To be alarmed at how many younger people are dying of cancer

[Onthelastsplash]

People who aren't anywhere near elderly. I'm 31 and was scrolling through Facebook earlier, thinking I could name almost 10 people whose parent had died from cancer in the past few years. In 99% of cases, the parents were under 65.
My aunt died from cancer when I was 15 and she was approx early 50s.
Deborah James' story is so heartbreaking.
Sarah Harding was such a tragic loss.

Does anybody else feel slightly scared of how common cancer deaths seem to be in younger/middle aged people? Has it increased in recent years? Survival rates are supposed to have increased a lot in the last few decades, for the most part.

I think bowel cancer is more aggressive in younger people. I have lost 2 close friends to this in their 40s. But my mIL had it on her 70s. An operation was needed, and she is still going at the age of 98.

How smug
sadly loads who dont drink ,dont smoke, dont do drugs, are not overweight, do exercise but do get cancer

And the NHS fails them

@FloweryCurtainTwitcher Oh don’t worry, the government are piloting a Social Credit Score app but it’s only for weight loss and health (now) HeadUpSystems got the contract, you can see their dystopian site offering complete surveillance for insurers, employers, and now the government.

In oncology terms “treatable” and “curable” have very different meanings. My cancer is treatable but not curable.
”Treatable” is used to describe cancer which can potentially be contained or controlled, even if only for a short time, so it’s correct for the poster to have been told that their Uncle’s pancreatic cancer was treatable if there was a procedure available that could potentially improve his prognosis.

@FloweryCurtainTwitcher My dp has deformed ankles, the skin is wearing away, he’s been like this since teens, his mom has severe rheumatoid arthritis and the nhs still can’t diagnose him or help him in any way. He works on his feet all day and it’s making them worse, he’s in so much pain. I come from a former dictatorship and I was shocked, I was the first one to tell him that’s not normal. I’ve had to medicate myself for a chronic UTI that disabled me for 10 years, same with CPTSD induced insomnia, I found out what meds I need and got them from abroad. Same with Estriol cream, I used this as it was the only thing stopping my severe night sweats and nocturia, have to get it abroad. On a care worker minimum wage, it’s not right.

I think like with everything these days we are just hearing about it more thanks to the internet. There's a lot of things that have always been happening but now people post publicly about them and it seems more common.

Nobody has said that it's your DH fault that he got cancer. Some people, like your DH, live very healthily and still get cancer. Even if someone did engage in some risky behaviours (which we basically all do - I certainly don't use sunscreen enough, for example) I wouldn't say it's their fault that they got cancer.

But on a societal level, fewer people smoking and more people eating healthily leads to fewer people getting cancer. If, as a country, we could find more ways to encourage healthy lifestyles, we could reduce the number of people with cancer. That's not the same as saying that cancer can only be caused by being unhealthy, or blaming people for having cancer.

The media is not telling the full story when they say everyone is living on average until their 80’s. The stat may be true but the health issues they are going through is never reported. It’s not just cancer. Heart disease, blood pressure: menopause issues, erectile disfunction, diabetes, dementia etc etc. I now honestly believe that you might as well enjoy life when you are young and say bollocks to saving for the future because getting old is shit. What’s the point of a great pension when you can’t spend it.

But we haven't had the minimum of care, we have had good care, ailments treated as required, prompt vaccinations against a killer new virus. Yes, if we paid an arm and a leg for private care we may be seen quicker, but it would be the same surgeons treating us. Within 2 years of retiring the cost of the treatment we have received has far exceeded what we have paid in a lifetime of paying NI. If my son was paying privately for his care, it would cost £5,000 per week, on the NHS it costs nothing. It could not have been any quicker as he had a breakdown and admitted as soon as the nhs were aware. He may be lucky, and in other parts of the country he may have had to wait. But i can only comment on our own experiences.

My brother will die from bowel cancer before he is 40. 50 years ago he probably would have died when the cancer perforated his appendix and the bowel around that area - the cancer was only found when they were doing what they thought was a routine appendectomy. To be honest, if I asked him if he would have preferred to have died suddenly five years ago or to have had this time having multiple ops, multiple chemos... I don't actually know what he would answer.

I'm alarmed at the number of people I seem to know recently who have died young. Not just of cancer but all sorts. I have had 2 friends in their early fifties die suddenly in the past few months, no previous health concerns. I thought it could be linked to the covid vaccine ( one definitely blood clot related). In the same week that first friend died, I also heard of someone in her early sixties dying, someone I knew from an internet forum I help on. Then also two more local people, both under 50 with youngish kids. Never before have I felt so alarmed at knowing so many young people die. I don't have a huge circle of friends or family so it seems a lot.

The amount you pay shouldn't matter
My DH paid £300k in tax and ni last year- still has shit cancer care from the NHS during CV19

I remember on television throughout my teens they would say one in three will get cancer

one in three WILL get get cancer insurance
predictions are one in two for the coming decades

makes no sense to me our species get sicker not healthier

it’s big business and I don’t trust the motives behind the screening programs

i read a lot about it out of interest over the years and aim for prevention through my lifestyle

so I am not scared

FloweryCurtainTwitcher we thought that wasn't too bad at all.

They quite rightly dont ask to see your P60 when accessing care
Free at the point of delivery- the NHS

If they cant deliver they need to tax more (but they need to remove crap management, staff who dont give a shit and an IT systen that doesnt talk first)

I think screening is a big part of it. Bowel cancer is very treatable when caught early, and over 60s I think it is are offered screening. Hence why over 60s tend to have better survival rates.

I was 19 when I was diagnosed with it, and it had spread outside of my bowel. It took me a year of going to doctor because I had rectal bleeding (and I mean blood would drip out every day) and every other classic symptom before a doctor decided to refer me to a specialist. Even then, I was told by this specialist that I have IBS and she sent me on my way with pamphlets on how to manage it, but luckily she chased after me and thought we should be on the safe side and have a look at my bowel.

Bowel cancer is becoming increasingly common in younger people. I don’t know why.

I think the number of cancer deaths seems higher now because so many other things that previously caused deaths don’t regularly do so anymore.

When I look at my family you see large families decimated by different things. One of my Gr-Gr grandparents had 14 children - 4 died of measles. 2 of rubella. 2 of cancer. 3 of TB. Plus 1 of “infant sleepiness” (which with our family history I’m assuming we’d call cot death).

In my lifetime I’ve not known anyone die of measles, rubella or TB.

ive also known people with asthma, heart attacks, COPD and sepsis who would almost certainly have died in years gone by. I think it’s more that cancers are one of the bigger causes of death now because people aren’t dying of other things, and the diagnoses are often better now too.

I agree, very alarming. I remember one child who had cancer and it returned a few years later when I was at school.
Now there seems to be so much more, or is it that it's reported more?
And what's the route cause?
Soil depletion?
Change in diet over the last 100 years?
Medication?
We're under far less stress than those who lived through fammin, wars and having your village burned down because there was a new king in town so it's unlikely to be that.
Or is it living conditions? Or something we're exposed to more?

YANBU. SIL in her 30s and a friend in her 20s both died of cancer within the last few years. Just awful.

I think though part of it is that it used to be hidden. They'd just stay at home or be in hospital.
I commented at one point to dm that I knew more of my contemporaries who had died of cancer than of her contemporaries, and she then mentioned several for whom I had just not realised they'd "disappeared" because in those days treatments weren't as good so often it was quick from diagnosis, plus it was less acceptable to talk about it so people tended to quietly keep out of the way.

For example I didn't know someone in the year below me at primary had died from cancer because when they were taken ill, they never came back to school, so I assumed they'd just moved school.

Some cancers are on the increase like brain cancer which my DH died of aged 37. He was slim, fit, ate well. Brain cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in children and in adults under 40. It’s a heck of a hard one to make research progress on (I read 60 research papers as part of my coping mechanism haha) and has been hugely underfunded for years also.

Oh, how it sucks.

I think it's a case of being able to name more illness, then in the past.
If you had a bloody cough, it was TB - not lung cancer, diarrhoea a diagnosis of dysentery and so on. Nowadays we know that these symptoms can be a multitude of illnesses.

People die. The numbers of people who die has never changed. Life expectancy in the UK is high and, afaik, not falling. Because there are more people living to extreme old age our perception of when it is ‘too young’ to die has shifted, but 60-70 is really not young. Average life expectancy is only 81.

And while it is true that fifty percent of us will get cancer, that is mainly because we are mostly living longer, and eventually we have to die of something.

I really don’t think this is a thing to be worrying about.