Posts by Angela Wright

I don't know what you're trying to get at here. You haven't actually said anything. Just drop the nonsense and state your point if you want a response. Angela Wright says:
The issue here is that our pond is just too small. It isn't strictly about how people think, though—it’s more about the limitations of living in such a tiny bubble.🤷Look, we’re all out here fighting our own battles, constantly slamming our heads against closed doors. That’s just how life works, isn't it? When you're grinding tooth and nail to claw your way toward success, a promotion, or whatever milestone you've set, you naturally try to protect that progress. You don't want someone to swoop in and snatch away everything you've built just because you were naive enough to believe everyone plays by the same rules or shares the same integrity. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, and sure, when you're dealing with a health crisis, the whole "career ladder" argument feels trivial since we're talking about survival itself—but let's be real: in today's world, we aren't all starting from the same playing field.

The ability to grasp and embrace material wealth isn't about the size of your environment—it’s entirely down to mindset.
That’s exactly the point: people need to wake up to the fact that this "democracy" everyone loves to brag about is nothing more than empty rhetoric if you aren't actually living it. It isn't about some lone individual fruitlessly banging their head against a locked door. Real change happens when we organize into actual communities—groups that stand shoulder-to-shoulder for the same causes and fight for the same solutions within civil society. That’s how you build real leverage. When you have that kind of collective force behind you, those doors will swing open at light speed, just like Sesame Street.
It isn’t enough to just sign some membership form for an association, pay your dues, and then settle comfortably into your cozy little routine—sitting there in the warmth of your own home while you watch people trample all over the organization, waiting around for someone else to fix a global crisis.
People seriously need to have a wake-up call and finally grasp reality: that figure of 25,000 cancer diagnoses every year isn't just some meaningless statistic or a pile of data points. When you factor in their families, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of actual human beings. They aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet or some faceless crowd to be brushed aside; these are individuals with real stories, real lives, dreams, and ambitions. The government needs to learn that lesson once and for all. What we are going through right now—other countries didn't escape this exact same struggle without eventually realizing it too.The true measure of a nation isn't found in its GDP or the size of its military, but in the sheer muscle and scale of its civil society. It’s about how much weight the people can actually throw around when they stand together outside of government halls. When community groups, non-profits, and grassroots movements have real teeth, they act as the ultimate check on power. Without that collective strength, you don't have a functioning democracy—you just have a collection of individuals waiting to be told what to do.The whole system is rigged. We’re looking at institutions that were supposedly built to serve the public interest—to work for us—but instead, they just hire politicians to look out for their own pockets. It’s supposed to be about the people, but it’s actually just a way to keep them in power.
Even though they’ve tried to tear her down and paint us all as nothing more than corporate shills for Big Pharma, the bottom line remains the same: the situation in Cleveland has been resolved. The Secretary can claim all he wants that we had nothing to do with it, but we know better.😉
Is that why he was foaming at the mouth?☕
The problem is that this is just one single battle we've managed to win for now. If you don't have the long-term backing of the everyday people—the little guys who actually end up taking the fall when things go south—you aren't going anywhere. Period.

Keith Thompson said:...I can't speak to the current state of affairs here in America, but I can tell you that conflicts of interest are everywhere. At the end of the day, it's the people who shape society, politics, and general direction. If your association grows large enough to actually have a voice, you'll find yourself with a completely different perspective and vision. By the way, Prof. Dr. med. R. Beliveau wrote a fantastic book called "Cancer cells don't like raspberries." It’s an incredible read—I'm not sure if it's been translated into English yet, but if not, what are you waiting for?👍

The real issue we face is people who refuse to step up publicly because they're terrified. We aren't quite sure what exactly they're afraid of, but it likely stems from a mindset forged over decades under that old system where silence was the only way to survive.
We constantly call for unity, yet we see this pattern repeat: someone finally stands up and tells the raw truth, and instead of support, they get shunned by their own peers. Then, the authorities swoop in to publicly lynch them and brand them as lunatics.
That book title, "Cancer cells don't like raspberries," really hits home for me. It feels like a perfect metaphor for the state of both the body and the collective mind of a nation, especially when dealing with cancer.
But honestly, books might be a lost cause; even if we did get everything translated, most people in this country won't pick up anything that isn't sensationalist tabloid trash.

Lisa White54 said:I'm with you on this one!
🙂

Thanks, ladies! 😍

Lisa White54 said:I haven't had a chance to weigh in until now... and honestly? I wish I hadn't looked. I’m still sitting here feeling nothing but bitterness, anger, and pure dread!
Major props to slyseal28.
The Secretary resorted to low blows—it’s pathetic! But then again, why is he even doing this??

He had to lash out at someone to deflect from his own failures, because heaven forbid he takes responsibility for his own staff... which is completely uncalled for. In my book, there isn't a single sane person who thinks a Secretary of Health should be attacking a patient advocacy group. It’s just irrational.
The funniest part? Not one of us has attacked him or condemned him regarding the situation in Cleveland. We sent him an open letter essentially pleading with him to step up, since he's the one person actually in charge and more competent than the director of the Cleveland hospital. He clearly expected Catherine to come swinging at him... instead, he acted like a total hillbilly with zero sense of professional decorum, while Catherine is a lady who simply doesn't engage in that kind of gutter communication.
Frankly, it’s beyond embarrassing to hear him whining about how nobody has praised him for the fact that there aren't waiting lists for radiation in Cleveland. HELLO! Are we supposed to throw him a parade for that? What are we, Bangladesh? You don't get a trophy for providing access to something that is inherently urgent, using a method that’s been standard for a century. He should just shut up and stay humble. At the end of the day, he gets paid to do his job. Nobody gives me a standing ovation just for performing the tasks I'm paid to handle.
When we attend oncology conferences across Europe, we find ourselves turning red with shame because of nonsense like this.

ILDZIS said:...

Look, honey, for your own peace of mind, let’s get this straight: there is no Dr. Stakic out there who is going to magically cure an astrocytoma or an MF glioblastoma brain tumor. The hallmark of every single charlatan is that they hide behind "success stories"—stories where nobody ever steps forward using their actual legal name to say, "This man is a miracle worker; he cured me of the most aggressive, progressive tumor a human being can face," accompanied by the actual medical scans from before and after his treatment. It’s a scientific fact, not just my opinion.
Whether those people you met were actually suffering from what they claimed, or even if they had those diagnoses at all, is highly questionable. I mean, what stage were they even in? My own mother looked better than I do six months after her brain tumor surgery.
I have never personally met one of these "healers," but I work with cancer patients every single day. If something actually worked—especially for diagnoses that seem hopeless right out of the gate—these people would be shouting it from the rooftops with clinical proof in hand. They wouldn't stay quiet.
And listen to me: it wasn't the surgery, the chemo, or the radiation that killed your nephew. It was the tumor. The surgery, the chemo, and the radiation were just tools to slow things down and, believe it or not, actually improve his quality of life. Without them, his end would have been infinitely more agonizing.
Everything I am telling you comes from direct experience.
My advice? Finally let your nephew go and let him rest in peace; he deserves that. Stop wasting even a single second of your life on scammers and shady characters who have zero interest in anything other than squeezing money out of the most vulnerable people on earth. Believe me, this guy is screaming "fraud" from every pore of his body. Only a con artist talks about treating malignant brain tumors as easily as if they were curing the evil eye. If someone could actually do that, they would have picked up a Nobel Prize in Medicine a long time ago.
Your son-in-law clearly saw through the nonsense from the very beginning, and he's the reason you haven't been dragged through even more useless suffering.

Keith Thompson said:....hey everyone, I'm new to this forum. I have no idea what your backgrounds are or what you do for a living, but I've been browsing through, and man, this place is active—which is great. However, I have a serious question.
I’m a member of a cancer survivor association based in Berlin (I think it's actually one of the largest, bigger even than the regional associations, if you exclude us). I've noticed that most of the info and experiences shared here revolve strictly around radiation, chemo, and surgery. Is that really all there is to it, or am I totally missing the big picture? My apologies if I somehow skipped over something vital somewhere in these 156 pages. Please don't tear me apart; I'm generally a pretty peaceful guy.

That's because we live in a country that completely blindsides people with the absolute basics, like radiation and chemo. We live in a place where doctors aren't even allowed to speak freely, where people with metastatic disease are stuck on endless waiting lists, and where you might wait three months just to get radiation—and that's for the common stuff. Don't even get me started on rare cancers; there's practically zero hope for extending life or maintaining any quality of life. When things are that broken, how can anyone focus on talking about love, compassion, support groups, or the basic human elements that civil society should actually be prioritizing?
I assume you're mentioning ECPC as the gold standard and the umbrella federation for European cancer associations. Well, the Association for a New Day is a member of that federation, and we are working hard to fix those massive systemic gaps that are currently gaping open in America.

Look, what can I even say? Everything went exactly according to plan, except for one thing: slyseal28 didn't get a single chance to praise the Secretary's hard work so far—which was totally the intention, believe me—or to remind him about that national prevention campaign for the six most common cancers we're asking him to sponsor. It's sitting right there on his desk, and by the way, he already responded to it; she just wasn't allowed to get a word in edgewise.
And for everyone out there claiming the two of us are just puppets for Big Pharma, let me give you a little glimpse into our actual lives, since she wasn't permitted to point this out either:
If we were actually on those companies' payrolls, we wouldn't be holding board meetings at a kitchen table in a rental apartment where she lives as a single mom—which also serves as our association's "headquarters"—instead of doing it at the Sheraton or some fancy spa center.☕
Jebiga, we've reached a point where people just assume anyone working for the greater good is getting paid massive amounts of money.
Well, the two of us clearly fell from Mars, probably alongside our Gogs, but what can you do? We don't know any other way to be. It’s just in our nature to find our only real satisfaction in helping ensure that at least one person doesn't have to wade through the same absolute shit we had to endure. We try to give all that crap some higher purpose so we can move forward with healthy lives and a clear conscience.

Chloe Flores83 said:Basically, stop trying to predict the distant future. My dad took a nasty fall yesterday and split his head open. He claims he just tripped. Today, he’s talking perfectly fine. But tomorrow? Tomorrow is a complete mystery.

And honestly, 😢
That’s how it works with cancer—patients often have no clue just how helpless they actually are. You need to keep a constant eye on him, but try to be subtle about it so he doesn't get defensive, because they truly don't grasp the weight of their own condition.

Don't get ahead of yourself by looking too far down the road. Tomorrow is the absolute limit of what you should worry about; just handle things as they come. You can't plan for what hasn't happened yet.
That’s the whole philosophy behind our group, the Association for a New Day—we just take it one day at a time. 😉

Grace Kim13 said:That’s exactly where the whole mess lies... I can't tell him, and honestly, I shouldn't even if I could, because it isn't just about us (there's a child involved too). I love him and I don't ever want to walk away from him, but this was supposed to be nothing more than sex...

Look, women get yeast infections all the time just from wearing thongs, so that's probably not the culprit here.
I really hope he didn't pass anything else onto you, but there's plenty of room for shady behavior—think public restrooms, a dirty seat, or even borrowing a friend's underwear because yours leaked, only to find out they weren't properly washed. Women do some pretty reckless things.
Just make sure this doesn't become your new normal.

Grace Kim13 said:Thanks so much for getting back to me so fast; you honestly saved my life today.

Well, at least things are looking up for you,😁
because everyone else seems to be taking their frustrations out on me today. I feel like total Charlie Brown.

Just use some common sense when you talk to him. If there’s actually something serious going on, tell him. But if it's just a minor fungal thing, don't go throwing around accusations of cheating—unless you've completely lost your mind and actually give a damn about keeping this relationship alive.
Just be smart about it.😉

Grace Kim13 said:I’ve got another question—honestly, I feel like an alien because this is all so new to me.

Is it actually possible for someone who was diagnosed with WHO to have cleared it after giving birth?

It’s definitely possible, though that doesn't mean it's gone from your system entirely. It just means your immune system has successfully wrestled it into submission, keeping it from running wild or causing cellular issues. After childbirth, the body goes through a massive period of regeneration, so it makes perfect sense that the WHO is kept under control and enters a dormant phase where you aren't contagious.
Think of WHO like the way you get a cold sore on your lip whenever your immune system takes a hit. Once you're exposed, you carry it with you forever; it's just your own defenses that decide when it stays quiet and when it becomes active enough to spread.

Grace Kim13 said:Look, I’m just going to go private. I can get everything handled right away, though I was worried maybe she wouldn't be able to get her Pap smear done until the infection cleared up first.

That doesn't matter. They're still going to see the fungal infection. The only thing you absolutely cannot do is start using those vaginal suppositories before the Pap smear, because the crystals from them will mess up the results and make the whole test unreadable.

Sandra Torres39 said:I have no idea why you wouldn't just go get the Pap smear done!?

It’s because those clinics are perpetually slammed. They have to pre-order their testing supplies way ahead of time, so women end up having to schedule everything a month in advance just to get seen.

If I were in your shoes, I’d get a Pap smear and swabs done, and I’d definitely go ahead and test for hepatitis and HIV too.

Mila, you’re spot on about using condoms—at least when it comes to those last two. Dealing with WHO is a bit more complicated because you can catch it just through skin-to-skin contact.

But hey, it is what it is. You’ll know better next time, right?😉

Chloe Flores83 said:Ugh, being on two different forums at once is honestly tripping me out because I keep circling back to the exact same questions...
Well, look, maybe it turns out to be some less dangerous tumor after all. There’s a 10 percent chance. That’s not nothing. But we can't just ignore the future. At most, we can think about tomorrow—specifically, what happens after the surgery (which is scheduled for next week). What should we actually expect once it's over? Is Dad going to be disoriented? If so, how long is that going to last? Will he be in pain? Will he be able to move around? Should we jump straight into some kind of supplemental therapy to get his strength up, or wait? How long will he be stuck in the hospital? And when does radiation actually start?

The fallout from surgery is different for everyone. Some people deal with complications, while others walk away totally fine. You won't really know until it's done.
Radiation usually kicks off about three weeks after the surgery.

Chloe Flores83 said:Thanks for getting back to me so fast! 🙂I have so many questions, I don't even know where to start... is radiation inevitable? I read that it kills healthy brain cells too, what does that actually mean? And is it true that tumors grow slower in older people? Can doctors be 90% sure it's a glioblastoma without doing a biopsy?

Unfortunately, radiation is a given if you want to slow down the tumor's growth. These days, radiation is highly targeted; the goal is to be as gentle as possible to the surrounding "healthy" tissue.
Because metabolism slows down as people age, certain diseases tend to progress more slowly. However, when it comes to this kind of tumor, that difference is practically negligible.
Doctors can make an educated guess regarding a suspected diagnosis, but only a pathology report gives the tumor its actual identity. Beyond just the type and location, there are microscopic details that can fundamentally change how treatment is approached. That said, with brain tumors, the approach is often similar across the board because they are rare, under-researched, and the sheer risk involved in "touching" the brain limits our options.
The real nightmare with this disease is how aggressive it is; just when it seems like the brain is "clear," a single lingering cell can trigger a recurrence. That’s usually how the script plays out. The entire focus is on stretching out that interval—making it as long and high-quality as possible. Even when a recurrence happens, there are still moves to make: surgery again if it's viable (whether traditional or Gamma Knife), moving to second-line chemo, and once again fighting for that window of time while searching for clinical trials to join.
Experts are working toward a day where glioblastoma becomes a manageable chronic condition—something people can live with rather than just fight.

Chloe Flores83 said:Can anyone help me figure out what the better move is—going through with brain tumor surgery for a glioblastoma, or skipping it entirely? Is the rest of life actually more livable without the surgery, radiation, and chemo? The tumor residue would still be there. I've been scrolling through posts for days now, and I just can't find a straight answer to this. I'd appreciate any insight at all.

Look, glioblastoma is an incredibly aggressive beast. You want to get as much of it out as humanly possible right from the jump. Doing the surgery is definitely about extending your timeline. While you can't always get everything, you can shrink the remaining mass, and if the body responds well to radiation and chemo, sometimes it can even vanish completely.
The hard truth is that you have to approach this knowing the goal is survival and quality of life. Right now, that’s the only hand medicine can play. That said, don't let the statistics crush you—there are people out there who defy every single medical prediction and live for years after a diagnosis like this.
No matter what kind of grim stuff you read online, you have to balance being optimistic with staying grounded in reality.

I'm happy to chat more if anyone has specific questions; I've been through enough of this to know.

Kimberly Wright said:It’s pathetic, 😢

what can we even do?
I find it absolutely unthinkable that my mother paid into the healthcare system for 30 years only to be denied proper care now.

It is tragic, sure, but it's also setting a precedent because most doctors just stay quiet and keep their heads down. Finally, someone had the guts to step up and testify publicly and responsibly about how things actually function. This sheds a whole new light on the work our association does; otherwise, we just end up looking like a bunch of old gossips making stuff up out of thin air.

What should you do?

Stand up and speak out about what is happening to you. Don't let fear win! Politicians are nothing more than small-minded cowards who are terrified of regular people, but unfortunately, most people still haven't realized that power.

Doctors, I am bowing my head to you.🙏

Dear doctors, it’s high time you all stood up and fought back to defend the integrity of your profession!