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Covid vaccination may increase lifespan for stage 4 cancer patients
Hi,
On Wednesday, November 12 I read an online article in the Guardian newsletter that a study has shown how patients with stage 4 cancer getting chemotherapy tend to live significantly longer if before therapy they get a Pfizer or Moderna Covid vaccination. The study appears to be serious and credible. You can web search it probably.
I went right out and got the Pfizer shot on Thursday since I am newly diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer and start 12 sessions of chemotherapy on Monday.
The study indicates a longer life expectancy of 75% improvement for stage 4 patients on chemo, with vaccinated patients over the time span studied living a median of 37.3 months compared to 20.6 months for those who were not recently vaccinated prior to their chemotherapy.
Check it out? Good luck all.
Marcia new here
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@susan38
Hi Susan,
You're in your fourth and fifth weeks now, of chemo, that doctor says will be the worst, and I hope you aren't in agony. Everything you described so far sounds agonising to me already, and not being able to chew peanuts sans teeth another trouble to mess with the rest.
You have a grand spirit, I think, to be meeting the ensuite "indignities" and other discomforts you face with such candor and aplomb in your writing here. I truly hope that weeks 4 & 5 do not fully exhaust you.
I'm lying very low, no longer getting out of our flat (my son kindly runs local errands) and need to be horizontal day and night. Have lost 10 pounds since November 17 when I had that second 48 hour infusion of folfox chemo. Can't eat much but Jello and ice cream with the trachea all raked up by radiation. Because I feel too weak to withstand another round of chemo in three days, I requested a different oncologist who may be less rigid about the treatment. She's vastly more communicative already, kind in her phone manner, and qualified by all accounts. I will meet her next week.
The assigned doctor, a man who does lots of research and trials, is hard to reach, terse, and not what I need from a doctor, I feel. This lady doctor is on his team at the same cancer clinic, but she can make new decisions independently of him.
You, Susan, are a very special someone!
Marcia
I just found your posts today. Your treatment is much different than mine, as I chose surgery and am facing a much different form of unexplained pain. I am amazed at your tenacious attitudes. You both are so brave, and I am thankful for this informative place to land in expressing experiences. Reading your descriptions of your doctor was for me, a huge "Yes"!! I feel the same about mine, down to the fact of being terse. (Ha) I watched my mother go through breast cancer twice, one breast removed. My grandmother had the same form of cancer but had a radical mastectomy and lived much longer. In both cases the cancer presented on the outside of the nipple...Paget's disease. It never occurred to me that I might get a rare lung cancer. I thought my fate would be that of the other women in my family. I have mourned not pushing my mother towards chemical treatments. All she ever agreed to was tamoxifen, which she discontinued. Reading what you are both going through, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, my mother could not have endured what you have. She once had an operation on her eye under local anesthesia because she could not stand to throw up, and that is saying a lot. At the end stages of her life, my sister and I agreed to put her in a medically induced coma. Thank you for sharing all you have. Your writing style IS much like journaling. It has given me a measure of peace from self doubts. Please keep sharing, as you have at least one other in here cheering you both on. 💕