Doctors Give Apple CEO Steve Jobs Six Weeks to Live

[Moderator1]

My brother-in-law's sister got it. Saw her in May at a family gathering, she was talking about a trip to Europe. Looked great, was doing great. Fast forward to July, she could only make a very brief appearance at my niece's wedding.

Six weeks later, she was gone.

Fast moving and awful. Maybe the ugliest of the uglies. So, yeah, to Hank's point - seven years? Dang.

 

[jackfinarelli]

I lost a very dear friend to pancreatic cancer. It is a horrible condition.

For anyone who has had to watch a friend of family member deal with it, there should be no temptation to make light of it.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

This is the third time in two years there's been a "Steve Jobs dying soon!" story out there.

Hopefully this report is just as accurate at the previous ones and he won't be filling an iCoffin soon.

I echo this sentiment, but if he only gets 55 years, he sure spent them well.

It's amazing he's made it seven years with the disease.

Usually you hear someone has pancreatic cancer and they die within a year or slightly longer.

I think that was the point of his earlier leave, no? He did get some pretty radical treatment, including a kidney transplant.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Shocking and sad.

Shocking?

He's been ailing for years. Seems like there's always new news and rumors about his health.

Sad?

Yeah, probably. Some hold up his company as one of the more cynical (evil?) and least consumer-friendly, with its planned obsolescence and cultish nature among its devotees. Other adore everything they put out. But that has nothing to do with his mortality.

With how often there have been negative reports and speculation about his health, it's sort of amazing he's still around.

 

[TigerVols]

I know this won't be a pc-like comment (computer pun intended)...

Someone somewhere didn't get a kidney they needed in order to survive, because a billionaire cancer patient was able to get it instead. Not right, IMO.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I know this won't be a pc-like comment (computer pun intended)...

Someone somewhere didn't get a kidney they needed in order to survive, because a billionaire cancer patient was able to get it instead. Not right, IMO.

Are you sure that's how it happened? I'm pretty sure there are strict safeguards in place to prevent any transplant shenanigans.

Mickey Mantle had to defend his liver transplant back when he had it, because people suspected favoritism.

 

[Care Bear]

I know this won't be a pc-like comment (computer pun intended)...

Someone somewhere didn't get a kidney they needed in order to survive, because a billionaire cancer patient was able to get it instead. Not right,
IMO.

A lot more people in California could potentially become organ donors because of Steve Jobs. His money aided him in finding a liver (not a kidney), but his money and the influence it carries could potentially save many, many lives. State Senate Bill 1395.

 

[Care Bear]

DW: Jobs flew around the country, getting on as many waiting lists as he could. But it goes a lot deeper than that.

Here is an article:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-got-sick-2010-04

 

[TigerVols]

DW: Jobs flew around the country, getting on as many waiting lists as he could. But it goes a lot deeper than that.

Here is an article:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-got-sick-2010-04

Liver, not a kidney, my mistake.

Jobs gamed the system, because he had the ability to. Do I know if someone didn't get a liver they deserved because Jobs got it instead? No. But I do know he had cancer before, and now has cancer again. And he got a liver in the middle.

 

[Boom_70]

I know this won't be a pc-like comment (computer pun intended)...

Someone somewhere didn't get a kidney they needed in order to survive, because a billionaire cancer patient was able to get it instead. Not right, IMO.

Jobs must have had a connection to Burt Heineman.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

Maybe it's just me, but the quotes from the doctors strike me as gratuitously asinine (or maybe just brilliantly obtuse). From all appearances he's in very poor health and I am sure their medical assessment is probably accurate, but do we really need a detailed analysis of the state of his buttocks?

Hi, you must be new to the internet.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Maybe it's just me, but the quotes from the doctors strike me as gratuitously asinine (or maybe just brilliantly obtuse). From all appearances he's in very poor health and I am sure their medical assessment is probably accurate, but do we really need a detailed analysis of the state of his buttocks?

Who are you calling obtuse?

 

[Lugnuts]

My bro (next yr a chief resident in surgery) is interested in critical care... He says pancreatic cancer is survivable... If only it could be caught early. Problem is, there are no signs or symptoms. It almost has to be found by accident, and there's almost never any reason to root around the pancreas.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

I know from family experience that floating stools are a red flag for pancreatic and colon cancer.

 

[qtlaw]

Life is brutal.

Here's the guy who helped found Apple, was run out of the company, then came back to lead Apple into one of the most valuable companies in the world.

In addition, he survives a liver transplant only to suffer pancreatic cancer, all by 55. Wow.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Obviously wish the guy well, but two thoughts come to mind:
1) Pancreatic cancer? There's no app for that.
2) An Apple a day apparently won't keep the doctor away.

Somebody's gotta carry the tasteless joke banner around here.

I know nothing is cooler than the "we're crusty and tough and can laugh through an autopsy" persona, but this seems to be really pointless and inconsiderate in a thread where people are talking about their personal experiences with this disease.

 

[sportsguydave]

My bro (next yr a chief resident in surgery) is interested in critical care... He says pancreatic cancer is survivable... If only it could be caught early. Problem is, there are no signs or symptoms. It almost has to be found by accident, and there's almost never any reason to root around the pancreas.

I think there's also a pancreatic enzyme - similar to liver enzymes or the PSA - that is part of the standard bloodwork panel. I know it was flagged once on one of my exams and rechecked. The key is to be a proactive health care consumer. Ask about this stuff. It might end up saving your life.

My late fiancee Melody was diagnosed with liver cancer May 6, 2004. She was dead five weeks later. I later found out that liver cancer is seldom the primary ... it usually migrates from elsewhere. I also found out she'd been to her primary doctor over a year before she died, complaining of a set of symptoms that her doctor wrote off as fibromyalgia, without bothering to order bloodwork or any other tests.

Could she have been saved? I'll never know - but I'll always wonder.

 

[Care Bear]

I have read/heard about doctors using the fibromyalgia diagnosis when further tests should have been conducted. I am so sorry for your loss, Sportsguy. But thank you for sharing your story.

 

[Big Circus]

My bro (next yr a chief resident in surgery) is interested in critical care... He says pancreatic cancer is survivable... If only it could be caught early. Problem is, there are no signs or symptoms. It almost has to be found by accident, and there's almost never any reason to root around the pancreas.

A famous-ish survivor of pancreatic cancer: Debbie Ryan, Virginia women's basketball coach.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

My bro (next yr a chief resident in surgery) is interested in critical care... He says pancreatic cancer is survivable... If only it could be caught early. Problem is, there are no signs or symptoms. It almost has to be found by accident, and there's almost never any reason to root around the pancreas.

A famous-ish survivor of pancreatic cancer: Debbie Ryan, Virginia women's basketball coach.

If memory serves, they found hers by accident.