Prayers for him and his family.
My mother and sister both survived non-Hodgkins lymphoma — Fred should NOT ever give up hope! My sister even had a baby after chemo and radiation. Cancer doesn’t mean a death sentence anymore!
Prayers up for Fred and his family, and don’t forget to add Tony Snow!
I found this info on the web:
Indolent lymphomas are usually not considered curable because the cancer grows too slowly to be targeted accurately by most modern treatments. Nonetheless they actually do respond very well to treatment in most cases. People with indolent lymphomas usually survive for many years. Statistics say the median is around 10 years, but that is very misleading because the “median” only means that half the patients have not survived past 10 years, and the other half have survived.
http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/indolent.htm
Fred was diagnosed 3 years ago and would start being president in 2 years. That means he would be 5 years into an incurable disease with a median 10 year surival. Anyway you look at this, this is not good news either persoanally or politically.
I will still vote for Fred if it looks like he can beat Hillary, but I now doubt that he can overcome both his late start, lack of money and doubts about his health. Awful news.
God bless Fred Thompson and his family.
He’ll still have my vote should he choose to run.
I hope everything works out well for him. There are many different types of lymphomas which different treatment procedures and with different prognoses.
If it is Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia it is not that dramatic, my father was diagnosed with CLL more than 25 years ago.
I haven’t had a chance to go through the whole thread ... my .02, he’s putting this on the table to see what impact it will have before pulling the trigger on running. If it looks like it’s not going to be a big deal from the reaction, polling, etc., he’ll go for it. If it looks like it will be a big deal, he won’t. Pretty simple. I really don’t think it’s a big deal given what we know so far about his condition. But in the real world, the “C” word, and lymphoma is a cancer, is still awfully scary for a lot of folks. So who knows whether it’ll be a big deal or not?
Knee-mail sent.
If anyone was considering picking up Intrade shares for Thompson, right now is the time to do it. His stock tanked about an hour ago, but is strongly rising already. You might still be able to get a bargain.
Prayers for him and the family.
And yes, he’s out of the race.
Sad.
Didn’t Paul Tsongas have this?
Bless Fred.
Aw, sheet!
Oh no.
My prayers are with him and his family.
First, this is not a specific enough description for us to really know what kind of cancer he has, and therefore what to expect. However, as a general category, "indolent" non-Hodgkins lymphoma is slower growing but harder to cure than the more aggressive kinds.
One place people might look for info is here:
Indolent non-Hodgkins lymphoma
No one can know when a relapse will occur, but the info it gives on relapse is:
Indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Most patients with indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have a relapse, despite having had treatment. The length of time between treatment and relapse can vary, but it is typically between 1.5 and 4 years.
The best treatment for relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma depends on many factors. A 'watch and wait' approach may be recommended for some patients if they have no symptoms that are troubling them.
Most patients, however, are given chemotherapy, either with a single drug or with a combination of drugs. A steroid, such as prednisolone, is often given as well.
Monoclonal antibodies, for example, rituximab, are used for some types of lymphoma in this group of patients. It can be given as a single treatment (monotherapy) for relapsed disease. It is also often given with chemotherapy, and it can increase the effectiveness of the treatment, without significantly increasing the side effects.
When an indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma relapses, it has sometimes changed, or 'transformed', into an aggressive form of the disease. Often, the treatment for patients with transformed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is difficult. They may be treated with high-dose chemotherapy with or without a peripheral blood stem cell transplant. This can also be combined with monoclonal antibody therapy for 'purging' residual lymphoma cells from the bone marrow.
I am personally quite familiar with the treatments mentioned here. They most definitely DO have major side effects. My wife nearly died from them. Any President who was being treated in this way would be seriously affected, even if he did better than my wife did.
I'm willing to wait until we get more info about his specific situation, but my initial reaction is that he should NOT run. A relapse could come at any time, and the treatment would be quite intense.
I will be proud to support him if he gets the nomination
Prayers for a FULL recovery!!!
I am very sorry to hear this. Prayers going up for Fred Thompson and his family.
I think Arlen Spector was recently treated for this type of Lymphoma