The ‘Only the Good Die Young’ Gene
April 2, 2008 — Mike OMy 91-year-old mother, who smokes over a pack a day, has been repeatedly told by her doctor that she’s living proof only the good die young. Also, that’s she’s too mean to die. It turns out there might be a genetic component for that:
“…smokers who possessed one copy of either variant were 28% more likely to develop lung cancer, while those with two copies were at a stunning 81% increased risk for the disease.”
It they keep digging, they might find an ornery gene that explains how she refused chemotherapy after nearly bleeding to death from colon cancer 25 years ago and is still around. My own scientific thought is that she smoked the rest of the cancer to death; after all, as she says ’smoked meat last longer than fresh’.
Her remaining living brother (merely a kid at 81) has a more religious explanation; their 7 departed siblings have decide not to let in the family troublemakers to wherever they went.
April 4, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Colon cancer and refused chemo? That takes some guts, but from what I know of chemo it destroys people.
Did they give her any other kind of treatment, is the cancer still there, or what?
April 5, 2008 at 1:17 am
They removed the tumor, whcich was bleeding profusely and quite a bit of the colon first time through. They found some cancer cells in the immediately surrounding fatty tissue, but none in the lymph nodes. No other treatment. Later they took the rest of her colon due to continuing polyp formation, leaving her about 8 inches. No problems since.
Me, I had 23 precancerous polyps pop up in a single year; they wanted to take my colon too. I delayed it 6 months to have it checked again; not a one. Been clear since (but I don’t smoke