When I went public with my breast cancer diagnosis six weeks ago, the overwhelming outpouring of love, prayers and support really helped me heal faster. I want to make sure to thank everyone.
People wait in line to see me, saying there's plenty of living to be done even if you have an HIV diagnosis. People say they are 10- or 15-year survivors and still moving forward.
An important finding is that by determining the genome sequences of an entire family, one can identify many DNA sequencing errors and thus greatly increase the accuracy of the data. This will ultimately help us understand the role of genetic variations in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.
My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.
It was part of the reason I almost didn't go public with my diagnosis - I was embarrassed. I felt, 'Oh, I've always talked about exercising. And I got cancer.' And then I realized it's a great example of showing that cancer can hit anyone at any time.
Intuitive diagnosis is reliable when people have a lot of relevant feedback. But people are very often willing to make intuitive diagnoses even when they're very likely to be wrong.
When you receive a cancer diagnosis, you're more vulnerable than at any other time in your life. I've personally had the experience twice. My only hope for survival was alternatives. But that was my decision, what I thought was best for me.
Before my mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, I had heard of the disease, but hadn't known anyone who had suffered from it.
I want people who have received a diagnosis of Hepatitis C to know that they didn't just receive a death sentence. They do have options, even if the person who gave them their diagnosis isn't aware of all of them. The path they choose doesn't have to be one of desperation.
The diagnosis was immediate: Masses matting the lungs and deforming the spine. Cancer. In my neurosurgical training, I had reviewed hundreds of scans for fellow doctors to see if surgery offered any hope. I'd scribble in the chart 'Widely metastatic disease - no role for surgery,' and move on. But this scan was different: It was my own.
For people who are afraid to talk about cancer, for people who are afraid to communicate with their loved ones about it, and for the people who want to pretend cancer doesn't exist, either delaying diagnosis or not getting regular checkups, the consequences can be fatal. Doing nothing about cancer will kill you.
And then they sign an affidavit swearing that she's not in a vegetative stage. I'll tell you. That's a doctor you really want; they can look at a picture and make a diagnosis.
I spent the first summer after my diagnosis creeping about in giant sun hats and tents, cursing the sun, staying inside as much as possible. Now I am beginning to think the most important thing is educated sun exposure, because the melanomas of today are not caused by today's sunbathing, but by our childhoods and early adolescence.
Antibiotics are so pervasive that they are often prescribed preemptively, as soon as patients report symptoms, before a diagnosis is made.
There is a lot of work out there to take people out of the loop in things like medical diagnosis. But if you are taking humans out of the loop, you are in danger of ending up with a very cold form of AI that really has no sense of human interest, human emotions, or human values.
