In May I posted an interview with Dr. Andrew Wagner, the surgeon at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who removed my cancerous kidney (and adrenal gland) in March 2007. In that interview we discussed the surgical options available to kidney cancer patients.
Here's the second in what I hope will be a series of podcasts for kidney cancer patients. This time it's oncologist Dr. David McDermott, of the famous Atkins-McDermott team.
Doctors McDermott and Wagner head the renal tumor program at BIDMC, which is an integrated "solution shop," a term used in some of the latest views of how to design healthcare delivery systems. More on that, another day. But for now, here's the interview.
p.s. Yeah, I know 40 minutes is too long. But y'know what else? Concerns about things like that are what keep people from trying things. And for better or worse, I just ain't the kind of guy who's afraid to try. Having been through this twice now, I can see a LOT of things I hope to do better in the future.
So hey, what are YOU not trying because you figure you gotta first know what you're doing?
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Next in this series, Sept. 1, 2009:
Dr. McDermott discusses MDX-1106, an experiment treatment
Or, view all my podcast posts.
Dave, excellent interview. I'm also a patient of Dr. McDermott (actually just saw him yesterday), and like you showed awesome response after my 2nd round (just finished up the IL2 therapy about a month ago). One thing, could you add to the tags for this article with the "acord" (sp) website or whatever you called it, it didn't come out too clear in the audio. Your description of your condion was pretty shocking, and goes to show much cancer mass can be attacked by ones immune system when given the proper jolt. Keep up the good work. Mike S.
ReplyDeleteHi, Mike. Glad to hear you're doing well!
ReplyDeleteACOR is at http://www.acor.org. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll edit the body of the post, too.
If you didn't find this via ACOR, how did you find it??
I was doing a search on McDermott, trying to get his email address (I have his card around someplace but I can't seem to find it). Somehow the search pointed me to your blog. We had spoken sometime ago about your blog, as I had run across it a while back while doing my own search (and giving me fodder for giving him a hard time about being a yankees fan, thanks for that :) ), so I was suprised and interested in listening to your conversation with him.
ReplyDeleteA quick aside, I have one lingering side effect from the IL2. My skin. My back is itching like crazy, I know that "EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT", but any info from you or others on how long this might last? Good work on your site. Mike S.
I found out that it was just my psoriasis acting up. IL2 enhancing ones immune response, sends it through the roof.
ReplyDelete