The finding suggests that maintaining grueling chemotherapy and radiation schedules and taking medication as prescribed is easier for people who have help from a spouse compared with single people who must manage the logistics of cancer treatment on their own....
Notably, men with cancer showed a greater benefit from marriage than did women. That doesn’t mean husbands are not supportive of wives....
September 24, 2013
"Married cancer patients live longer than single people who have the disease..."
"The study, published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that single patients were 53 percent less likely to receive appropriate therapy than married patients."
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Is it the married/unmarried thing, or is it cohabitating and living alone ? These kinds of studies specifically, usually, mention marriage ,but ,I wonder if a long term ,stable living arrangement sans marriage would show the same results. Having a partner, in life, business, or in enjoyment eases the work load and, frequently, enhances the experience.
Don't healthy people in long-term relationships live longer, too?
It is extremely difficult to both fight cancer and navigate the Health Care Bureaucracy. You can do one well, or the other. So this finding is unsurprising. The exhaustion of fighting cancer, or just the physical toll, the aches and pains and constipation and shortness of breath and muscle fatigue, leaves you incapable of getting to appointments, or researching alternatives treatments, or looking for side-effects (to anticipate and get ahead of their effects).
Every cancer patient needs an advocate to fight battles. I am so sure Obama Care will provide it.
I am not in isolation because I have cancer.
Because...
I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit.
No...
I am in isolation...
because I am being treated for cancer.
My treatment imperils my health.
Herein lies the paradox.
Wit - the Emma Thompson HBO movie about cancer.
Another reason men need an IOW. Don't leave home without one.
The times lawyers see a longtime older couple die one first and then the other a month later of unrelated causes is scary.
Maybe there is no eternal soul, but there is a definitely a soul tie in many married couples that causes the survivor to hurry up.
A sign of a healthy marriage is when one conjugate gives the other cancer.
When I had cancer, I had a wife and three young kids who relied on me. I was quite loath to shuffle off this mortal coil for their sake, as well as my own.
My father died of cancer in his mid-60's, and his wife (my stepmother) moved heaven and earth to get him the best possible treatment. The doctors said it was all hopeless, and maybe her efforts didn't extend his life; we'll never know. I do know that she made his final months of life less awful than they would have been.
Aside from practicalities, it must be terrible to have to go through a life-threatening or terminal illness alone.
Married men are more likely to have some one helping them. Providing services while they are confined to hospital.
It means a lot.
Anything in there about married filibustering senators?
So when Obamacare kicks in completely, is marriage going to be mandated for cancer patients? Or will you be prohibited from getting it unless you're already married?
Heres an idea, maybe the same emotional makeup that makes them unattached with people also makes them less attached to life. Maybe they don't perceive death as the worst possible outcome.
Having been married to a cancer patient who died, and later becoming a cancer patient myself after remarrying, I can tell you that having or being a loving spouse during the course of the disease is an enormous comfort. Probably has an effect on longer life but the comfort is the main thing.
I was a foreigner living in Shanghai and had to get chemotherapy. It was extremely difficult to find a hospital that would agree to treat me. My wife, originally from Shanghai, worked wonders to make it happen. Later, in the US, when I had to undergo even more complicated treatment, without the support and encouragement of my wife, I might well be pushing up daisies.
How many had children?
Married people live longer, defeat disease more successfully, and fly to other planets more often than single people. They also grow more tomatoes in their gardens than singles, and they dress better.
There's plenty of evidence that marrieds are (in the aggregate) healthier, wealthier and happier than singles. In theory cohabitation might be just as good, but in practice it has much lower average duration and lower perceived commitment.
Nonetheless, part of the difficulty in these studies is unavoidable selection bias. That is, those who marry may be a different populaton than those who don't- for example, they might be healthier, at least at the time of marriage. One can' do a double-blind, randomized study on the effects of marriage.
What's notable about this study how large the effect appears to be.
A former coworker who survived two rounds of cancer told me about "chemo brain." According to him, chemo seriously messes up your brain and impacts your memory. Having to fight cancer alone while suffering from chemo brain would be very difficult. You need someone able to think clearly to help you manage your treatments and to advocate on your behalf. A single person without a good support system in those circumstances is going to have a very hard time of it. If they don't do this already, it seems like a good idea for someone to be designated as an advocate for single people in those circumstances.
I am ostensibly covered, but have to babysit every little red tape thing which depletes healing reserves. I have support but sometimes there is nothing others can do. It's insane...like a full time job.
I'm not sure how anyone can expect a governmental takeover -- Universal Health Care -- to result in less red tape.
Bureaucrats exist to say No. If they said Yes, what would the point of their job be?
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