MSI Press Blog

  In March, Carl was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 (metastatic) cancer of unknown primary. In August, he died.  When we got the diagnosis, we had to choose a detour from our normal life. There was no way to move straight ahead with life as usual because, you see, there was this big obstacle, called cancer, straight ahead. So, the question was to detour to the left and choose a treatment option, hope, and focus on the living or detour to the right and let nature takes its course, choose to accept the situation at face value, letting nature take its course, and focus on the dying. To fight or to surrender? There was no logical superiority of either path, not knowing what lay behind the cancer tree and how long was the path for it  continued out of sight. We decided not through reasoning but through conditioned reaction to fight. That is what we had done all our adult lives, as we successfully navigated life for four children, two with rare birth defects, and three grandch...

  Carl, whose experience launched this blog and the MSI Press's Carl's Cancer Compendium (CCC) died after a very short 5 months post-diagnosis of occult cancer, or, as the official term goes, Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP).  Carl fell February 23 and went to the local hospital where staff found advanced stage 4 metastatic cancer in five organs and subsequently transferred him to Stanford University Hospital, stating he would not likely return him. He did return home, for a brief four months--and he died at home on hospice almost a month later, having spent only 10 days in that capacity.  Stanford spent almost a month trying to determine the original cancer that had spread to these five organs (none of these organs was the original.) That is the problem with CUP. Finding the original seems out of reach and a guessing game. The doctor made his best guess, based on the spread pattern, but the cocktail he came up with for chemotherapy while doing no harm also did no good. T...