The political reporter of Sankei Newspaper, Hiroshi Sakai, was diagnosed as the stage VI cancer and has been fighting against it. A question comes up why he did not find this disease until the fatal stage.
He looked back on his past and said, "I did not realize this disease until I found the clear symptom." A bad news was a tumor was found in the small intestine.
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He realized an ominous sign with his body when he worked as a sub-editor at Mito office last October. He noticed that he was often out of breath during working. At that time, he assumed it was a sign of aging. As his condition has been worse than he expected, he took a blood test at a midscale hospital in Mito City.
The doctor introduced him the national hospital, Mito medical center, to take a complete checkup as soon as the terrible anemia was confirmed. Both hemoglobin and iron which plays an important role to bring the oxygen to all parts of the body from the lung were significantly below than the average level.
He was stunned when the female doctor said, “The iron which makes hemoglobin maker was extremely low. I have not seen this result with the sudden low number. It was like you are training on a high mountain. You may be bleeding at the gastrointestine because of the anemia.”
Nothing was found when he took the endoscopy at the stomach. His condition was suddenly aggravated before taking another endoscopy at the large intestine. On one of these nights, he felt strongly nauseated and he vomited 10 times at the same night.
He ran into the medical center immediately and he took the CT scan. Finally, the tumor was found in the small intestine for the first time and he was diagnosed as the intestinal obstruction. He had a laparotomy on last December 19th in order to recover the intestinal obstruction.
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After his doctor warned on December 28th, “I would give you a harsh word, please understand it," he received the results of the surgery to remove the cancer and the pathological examination which he had 9 days ago.
“I was stunned at his doctor’s word because I believed the tumor was benign.”
The tumor was malignant. Stage IV small-intestinal adenocarcinoma. His doctor said, “It is not at the terminal stage. Although your condition was harsh we still can have the way to remove cancer." And he continued explaining.
The operation took about 4 hours. Although the surgery was succeeded, his condition was the peritoneal dissemination which the cancer was spread in the stomach. Unfortunately, the tumor remained in his body.
“I overestimated my health and I push ahead with my work as a political reporter. I thought I have good physical strength. I did not expect to have a cancer. When I heard my condition from the doctor, my brain was in a spin. I tried to listen to the doctor, but I could not get what he said. I felt like I fell down into the hell."
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The doctor left the room when he finished his task. He was crying in sad. His wife held him tight before he collapsed to the floor. On the operation date, she boldly asked the doctor, "How long he can live?" "Less than a year if he did not get the treatment," answered the doctor.
“My daughter was just one year old at the time. I have the low possibility of recovering my health condition, and the cancer may metastasize to the internal organs. In addition, I am confronted with the cancer in my prime at 46 years old. Am I going to die? No, I cannot for my daughter. But why my…"
The small-intestinal adenocarcinoma was the rare type of cancers. According to the National Cancer Center, the illness occurs between 0.22 to 0.57 out of a hundred thousand people in a year. It is very difficult to find at an early stage. It has a higher possibility to be malignant than gastrointestinal primary tumor at stomach and the large intestine. Even if the infected part was removed at an operation, approximately the half of them may recur in the body. The development of the standard treatment is not entrenched yet because of its rarity.
“Because it does not have many data, I should take the treatment at the experienced hospital with the accumulation of data.”
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Sakai came back to the political desk at the headquarters in Tokyo in February this year. On January 5th, the doctor at the National Cancer Center explained before he decided to move to Tokyo, “It is still difficult to completely remove the cancer but not zero percent. We should control the development of the cancer by the constant treatment.”
“I was stunned at the word, ‘It was not zero percent.’” That means there is almost no way to cure my disease. That made me depressed.”
The standard medicines for the small-intestinal adenocarcinoma still need to be developed. He started taking anticancer drugs in proportion to the treatment of the colorectal cancer on January 13th. A particular treatment was applied to him, called Xelox treatment which was the combination of a drip, Oxaliplatin, and tablet, Xeloda. He required taking the treatment until the next check up in 3 weeks. Until then he took one drip and also took tablets for two weeks. He did not need to take any medicine in the third week but need to be observed.
“The side effect was stronger than I expected. Especially it cause more severely in winter, I was sobbing in regret of being the patient and sighed, “Why am I suffering from this? I felt in this way every day.”
Oxaliplatin has the side effects such as nausea, numbness at the hands, legs and face. He felt a pain in his throat when he sipped cold drink. He could not open my eyes in the cold wind. Xeloda also has the side effects such as the swelling with pain at the hands and legs. The side effects caused pigmentation, spots on his skin, and light dizziness. His skin became darker and has some spot after taking the treatment.
“I am not young enough to take this strong medicine. I wonder how aged person can keep taking the chemical treatment. How long I can take this treatment. I am very worried about them.”
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On the first day of taking the fourth treatment, he took the CT scan for the first time in two months. One of the cancer cells spread in the peritoneal membrane whose volume was 1 cm long became a small dot. There was no sign of moving to the internal organ and an accumulation of fluid in the ascites.
“The cancer cell became small because I bear the side effect. I could not wait to express my feeling as soon as I heard the result and left the consultation room. I did not realize my tears fell down from my eyes.”
The cancer cell did not change any condition after the last result. But he had another side effect. Sakai decided to keep taking the treatment at least a year. And he found a new goal throughout his fight against the cancer.
“At first, I need to do both the work and treatment. Working motivates me to live strong. Because they have to take care of their family and pay the treatment cost, many people in the working generation demand to continue to work, so do I. But it would be difficult to keep working and taking medication if a company did not understand the medical issue.”
But we should not ignore the support to the youth and teenagers. The support for them should be well operated because they are naïve and sensitive with their life events such as school, employment, marriage, and childbirth. A parent has also an issue how to tell his condition of cancer to his child in a calm way to avoid making the child shocked. There are several problems such as the flood of folk remedies, anticancer drugs for aged people, medical insurance, etc.
“The treatment has the different effectiveness and side effect among individuals. Much variable information is flooded. But I believe the standard treatment which means the best treatment. I keep taking the treatment.”
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