Steve Jobs Regretted Early Decision to Delay Cancer Surgery

[chuckles:)]

Why are all innovative people also so eccentric?

 

[BoxerGT2.5]

Nothing sad or tragic about it. We're all responsible for ourselves and make our own healthcare decisions. He made the choice about what path was best for him. What makes anyone think he wasn't ok with dieing sooner rather than later if it was done his way.

 

[Aspasia]

It may well be that the world will continue to benefit from Steve's genius, but in a different area:

The DNA sequencing that Mr. Jobs ultimately went through was done by a collaboration of teams at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT. The sequencing, Mr. Isaacson writes, allowed doctors to tailor drugs and target them to the defective molecular pathways.

A doctor told Mr. Jobs that the pioneering treatments of the kind he was undergoing would soon make most types of cancer a manageable chronic disease. Later, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson that he was either going be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/technology/book-offers-new-details-of-jobs-cancer-fight.html

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

My mother-in-law has a cancer very similar to Steve's and she has considered surgery but the problem is that they can't find the damn tumor. There is not one defined tumor...

They have ways of tagging the tumors with a certain radioactive tagged hormone and the issue is that because it's not a 'stomach' cancer, or a 'pancreatic' cancer, or a 'liver' cancer, they get radiological 'hits' all over her 'guts'.

One surgeon said that in order to 'get the tumor', they would have to "gut her like a fish".

It's a neuro-endocrine tumor. The endocrine system is something that runs through many other systems in the body. Perhaps Steve's was centered more in his liver and that is why they went for it. For my mother-in-law, hers is in her stomach, her duodenum, her pancreas, and her liver. Well, you *can* live without one of those organs, but if all were taken out, well, she'd be basically so fragile she wouldn't live more than a few days or weeks possibly.

Neuro-endocrine tumors are very insidious and nasty... Some are nearly instant killers as alluded to in Steve's story, and some are so slow that people die of old age before the tumor does them in.

One of the side issues is the question of whether this is a 'new' cancer, or something that has happened since the dawn of time and medical technology has caught up with it and identified it. So far, there is no 'magic bullet' to cure it. Some people go into remission and never have issues again. Others progress to the more dangerous type. Still others die from complications and 'folk remedies' and 'experimental treatments' that either makes things worse, or are so toxic due to the side effects or complications that they kill people...

One other thing is that there is a certain amount of resentment from the neuro-endocrine tumor groups that feel that Steve could have used his stature and personality to help bring focus and funding to the institutes and other groups working for a better understanding of this insidious cancer and potentially a leg up on finding a cure or an effective treatment.

I can imagine what Steve and his family went through.

It's not an easy road. My mother-n-law has good days and bad. She's gone through hell of different treatments and biopsies and crushed hope. The leading expert in the US has seen her and just feels helpless in the amount of people that are in her, and worse, spots with this disease...

If only there were any clues... More research is needed to be sure. She's very depressed that Steve has died.

EDIT: One of the studies that they did early on found literally thousands of small 'spots' across her pancreas and stomach. The doctor described it as 'coffee grounds' or 'bird shot' spread over both organs with some hits in the liver. There was no single tumor. She also developed what amounts to a cancer of the acid producing cells in her stomach. Literally its as if her stomach was full of food, all of the time. She was literally eating herself inside out from the acid production. So then you do the antacids hard and they produce profound side effects and they cause other health issues... She's now on a different therapy that totally shuts down her acid production and that in itself causes some major issues...

A large part of me imagines Steve going through this struggle and I admire him for his personal strength for not letting it show, but I'm sure that his pain and struggle was taking a toll on him, and now it's over and he can rest at ease... His suffering is done.

 

[SkippyThorson]

Sinatra comes to mind.
I did it MY WAY.

I said just that in an earlier thread. I completely agree.

 

[racer1441]

I ordered this book - as a book actually, not a e-book.

Still not sure I'm going to read it. I still haven't really dealt with the passing - not that I knew him or anything, but it was an impact on me for some reason. Not sure if I'm ready to relive his passing through his own eyes.

 

[jca666us]

Steve made the right decision to delay

For himself.

Seeing as Steve was a highly independent person, probably the last thing he wanted was to be operated on and end up becoming highly dependent upon others.

With that type of mindset, death would be preferable to dependence.

 

[gri]

I am very curious what "medical profession" you are a part of? Cancer can rarely if ever be considered "curable".... especially with any form of pancreatic cancer! Better survival rate, maybe. But not cured.

and secondly to the first poster Gri... why would you phrase something in those words on a non-medical forum? It irritates me to the bone when people show off their medical knowledge by using terminology ignorantly. If your not an oncologist or even a doc, don't present yourself as one! And if you are, then phases like that can do more harm to educate the public than good.

...

Sorry to disappoint but I am an MD, PhD and I work as an oncologic radiologist (and cancer researcher) in one of the largest and most advanced cancer-specialized hospitals in the world. I see patients with his kind of tumor frequently (scans, but I know their medical history from the files and I read their follow-up scans). To state that cancer can rarely if ever be cured demonstrates a lack of knowledge in the field. The only more medially term really by me was "adjuvant" but even that should be clear with some common knowledge. Where my phrases can cause harm has to be explained to me.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

Even the smartest people can be idiots and he was. Death violated his body even more.

 

[nsayer]

So what it comes down to is that Steve Jobs died of pig-headed stupidity. What a sad, horrible waste.

And before anyone wishes cancer on me, let me say without equivocation that if I do get cancer, and my doctor suggests surgery to fix it, I'll tell him to quit talking and start cutting.

Perhaps that might be Steve's final gift to mankind - the gift of the immortal lesson "don't let this happen to you."

 

[charlituna]

While this is all speculation, in general, with cancer, the earlier it's detected and treated, the better one's prospects. It might not have completely cured it (cancer is a vicious disease), acting sooner might have given him another month, year, decade or longer.

Or perhaps not. That's the crazy thing with cancer. You can do everything 'right' and still be dead in 5 years or even less.

Or he could have jumped into surgery the moment he was told what was happening, been 'cured' and a year later his car is hit by a drunk driver and he's DOA at the hospital.

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As a medic I can tell you a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is sadly like a ticking time bomb.

As a medic you also know that said time bomb is still ticking even if you have surgery right away.

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Isaacson replies, "I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking...we talked about this a lot," he tells Kroft. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it....I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."

I'm looking forward to read the book, although it's hard to tell which are the exact words straight from Steve Jobs, and which are the author's interpretation of what the man thinks.

Personally I hope he doesn't do any interpretation of the facts in the book. Tell me what Steve said but telling me what you think he is saying is just gossip and trash and I"ll have no issues with returning the book and getting my money back and never buying anything else that Mr Isaacson has written

 

[EricNau]

Or perhaps not. That's the crazy thing with cancer. You can do everything 'right' and still be dead in 5 years or even less.

Or he could have jumped into surgery the moment he was told what was happening, been 'cured' and a year later his car is hit by a drunk driver and he's DOA at the hospital.

That may be true, but it doesn't justify delaying possibly life-saving cancer treatment.

I've never heard of a cancer patient, upon hearing their diagnosis for the first time, respond with, "oh, who cares; I could be killed in a car crash tomorrow."

 

[charlituna]

That may be true, but it doesn't justify delaying possibly life-saving cancer treatment.

You can try to justify or vilify it all you want but it doesn't change one simple fact. The man is dead and very well could have been dead from the cancer or something else well before this.

I suspect that the extremely private Mr Jobs who didn't want his personal life spread all over the Internet would prefer that folks show his family a modicum of respect and nix all these threads, if we could actually ask him

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I am reminded of Jim Henson, who Apple featured in their "Think Different" campaign, died after putting off medical attention as well.

No he didn't. He went to the doctor who found no signs of anything major wrong and told him to go home and take some aspirin. As noted in the article you linked to. So if a medical professional told him it was nothing serious why would he be expected to think otherwise. And just like with Jobs, by the time anyone actually saw the signs of what was going on, it could have already been too late. A few hours might not have made a difference with Henson any more than a few months might have with Jobs

 

[EricNau]

Personally I hope he doesn't do any interpretation of the facts in the book. Tell me what Steve said but telling me what you think he is saying is just gossip and trash and I"ll have no issues with returning the book and getting my money back and never buying anything else that Mr Isaacson has written

Why wouldn't Isaacson's interpretations of Job's statements and interviews be meaningful? Certainly you don't just want a book of nothing but Steve Jobs quotes?

You can't have a good biography written by an author who isn't able to read between the lines. That's the whole point of the trade: take a few interviews, stories, and documents, and turn it into an accurate portrayal of someone's life. That requires interpretation.

You can try to justify or vilify it all you want but it doesn't change one simple fact. The man is dead and very well could have been dead from the cancer or something else well before this.

True. But what does that attitude accomplish? Why do we educate our children? They could be killed my a plummeting satellite tomorrow.

Like I said, your statements are accurate, but I don't see how they're relevant. As you said, there's the chance that Steve would have died anyway; but if Steve had had the surgery in a timely manner, it's also possible that he would be alive and cancer free today.

I suspect that the extremely private Mr Jobs who didn't want his personal life spread all over the Internet would prefer that folks show his family a modicum of respect and nix all these threads, if we could actually ask him

Steve had his entire life written into a book; this is exactly one of the stories he wanted the public to know.

 

[PittAir]

I posted this on 9 to 5 Mac, and I will repost it here.

It is surprising how little tech people know about modern cancer biology.

These are people who are insanely smart and up to date when it comes to engineering and computer science but appear to be completely lost when it comes to cancer.

Maybe that's the effect cancer has on people in the 21st century--it's a great evil mystery.

Let me try an analogy.

Steve Jobs cancer was like a computer virus. Even if you wipe the drive of the original infected computer, the virus has already spread to other computers. Does it matter if you disinfect the drive after one day, or one year? The virus likely was passed to the next computer fairly quickly, within a day of infection--so it doesn't matter. There are other viruses that infect once, and do not spread--that was not Mr. Jobs cancer.

That in a nutshell explains most cancer metastasis. Our problem is we don't generally know which cancers spread, and which don't--but the decision to spread occurs early on, just like many computer viruses.

To Gri (a poster on this thread): I am glad you are a radiotherapist. I work with many of them closely, and they are very bright. In this case, I am sure you get the analogy. Islet cell tumors 2/3 of the time have distant spread at diagnosis, and the median survival is about 5-6 years. It was the innate biology of his disease, and the lack of effective systemic treatment, that likely resulted in this ultimate outcome.

 

[2IS]

It's amazing what a different mindset I am from that.

If I found out I had cancer I'd ask the doc "um, can you cut me open like now?"

Sad when a good person could have possibly bought some more time by acting quicker.

Agreed. It's one thing to experiment with naturopathic/alternative medicine for a cold or other non life-threatening medical issues, but CANCER!?!? Pancreatic at that which has an extremely high mortality rate. C'mon SJ, even I know you aren't going to poop the tumor out...

 

[2IS]

On the contrary even if he undergo such treatment if it’s really his time to go what had happened will still happen…we can’t fight our fate.

Ease up on the BS.

You're essentially saying he could have not had any treatment at all and would have still died the same day.

 

[Thomas P.]

I wonder how can one delay such an important surgery for this much time. I wonder why the doctor let him do so. Cancer is not about delaying things for months, even delaying a surgery for a month or so can cause serious problems. I think that was very wrong decision on his side, he could have lived a lil more.

 

[doug in albq]

CANCER DOCTORS CAUSE MOST CANCER. AVOID THEM.


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whatever happened to "Think Different"

I think the idea died with Steve...

If anything, Steve regretted letting the Doctors slice him up. Same old story...oh, if we could have caught it earlier.

See how many people, especially in the USA, are acquiring cancer these days, and at earlier and earlier age in life. Seems like some type of BS going on around here these days...sad times. The Japanese rarely get cancer because of their great diet. Only when the Japanese started eating more like Americans did their rates of cancer go up.


I see malice and hate in the eyes of Isaacson. His words cannot be trusted, IMHO.

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I think the mistake that people are making here is to judge someone's personal decision with the easy benefit of hindsight.

He is not the first person in the world to have considerable reservations against invasive surgery, and he probably thought that alternative treatments could solve the problem, especially for fear of anesthetic shock or the like.

From personal and family experience, I can vouch for the fact that, in certain cases, hetherodox methods MAY work, especially when the person has strong faith in the cure of an illness.

In his case it didn't work, unfortunately; but to call someone stupid because of that judgment is also to disbelieve in something bigger and longer-lasting than this corporeal life.

In the end, most of us deny our own stated beliefs about afterlife (well, at least the great majority of the Western world based on monotheistic faiths), simply because of our weak, fallible and materialistic nature.

"On the book", most of us should be happy because he is supposedly in a better place. In practice, this understanding is much more difficult to achieve...

best post ever by BRLawyer...............

 

[vitzr]

I am 29 and had been very sick for 2 years and recently they found a lump on my pancreas. The first thing I said to them was lets do it lets get rid of this! After having my gall bladder and bile duct taken out last month and getting the thumbs up that I am so far cancer free I can say it was the best decision I made.

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm so happy things are going well for you. Life is short, live it well & enjoy!

Cheers

 

[gugy]

My brother in law died of pancreatic cancer 10 years ago. He lived only two years after diagnosed. He did try several treatments but he refused to do some because he felt was important to spend time with his family and two small children he left behind.
I remember asking my wife why wouldn't he try to go to the best doctors or medical centers in the USA. She said he had his reasons.

It's hard to judge someone for their decisions. Jobs thought he could overcome doing his way. It did not turned well but at the same time who guarantees if he had the surgery would survive. You never know.

 

[celo48]

It was his destiny. I know he did not believe in stuff like that but no matter what he did, no matter what he could have done things differently would not matter. He was going to die the same day, same hour, same second. It was his time.

 

[AaronEdwards]

It may well be that the world will continue to benefit from Steve's genius, but in a different area:



Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/technology/book-offers-new-details-of-jobs-cancer-fight.html

That sounds more like the world benefiting from the genius of the doctors and scientists who came up with the DNA sequencing and the pioneering treatments.

 

[ZipZap]

He was afraid. Plain and simple.

A very stupid decision on his part with disasterous consequences.

Now, while sad for him, I'm also disappointed.

 

[Dr. Weezil]

I think it's the perfectly correct response from a smart man to not want to be cut up in such a manner.