Cut to the chase
This is going to be a serious post and maybe a bit of a rant. First I’m giving you a bit of background.
It’s virtually impossible to make a living as an artist. There are thousands of talented artists who will end up doing it only as a hobby, or horror, teaching. If a painting is on sale in a gallery for, say £3000, when sold the artist gets about 40 or 50%. It may have taken anything from two months to a year to produce the piece – so most of us do all sorts of odd jobs to make a living, while producing work to show in the hope that one day we too will be like Lucien Freud. As well as sometimes being fun and glamorous, the art world is harsh and hard, lots of nepotism and sometimes lots of undeserved success to the untalented by virtue of the right connections. Anyway, that’s the background. (And maybe another post one day!)
I have done lots of different jobs, bar work, restaurant work, but the most lucrative, and the most boring, is office work – which I am doing at present and I have been in this job for several months. I have become very fond of some of my colleagues. Now for the serious part.
One of my colleagues has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is apparently one of the worst you can get, with a 2% survival rate after one year. He is being offered little help from the medics other than palliative care, as current treatments are not only expensive but have uncertain survival rates. I have been helping him trawl the internet for every scrap of information available and have come with up with some potentially very exciting new treatments and trials, in France, Italy, and America – the American one is having a 90% success rate with previously hopeless and inoperable pancreatic cancer cases - and the more I look the more stuff I find. All seem to provide part solutions, so a combination of several could not only provide increased lifespan, but perhaps a cure.
I find it enormously frustrating that all these disparate researchers can’t get their information and treatments in a central base for the greater good of mankind – instead of which each one wants to be THE person to get the credit, to get the most cash from a drug company, to get the Nobel or whatever. I do know similar things occur in all aspects of medicine, and in the cosmeceuticals industry, but surely for dread diseases they could cut out the shit and pool their research. They could still get recognition for their individual efforts. I realise that I would stop at nothing to get through all this red tape if it meant a chance for one of my loved ones. Rant over!
UPDATE:
He has had the first stage, i.e. they have put "markers" (proper name is something like fiducals?) into the area, he goes back to San Francisco this weekend for next stage - the actual cyber or gamma knife which is a robotic device that zaps the tumours. He was a very large bloke last August, but is now losing weight steadily, has lost about 40 kilos in total, which would be a good thing if it wasn't through illness. Everybody keeps telling him how well he looks with the weight loss, if only they knew. I am keeping all my fingers crossed, but I think at this stage he needs a miracle.
This is going to be a serious post and maybe a bit of a rant. First I’m giving you a bit of background.
It’s virtually impossible to make a living as an artist. There are thousands of talented artists who will end up doing it only as a hobby, or horror, teaching. If a painting is on sale in a gallery for, say £3000, when sold the artist gets about 40 or 50%. It may have taken anything from two months to a year to produce the piece – so most of us do all sorts of odd jobs to make a living, while producing work to show in the hope that one day we too will be like Lucien Freud. As well as sometimes being fun and glamorous, the art world is harsh and hard, lots of nepotism and sometimes lots of undeserved success to the untalented by virtue of the right connections. Anyway, that’s the background. (And maybe another post one day!)
I have done lots of different jobs, bar work, restaurant work, but the most lucrative, and the most boring, is office work – which I am doing at present and I have been in this job for several months. I have become very fond of some of my colleagues. Now for the serious part.
One of my colleagues has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is apparently one of the worst you can get, with a 2% survival rate after one year. He is being offered little help from the medics other than palliative care, as current treatments are not only expensive but have uncertain survival rates. I have been helping him trawl the internet for every scrap of information available and have come with up with some potentially very exciting new treatments and trials, in France, Italy, and America – the American one is having a 90% success rate with previously hopeless and inoperable pancreatic cancer cases - and the more I look the more stuff I find. All seem to provide part solutions, so a combination of several could not only provide increased lifespan, but perhaps a cure.
I find it enormously frustrating that all these disparate researchers can’t get their information and treatments in a central base for the greater good of mankind – instead of which each one wants to be THE person to get the credit, to get the most cash from a drug company, to get the Nobel or whatever. I do know similar things occur in all aspects of medicine, and in the cosmeceuticals industry, but surely for dread diseases they could cut out the shit and pool their research. They could still get recognition for their individual efforts. I realise that I would stop at nothing to get through all this red tape if it meant a chance for one of my loved ones. Rant over!
UPDATE:
He has had the first stage, i.e. they have put "markers" (proper name is something like fiducals?) into the area, he goes back to San Francisco this weekend for next stage - the actual cyber or gamma knife which is a robotic device that zaps the tumours. He was a very large bloke last August, but is now losing weight steadily, has lost about 40 kilos in total, which would be a good thing if it wasn't through illness. Everybody keeps telling him how well he looks with the weight loss, if only they knew. I am keeping all my fingers crossed, but I think at this stage he needs a miracle.
posted by SheBah at 4:38 AM
8 Comments:
You're right, of course. I deal with medical legal issues all the time. There are so many impediments to treatment for illness, some of which you describe. Another, at least in the U.S. is the fear that if a treatment doesn't work, some lawyer will crawl out of the woodwork and sue. (Yes, I'm a lawyer. But I defend B.S. lawsuits.)
Meanwhile, promising treatment regimens remain untried.
My thoughts and prayers are with your collegue.
P.S. I intended to ask your permission to link to your page. This post, seems too serious for that, but I'll do it anyway.
RDS
You're correct, about both things. I work in 'the arts' and it is a long hard slog to get anywhere and even when you do make some inroads into the industry you have to constantly strive to stay at whatever level you clawed your way up to.
On the subject of cancer, I have long held the view that researchers are so busy trying to top each other for recognition, grants and funding that a lot of the time the real object frequently gets side lined.
I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. X
R.sherman - thanks for link. My colleague is flying to San Francisco tomorrow - he has an appointment at Stanford/Stamford (?) to try some new treatment called a cyber knife - all my fingers are crossed.
FMC -imagine the frustration, knowing there is something that might work and not being able to get your hands on it!
San Francisco? He'll be in my part of the world! If he needs anything while he's in SF, let me know. I hope they can help him... it's so frustrating the way the systems work anymore. You'd think that helping people would be the priority, but it's not, like you said. Oh, and it's Stanford, btw.
I'm with you on both parts of your rant, Sexy -- it sucks to have to do what I really love as a hobby because I couldn't make a living writing without whoring myself for contracts and reviews... aah life.
Medical research is populated with egos as much as any other professional field. I share your anger and frustration that more isn't being done to centralise the efforts of researchers. But whilst it is true that ambition plays a role, (almost) all academic research at least is published into the public domain, which in itself is a form of centralisation. Private companies do not need to publish, and we are all at the mercy of their internal structures when it comes to the process of drug development and testing. Trials of new drugs take an inordinate amount of time to set up due to the various (an necessary) safety procedures. It is a good sign if these new treatments for pancreatic cancer have a high success rate, and I sincerely hope that your friend will benefit.
Thank you Lindy and Dr Joseph. Will keep you updated on this thread on his progress - who knows, it might help somebody else!
This has bothered me for a long time. With close family in the States and France we are often made aware of the many differences in treatment for similar or the same diseases.
It is so obvious how it would be for the greater good if they would only join forces. What's stopping them?
Here's hoping your friend has a successful journey
I am sorry for your friend. Love him and cook healthy for him. It's amazing how cancer can sometimes be held at bay by friendly love and care.
Above all have faith in the good.
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