Other signs and symptoms that many mesothelioma patients suffer from include any of the following:
- Pain in the chest or abdomen
- Weight loss
- Bowel obstruction
- Low blood sugar levels
- Blood clotting
- Jaundice
- Severe internal bleeding
Diagnosis of mesothelioma can be difficult for most medical professionals because the signs and symptoms are so closely related to those of other thoracic diseases and malignancies. Doctors will rely on the patient to provide them with any information regarding a working history with asbestos. Asbestos is a mineral that was used in a number of different industrial capacities as an insulation and durability component until being regulated in the late 1970s.
There are four types of mesothelioma: pleural (which accounts for 75 percent of all cases and surrounds the lining of the lungs), peritoneal (which forms in the lining of the abdominal cavity and accounts for roughly 10 to 20 percent of all cases), pericardial (which occurs in the membrane of the heart and occurs only in one to five percent of all cases) and testicular (which occurs in the lining around the testicles and is the rarest form, with only 100 cases ever recorded).
The three most common methods of treatment for mesothelioma include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Depending on the size of the tumor and the location, the patient may elect to use either one or more of these methods to effectively treat the disease. There is no cure for mesothelioma.
Langganan:
Komentar (Atom)