In recent years, with the rapid development of medical technology, the five-year survival rate of each cancer species has been improved to varying degrees.
The international authoritative medical journal "The Lancet" has published a study survey on the five-year survival rate of cancer, and after analyzing the survival rate of 23 million cancer patients in 17 cancer registries for 12 years, the five-year survival rate has increased by 2 percentage points even for refractory cancers such as liver and lung cancer. In areas covered by targeted therapy, this change is even more pronounced.
The prolongation of survival not only gives patients the greatest benefit, but also puts forward higher requirements for the companionship of patients' families. Outside the dimension of medical treatment, how to help patients understand the disease, return to life, and coexist with cancer with a better mentality is a difficult problem facing every patient's family, and it is also a lesson that every young person should study in advance.
The 30-year-old "North Drift" Fang Yu (pseudonym) is not prepared for this. He was a young backbone of an Internet powerhouse, and two years ago, when he was just entering the ascendancy of his career, his mother was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. In order to treat his mother's illness, he brought the old man from his hometown in Yunnan to Beijing for two years. In the past two years, mother and son have not only been comrades in arms on the road to anti-cancer, but also "troublemakers" in each other's lives. They have experienced quarrels, cold wars, resentments, and finally embraced and reconciled.
The following is Fang Yu's self-statement.
First critical illness notice
The earliest connection between the mother and lung cancer was in 2018. That year, she did a routine physical examination in her hometown of Dehong, Yunnan Province, and found multiple nodules in her lungs. Because the nodules are small and scattered, doctors judge that they are mostly benign and recommend regular review.
Fast forward to 2019, when the physical examination was done again, the CT image startled the doctor - several nodules have become larger to varying degrees, especially near the heart, the volume has become 4-5 times larger. At that time, the mother's body also had a reaction, coughing more, weak, and often felt inexplicable and unbearable pain. The doctor nervously told his mother that Dehong could not see this disease and hurried to the big hospital outside.
△ The picture is from Visual China
That was my fifth year at work in Beijing. I am doing operations in an Internet company, and I still have some connections. After learning this news, I asked someone to inquire about the best hospital in Beijing's respiratory medicine department, and at the same time booked the earliest flight to Beijing for my mother. To tell the truth, at that time, I did not foresee the seriousness of the matter, only guessed that the doctors in my hometown had a limited level and deliberately said something heavy to push people to the big hospital.
After my mother arrived in Beijing, we first went to Beijing 301 Hospital to take a film, and the doctor looked very bad after watching the film, so let us do PET-CT as soon as possible, but the PET-CT of 301 Hospital has been scheduled for a month later. Later, I contacted Chaoyang Hospital through a friend, thinking about doing PET-CT there, and then returning to 301 Hospital with the results. Unexpectedly, as soon as the test results of Chaoyang Hospital came out, it was highly suspected of malignancy, and his mother was directly admitted to the hospital.
Before I could digest the bad news, the day after my mother was hospitalized, a critical notice was placed in front of me. The doctor told me that before doing a transbronchoscopic lung biopsy for her mother, it was found that both of her lower limbs had blood clots, and the oxygen saturation was only about 85% (more than 95% of normal people), and then checked the cause, found out the pulmonary embolism, once the disease occurred, it was more deadly than lung cancer, so the mother's monitoring level was suddenly raised to the critical level, and she had to receive oxygen therapy every day and could not go to the ground.
About half a month of antithrombotic treatment, the problem of pulmonary embolism was almost solved, and the doctor immediately arranged for a biopsy to take the pathology. I remember very clearly, on the morning of October 12, I was just carrying a bag to enter the company building in Zhongguancun, and the hospital called and told me that I had been diagnosed with stage IV lung adenocarcinoma, stomach and lymph node metastasis, and no chance of surgery. I was able to calmly check with the doctor on the phone, but the moment I hung up, I collapsed on the bench downstairs.
From that day on, I had a new identity, a family of cancer patients.
Choose between the workplace and the family
On the 5th day after the diagnosis, the mother's genetic test report showed that the ALK fusion gene was positive, which was, in the words of the doctor, a blessing in disguise, meaning that there were multiple targeted drugs to choose from. At that time, the first-generation targeted drug (crzotinib) and the second-generation targeted drug (aletinib) that were positive for ALK were already on the domestic market. However, for economic reasons, we chose a generation of targeted drugs (crozotinib) in the Medicare catalog.
After the treatment plan was determined, I took my mother out of the hospital. During my mother's hospitalization, I quit the single room I had rented for 5 years near the company and found a two-bedroom house in Mentougou in the western suburbs. The air here is good, the environment is good, it is conducive to the recovery of my mother, the rent is relatively cheap, the only drawback is that my commute time to work has changed from 20 minutes of cycling in the past to 2 hours of bus reverse subway.
But the biggest challenge isn't here, but how to find a balance between working and caring for a mother.
Before my mother came to Beijing after she fell ill, I had a clear plan for my career, first using 5-10 years to become the backbone of the company's business, and then accumulating some management experience by participating in large projects, and finally starting my own business. In fact, I am also going step by step, in the 5th year of work, I have begun to participate in the operation of some of the company's large projects, and I am also quite valued by the leadership.
My mother's illness, my career ascent period was soon cut off. On the one hand, I really can't put my mind on my work as I did in the past. On the other hand, the company also knows the situation at home and no longer assigns me to work that requires extra overtime. Seriously, I was frustrated at first, especially watching my colleagues discuss projects passionately in the conference room, but when it came time to leave work, I would grab my bag and run to the subway station as soon as possible.
My idea is simple. The previous planning for the career was nothing more than to make a better life for myself and my family. But if, when you have a successful career and your family is gone, then what is the point of these material satisfactions?
The endless Cold War
Although I put more time and energy into the family, I have to admit that for a long time, I didn't get along well with my mother. I believe this is a problem that every young person who lives with their parents encounters, and that generational gaps do not disappear because of illness, but are magnified.
My mother is a middle school teacher in her hometown, who has been teaching conscientiously for more than 30 years, and she has some good teacher's disposition and strength. The contradictions you can think of will happen between us. Not eating breakfast, sleeping late on weekends, not loving to clean up the house, these young people's freedom and looseness, all regarded by their mothers as unhealthy living habits, must always be reminded, urged to correct.
Sometimes I would argue with my mother for a few words, but when I thought of her body, the heavy words were swallowed back to my mouth, turning into an endless cold war. Over time, I also had problems. For a while, my mother paid close attention to my habit of sleeping late, I promised in person, after she fell asleep, I stayed up late in retaliation, the mobile phone brushed until three or four o'clock in the morning, and the next day I rushed to the subway to work as usual, several times the heartbeat suddenly accelerated, I thought I was about to die suddenly. In those months, because of the abnormal schedule, I suddenly gained more than 20 pounds.
What bothered me the most was not this, but that my mother often urged me to quit my job in Beijing and return to my hometown in Yunnan with her. She even mobilized relatives at home and took turns to call me for persuasion. Her reasons are very strong, one is that the pressure of life in Beijing is so great, far less comfortable than the life in her hometown. Second, her illness is already like this, it is better to go home early, and the family can still enjoy the few pleasures of the world.
Every time I heard my mother say this, I felt a little aggrieved. Although I know that her starting point is for my own good, I have spent so much energy and made so much sacrifice, is it not to hope to leave you in Beijing for better treatment, why can't you even understand this?
A turning point from a long conversation
At the end of December 2020, a re-examination result, the string that we had banded between mother and son was finally broken, the mother's tumor recurred, and brain metastasis occurred, which also meant that the generation of targeted drugs (kzotinib) that had been used for 14 months was invalidated.
Fortunately, at that time, the second-generation targeted drug (aletinib) had already entered the medical insurance. At the doctor's suggestion, we immediately changed the medicine. In less than a week, my mother's condition improved significantly, her head did not hurt, and her cough was not so severe. Half a month later, she returned to her pre-drug resistant state.
Each time you change the targeted medicine, it means that there is one less weapon that can be used. I began to reflect on the past year with my mother. Because of the generational gap, because we can't understand each other, we all piled up a lot of negative emotions, and even I was sick, how could my mother recover smoothly?
After thinking about it for a long time, I decided to talk to my mother openly. The reason was that the movie "Hello, Lee Huan Ying" was released during that time, this movie made me suddenly open a trick, in the past I always wanted my mother to understand me from my point of view, but I never seemed to care about her thoughts, I don't know how she grew up, what she experienced, and I didn't understand how her spiritual world was shaped.
I remember it was an afternoon after the Spring Festival, the sun was nice, we sat on the balcony, and I naturally got up. For the first time, my mother told me about her experiences as a young woman, the second daughter in the family, with excellent grades and could have done well in college. But because her family was poor and there were many brothers and sisters, she gave up this opportunity. That year's college entrance examination, in order not to let her grandparents tangle, she deliberately scored a very low score. After failing the college entrance examination, she became a teacher in the village and earned money to supplement her family. She regarded it as the proudest thing in her life.
We talked about her college entrance examination, talked about her grandfather's death, talked about my birth, and talked for 3 hours. I found that I knew nothing about my mother's past. Her sensitivity, strength and desire for affection are all closely related to her past. And I always wanted her to understand me the way I did, but I never understood her the way she did. In the end, we reached an agreement that the mother could express her opinion at will, but the initiative that was not accepted was mine, and she would not force it.
After that conversation, I obviously felt that the atmosphere at home had changed. I began to notice the virtues of my mother, such as the fact that she would carefully put several bags on the trash can every time she went to the hospital, in this way to accommodate my laziness. In return, I tried to share funny things at work with her, news on the Web. My mother also became much more cheerful, and I could hear her laughter almost every day.
I've also gone through the most anxious and depressive period. The most obvious sign is the success of losing weight over the past year. For work, my enthusiasm is also slowly rising, but I no longer make too long-term plans for myself. I've found that a lot of things are really all-in-one, and when you start to understand and tolerate others, it's easier to get relief yourself.
Write in the last words
Three months later, the primary lesion in the mother's lungs shrank and the brain metastases were almost invisible. By now, my mother has been using a second-generation targeted drug (aletinib) for more than 10 months. Whether it is from the medical imaging or my own state and behavior, it is no different from normal people.
I can't say how crucial that conversation was. But I believe that emotions affect the body. Every doctor I've ever met, whether it's TCM or Western medicine, they'll emphasize that the patient's emotions are important. Especially in the face of cancer, a disease that needs to mobilize its own immunity, the more positive the mentality, the better the recovery effect.
I know many family members of cancer patients who work hard to learn about the disease, read cutting-edge papers abroad, communicate treatment plans with experts on an equal footing, and even come up with more personalized ideas. I admire their determination and see them as role models. But on the other hand, I deeply feel that as a patient's family, in addition to caring for treatment, we must not ignore the patient's emotional management.
In the past two years, I have posted my anti-cancer stories with my mother on my social media, and unexpectedly received a lot of attention. They have cancer patients themselves, as well as cancer patients' families, and I find that a lot of interaction is not about which treatment plan to use, but about how to get along more comfortably with your family. The moment many families are hit by cancer, they are completely overshadowed by a thick shadow, and everyone's breathing is heavy.
I can't give everyone an answer. But in any case, I agree with the saying that the human body is a sophisticated system, and what you have experienced and what kind of state of mind you live in is the cause of the disease. Like my mother, she has been thinking about others all her life, hoping that others will live in her way, and she can't help but spoil herself. And when she lets go of this obsession, the situation will change somewhat.
Because it had been raining, I wanted to hand over an umbrella and share it with all the cancer families.
Seeing the future, look for ALK-positive patients
We hope that more ALK positive patients can contact us to share your story, and maybe your treatment plan and your confidence in overcoming the disease can ignite the hope of more families!
1. Recruitment target: non-small cell lung cancer ALK positive, willing to share their own stories of friends;
2. Contact information: Please leave a message in the background of Jianwen, briefly describe your illness, leave contact information, we will contact you as soon as possible.
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Lung cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in China, and its incidence and mortality rate rank first in malignant tumors, and it is the "first cancer killer" in China. Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type of lung cancer, accounting for about 85%-90% of patients, and about 3%-8% of these patients have mutations in the ALK gene, which is a key therapeutic target found in non-small cell lung cancer. ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer is common in younger lung cancer groups with no history of smoking. According to statistics, among patients with lung adenocarcinoma in China, about 6% have ALK fusion mutations, and the proportion of non-smoking patients is much larger, accounting for 10% to 15%. Such patients tend to fuse with other genes to produce the ALK fusion protein, a mutation that promotes tumor growth.
According to statistics, about 730,000 people in China suffered from lung cancer in 2015, of which nearly 584,000 were non-small cell lung cancers, of which 32,700 were ALK-positive patients. At present, clinicians in China are drug treatment options for ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer, in addition to the first-generation targeted drug creatinib, there are second-generation aletinib and serritinib. [1]
1. ALK+ lung cancer has gradually entered the "chronic disease", professor Wang Jialei "wonderful" solution to the whole process of management optimization, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TZv9s5J2QypwjNwkQQffMw