Hi Missy Moo I assume you meant to put more than a heading there! However the answer is that lots of people have children after cancer, some of them contribute to this site. However, it depends on the type of cancer and a lot of other factors. However, this is something that should have been discussed with you before you began your treatment and if there was the risk that you could end up infertile, then various options should have been made available to you. Might be an idea to have a chat to those wonderful people at the Cancer Helpline 13 11 20. cheers Sailor Have you stood by the ocean on a diamond hard morning And felt the horizon stir deep in your soul? Eric Bogle, Safe in the Harbour ... View more

Hi Cancer Survivor There has been a great study done on the crossover from public to private and vice versa. You can read it at http://www.nemics.org.au/Display.aspx?tabid=2734 - click on the "Pathways of Cancer Care line ----" You will find it very interesting. Many people think that by going private they will get treated more quickly and get better care. Unfortunately that is not always the case as was your experience. Cheers Sailor At sea, the boat is the professional and the crew are amateurs...Anon ... View more

Hi Carolyn2 When I was talking about rights I was doing so from my understanding of the legal situation. Apparently we do not have the legal right to demand treatment, but it is our right to see another treating doctor. However, if we are refused treatment and it turns out that we were correct and should have had treatment then we can resort to taking action against them. Cheers Sailor If in doubt, stay out to sea. No one has ever gone aground on a wave. Anon ... View more

Exactly Harker What were you thinking! Still I hope that it works out and that you don't get too knackered! Cheers Sailor . . . there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim ... View more

Hi Kingswood Kid Your dental work does not have to be caused by cancer! You just have to have a chronic illness and cancer is now classified as a chronic illness. Your GP has to write up a care plan - this will take an extended visit. It is about $4500 Details are at http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/provider/medicare/initiatives/teen-dental.jsp Cheers Sailor A collision at sea can ruin your entire day. Attrib Thucydides, 5th Century BC ... View more

Hi Vinouche A cancer nurse once said to me "you know, we are really good at making people look well". You can be feeling absolutely awful, fatigued and just wanting to die and people tell you how well you look. Don;t feel a fraud, just be thankful that it is not as bad as it might be. Take it slowly, one day at a time. cheers Sailor Ah to throw off the shackles and fly with the seagulls To where the green waves tumble before a driving sea wind. Eric Bogle, Safe in the Harbour ... View more

Hi there Barbe, Just a bit of reverse sexism - they have "Look Good, Feel Good" programs for men as well. Not sure about the cosmetic industry sponsorship? I saw a flyer about one when I was in a Cancer Council Office last week. Cheers Sailor At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect. Herman Melville ... View more

Hi Dizzy Dee As Nickij says, medicine is not an exact science, and no matter how good scans are they can only reveal so much. Use the Cancer Helpline 13 11 20 to, as Nickij says, get as much information as you can so that you can help your Dad as much as possible. Don't be afraid to dump your anger and other emotions on this site, it is a good place to do it. Pancreatic cancer is not a common cancer so try to get him to see specialists at a specialist cancer hospital or major hospital that has a big cancer centre. Look after yourself as well as your Dad will need you. Take care. Sailor Never go into strange places on a falling tide without a pilot. Thomas Gibson Bowles ... View more

G'day Chris, I have no medical qualifications, just knowledge that I have collected over the years, so I cannot comment on why your dad's dose has been changed. You need to ask his clinicians. Some years ago I was in acute pain, hallucinating and vomiting from the pain medication subscribed. My gentle specialist put me on another pain management regime and explained to me that the aim of it was to prevent the pain breaking through. If it did break through it was more difficult to control. Well it worked for me. So maybe that is what they are trying to do for your Dad and that is why he does not have pain or nausea. If it is be thankful. However, as I said, you need to ask his clinicians. Cheers Sailor At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much. Robin Lee Graham
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Hi there, Yes CT's can deliver a significant dose of radiation, but so can a whole range of other things, including just living. It is one of those thing where we have to balance cost versus benefit. There are also a lot of assumptions being made that people don't get told. The big assumption is that there is a linear relationship between radiation dose received and cancer risk. That appears to hold true for high doses of radiation and the evidence for this comes from atomic bomb survivors and nuclear accident survivors. When it is low doses the evidence is less clear. Most dose response curves for radiation or chemical expose look like a flattened letter 'S'. At low dose there is little response, then it goes through a region where the response is linear, then it flattens off. The problem is that you can't predict from the linear part of the curve, what will happen down at low dose, and collecting data at low dose is difficult and takes a long time. All of us are exposed to radiation all the time - it is called the background radiation. It ranges, depending on where you live, from 1 - 3 milli Sieverts a year. (A Sievert is the measure of the biological effects of radiation - shortened to Sv). Flying from Sydney to Singapore delivers about 17 micro Sv. From Sydney to London about 60 micro Sv. Flights crews build up about 5 milli Sv for each 1000 hours of flying. A standard chest X-ray is about 0.1 milli Sv, or 100 micro Sv. A full body CT is about 10 milli Sv (3 - 4 times background radiation) and a mammogram is about 3 milli Sv. Balanced against that is the benefit is terms of better imaging and diagnosis. Does this increase cancer risk. The correct answer is that we do not know, it might, so it pays to be cautious. Is MRI safe - again we do not know as MRI involves fluctuating magnetic field and radio-frequency radiation. At this stage there is no good evidence that these may have cancerous side effects, but many people believe that they could. So it plays to be cautious there as well. So, as said before, there is huge benefit from these procedures, but there is also some risk. The question is more like, 'if these procedures can help give me a good quality of life for the next ten, twenty, thirty or forty years, with some small risk of a second cancer in that time, whereas the alternative is to die from cancer in five years, which will I choose?' . To me that's a bit of a no-brainer. Cheers Sailor Even with the best charts, we are cautious about fixing our position, for it is so easy to goof. And the easiest way of all is by taking a mark, assuming it is the right one, and ignoring any others that may be in sight. 
Patrick Ellam ... View more