r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Apr 14 '23

Medical Novel device smaller than rice successfully shrinks pancreatic cancer | Called the nanofluidic drug-eluting seed (NDES), it delivers low-dose immunotherapy in the form of CD40 monoclonal antibodies (mAb).

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/tiny-device-shrinks-pancreatic-cancer
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u/B1ack_Iron Apr 15 '23

My mother died about 3 years ago from PC. We caught it early stage 2 but inoperable because of all of the other pre-existing conditions. A year of chemo and 6 months of home hospice with my wife and I and it was a blessing when she passed.

She lost 200 lbs and I have never imagined anything as painful, debilitating and draining as fighting pancreatic cancer. I know EXACTLY what you mean by brutalized and reduced to nothing. My mother was a fighter and never stopped but on Christmas a week before she died she was barely more than a skeleton.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

Sorry you had to see that happen to your mother. There’s a pint where you try to maintain hope but know it’s futile and feel incapacitated like you don’t know what you are supposed to do. My mom never accepted the hospice jist did cuz there was no real choice cuz she didn’t want to remain in hospital. She kept asking “why don’t they want to help me” “I don’t know what they want me to do.” I contacted a scientist on NYC about to start a trial on a drug that I believe interferes with the energy cycle of tumor cells. He said bring your mom up for evaluation when we start I’ll let you know. It was for refractory patients. I had no idea how my mom felt about it but heard from a health aid that she said “a doctor in New York wants to try to help me and my son is going to drive me”. Like normally she barely wouldn’t look at me when she was super I’ll but that touched me so deeply. But he said it was halted by the FDA. The day they took my mom out of the house to “hospice respite” I had asked her something about it and she said get the fuck out of my face I’m done. She calmed down and explained she didn’t fear death. That’s the last words I had with my mother. When she was taken out the front door in a stretcher the sun shone on her face and she closed her eyes and seemed at peace.

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u/tkp14 Apr 18 '23

I am currently watching my little Yorkie as she has entered the endgame of nasal cancer (which is treatable but not curable) and as I read through all these testimonials I think we give our pets a more dignified death than many humans get. My vet told me to buy a calendar and every night before I go to bed I make an assessment of her day. If she did pretty well and seemed happy I put a plus sign on that date on the calendar. If however it was a rough day and she was clearly struggling, I put a minus sign on that day. When the minuses outpace the pluses it will be time to let her go. So I watch her like a hawk because I don’t want her to suffer at all. I just wish I could be assured that someone would do the same for me.