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.

Have you given Sajid Javid a call. You seem to have all the answers !.

Social media means we hear about it more.

It's not only cancer, I have lost my best friend to diabetes complications age 55, they were basically chopping off more & more bits & her body just gave up. I lost my dp at 34 & his best friend at 49 to alcohol related liver conditions. Two of these were during the pandemic, how many serious illnesses were missed due to the pandemic? Sooner or later someone will win a legal case over lack of care or missed diagnosis from during the pandemic & it will open the floodgates. It needs to be done to highlight the failings of the NHS & bring about change. I last spoke to my consultant in March 2021, I should have had another appointment in September 2021, despite keeping ringing I finally got an appointment for June this year, my condition isn't life threatening but the longer I am left the more likely I will soon be permanently in a wheelchair.

Yep.

There’s a cheap dog dewormer that cures certain cancers,

Pardon?

Yes I have noticed this, too. I believe that it's partly down to the industrialised world we now live in.

Here's a Guardian article on it

Explained: the toxic threat in everyday products, from toys to plastic: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/22/toxic-chemicals-everyday-items-us-pesticides-bpa

"Synthetic chemicals are in nearly everything we touch and consume. But some chemicals can be potentially harmful and a number of experts are anxious about possible long-term health effects of our everyday exposure. They say US regulations could be stronger.

One of those who is concerned is Leo Trasande of NYU Langone Health, an expert in children’s environmental health and author of 'Sicker Fatter Poorer', which is about the threat of hormone-disrupting chemicals.

Of the more than 40,000 chemicals used in consumer products in the US, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, less than 1% have been rigorously tested for human safety."

My friend lost her cousin a few days ago to cancer. At the age of 43.
i lost a work colleague the day I gave birth to my 1st child. She was 34 and had breast cancer

my mum died at 59 and her anniversary was this week. Its been a sad week. Im struggling

its fucking every where 😡

YANBU.
My school friend died from a brain tumour at 32. My cousin is stage 4 at 39, with 3 kids under 11 😞
I've been following Deborah James and also Monique on Instagram, so awful 😞

I disagree completely with Lincslady. Not seeing patients, not having a phone call with someone, no follow up appointments. That could have nothing to do with how much someone eats or drinks. That's just underfunding. And also money and apathy. Why couldn't those phone calls take place in covid. Or now.
Now covid is sometimes being blamed for just laziness.

I was told that if you have cancer before 40, it's more likely to be genetic. I had breast cancer at 38 and found out I have Chek2 gene mutation and variant of uncertain significance for BRCA2.

I have never smoked, alcohol in moderation but rarely drink now, vegetarian of 30 years and always exercised and have never been overweight. But I had a lot of stress in my life.

DH has cancer, in his early 40s. It turns out he has inherited a genetic mutation from a side of his family he doesn't know much about. He comes from a long line of working class Londoners who probably just died young of other things in the past. He had childhood asthma too so 100 years ago the smog might well have killed him. It is what it is.

Every single person we have dealt with in the NHS has been excellent, by the way. Even the odd surly receptionist has become helpful and friendly as soon as either of us mentions cancer. He has access to a specialist consultant at an internationally respected cancer centre despite us not living in that NHS trust and is currently having ongoing cutting edge treatment at a cost of several thousand pounds a time. Cancer is a rollercoaster and I don't doubt others who have had shit experiences - it happened to my grandad too - but we are seeing the NHS at its absolute best. There's nothing about the NHS that makes individual hospitals and staff less good than those elsewhere.

In the US, by the way, DH would be uninsurable due to an unrelated preexisting condition. He wouldn't have gone to the GP with his weird symptoms last year as he'd have been worried about paying for it - it would have been an emergency hospital admission much, much later at a point when there would have been significantly fewer options beyond keeping him alive short term. Easy to bash the NHS when you know you'd have other options, I suppose.

Your 40's and 50's are a very common age to get cancer. My mum (breast cancer) was in her late 40's and my husband (bladder cancer) was in his 50's. Both were treated and survived thank goodness. A close friend was in her 50's when she died of skin cancer.

I think it's always been the case that lots of cancers show up around middle age. Some survive, some don't.

To add to the balanced view, my dad was diagnosed with cancer during lockdown- treated during lockdown and is doing well

@FloweryCurtainTwitcher i also went though cancer diagnosis and treatment throughout the pandemic and I entirely agree re York and St James absolute shitshow. Sorry to hear about your husbands experiences.

My parents 85 and 80 are off on two holidays this year, so I think that is a sweeping generalisation…..

Totally agree with the statement above. Same for my Trust

cancer treatment never stopped. I am deeply saddened for any of you who found that that was the case in your local area.

However it’s so easy for those not in the eye of the storm to look back and think covid was a storm in a tea cup. It was (is) a novel disease which had no known treatment or prognosis. It was absolutely terrifying.

we had admin staff who joined clinical teams in proning (turning) patients because we had horrific staff shortages.

Thanks to vaccines and improved treatments we have been able to move to an endemic phase but I beg you not to minimise what was.

I was diagnosed, operated on and hopefully cured 🤞all during the lockdowns. It was all pretty efficient and I had no
complaints. Our NHS trust moved most operations to the local private hospital.

1 in 2 of us will get cancer. And yes unfortunately sometimes lifestyle contributes to it. That wasn’t the case for me, but I still acknowledge that if we were healthier as a nation we could reduce our risks of cancer.

My mum died of it last year, she was only 58. I find cancer really frightening tbh.

As per PP I have another story of choosing covid over cancer.

My husband (aged 50) collapsed at home April 2020. Ambulance took him to A+E, they sent him home same day saying he'd had a seizure (he wasn't epileptic) as they weren't keeping people in bc of covid.

He kept collapsing. Couldn't get a GP appt.

Took 3 months to have an MRI as they weren't doing them bc of Covid.

Then 2 months for phone call with consultant to be told he had non-malfignant. brain tumour. No in-person appts bc of Covid.

More delays on consultant appts. Only way to get seen or a scan was for me to call an ambulance. Did that in Jan as he was deteriorating daily. Finally get in-person appt with consultant to be told its terminal, and he has a year to live.

He died 9 weeks later alone in A+E in April 2021 after collapsing at home. I thought they were ringing me to come pick him up, but they said he was dead. Couldn't be with him bc of Covid. Couldn't have a funeral or a wake. But Boris can have his parties.

Oh and I dare PP who thinks all cancers are lifestyle to say that to a room of brain tumour sufferers and their families. Bad enough to be unlucky to get the cancer with the worst survival rate, then be told it was their fault even though its not.

@unidentia

I am so sorry for your loss. I work for NHS and believe we need to do better. I also see how rediculously underfunded it is but also that actually that is because a lot of money is mishandled/not appropriately used.
Regarding cancer, I wonder if we need to do more on genetic cancer research which would ultimately lead to less cancer deaths in young people. I think targeting NHS diagnostic waiting time might also help. I am not an expert and am lucky to work in a specialty where cancer is quickly/easily picked it. We also can’t ignore the impact of obesity and lifestyle factors.

A nurse I know says she and more senior colleagues suspect that some cancers now are a long term result of Chernobyl. I have no idea if that is correct or not

There could be some truth in this. I live in a country in the Alps. When the Chernobyl accident happened the rainfall on the Alps was radioactive, the cows on the alpine pastures ate the radioactive grass, this ended up in the milk, people were drinking the milk for quite a while before the severity of the situation was realized.
There are now very high rates of cancer in the villages in this valley among people in their late 30s and early 40s. There aren't any scientific studies on this, so it's all anecdotal, but basically the villagers say that it's affecting those who were children and drinking a lot of milk when the accident happened.

By the time I was my dc's age I had seen three children I personally knew die, two with cancer, whereas my dc have not had any of their peers die. I am not denying others experiences and each loss is personally devestating but it is important to look at the wider picture beyond our individual experience.

Cancer has become more “common” simply because statistically other causes of death are being eliminated. As treatments for blood pressure and blocked arteries has improved less people die of heart attacks and strokes now. Road traffic accidents used to kill thousands- various public health and safety campaigns have reduced that. People have always died at all sorts of ages around an “average” life expectancy- the average life expectancy is just that - a normal curve distribution that ranges from 0 to 116 (or whatever age our oldest citizen is).
The statistics of 1 in 2 of us will get cancer is very scary- in practice I have had “cancer” twice - both times I had the early stage cells removed, the cancers were not invasive and life moved on with barely a blip. So that 1 in 2 statistic includes people like me that have minor skirmishes with cancer, and the people with aggressive and potentially life changing cancers. Even for potentially aggressive cancers survival rates for cancer have massively improved, and the cancer screening there is has caught cancers at earlier treatable stages. Yes, I know NHS is taking battering and covid has not helped, but even so in last 10-20 years more and more people have survived cancer.

Over the last 30-40 years peoples expectations are that they should be able to be treated for most illnesses. It is therefore so much more shocking to hear of “young” people dying of illnesses. Accidents and violent crime we sort of expect younger victims, but not illness. It therefore gains attention and shocks people - but it is becuase it is increasingly less likely than it was 20, 30, or 50 years ago.

It is a sad fact that as we treat any cause of death, and cancers mostly become treatable, we will find other causes of death increase - we all have to die

Stating that the govt chose covid isn't minimising covid.

I'm not sure I can agree it was terrifying.

And it's not just about cancer treatment. That obviously continued in some cases but not all. Services were reduced and had to be relocated in order to protect pt. That took time.

The main issue was the shut down of all but 'essential' services and what was deemed essential

We've only just recently lifted SD distancing rules meaning clinics can begin to operate at full capacity again

The choice to shut everything down and focus only on covid has had a huge impact on the nhs which will last decades.

All we achieved was choosing who died when. Cost billions and many people their lives

I dont think we even saved any really. We just stretched it put over 2 years.

I'm 26 years old and I've already lost two friends to cancer, both my age. It's terrifying.