X-Message-Number: 2407 Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 13:31:37 CDT From: (Will Dye) Subject: CRYONICS - Friend has terminal brain cancer (Moderator: You probably shouldn't post this to sci.cryonics, since this issue has already been posted to sci.med. If you think it should be posted anyway, I have no objections. I just wanted to avoid redundancy.) I was originally going to send this as a personal letter to Thomas Donaldson, who I've heard has had dealings with this issue. I decided to post it to the cryonet, in case others may wish to comment. A friend of mine has just been diagnosed at the Mayo clinic (and again at a local clinic) with terminal cancer. He has an inoperable brain tumor, classified as a 3 on a 1-to-4 scale, where 4 is the worst. It's an astrocytoma tumor, deep in the left temporal. The two kinds of tumors the doctors mentioned were pilocytic and diffuse; they think it's diffuse and fast-growing. To describe the growth pattern, one doctor used the analogy of pouring water into sand. Doctors at Mayo gave him 3 months to live, 1 year maximum. They will probably try chemotherapy and radiation, but some are wondering if chemotherapy will be worth the side effects. He is expected to slowly become more tired, then slip into a coma, then eventually die. Any ideas, suggestions, news of recent experimental treatments, etc. would be appreciated. I have not mentioned cryonics to him, but I hope to if I have the chance. I'm still skeptical of cryonics, but I agree that the issue deserves proper scientific study, which it doesn't seem to be getting from its critics. --Will () Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2407