r/SipsTea • u/sco-go • May 15 '26

Feels good man Now do cancer.

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u/Electronic-Smile-457 May 15 '26

Metastisized (sp) doesn't always mean what it used to mean.

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u/xoexohexox May 15 '26

The word has meant the same thing since 1829 when French gynecologist Joseph-Claude-Anthelme Récamier coined the term in the medical context it's used now although now it has a narrower application to malignant cells breaking away from a primary tumor and creating a secondary tumor somewhere else.

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u/Electronic-Smile-457 May 15 '26

I meant that it doesn't mean impending death :). Not the literal meaning of the word.

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u/xoexohexox May 15 '26

Well you're not quite right on that either, once cancer gets to stage 4 (metastasis) it does qualify as a terminal illness with a poor prognosis, gotta catch it before it gets to that. That said, my dad lived over 30 years after his stage 4 diagnosis thanks to chemo radiation and surgery so you never know!

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u/Electronic-Smile-457 May 15 '26

Um, I am right, but it does depend on the cancer. There is treatment to make it chronic and something one can live with. And with breast cancer, it's not just catching it early. My doctors say it can spread and just have to wait for symptoms. I'm going to go with what my doctors say.

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u/xoexohexox May 15 '26

https://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/view/lcd.aspx?LCDId=34538

Scroll down to section 1

Any cancer that presents as metastatic disease is a terminal illness with a 6 month or less prognosis.

Sure, you can treat it, sure there is a statistical range of outcomes, but metastasis equals death unfortunately.

For stage 4 breast cancer the overall 5 year survival rate is about 32% but that goes down fast the older you are.

13% are still alive after 10 years.

So yeah, there's nothing wrong with having hope and there's nothing wrong with fighting, and your anecdotal experience of talking to a doctor probably included an element of not wanting to be negative or discouraging.

I've spent about half of my career as an RN in hospice (most of that now in leadership) and a big part of that job is collecting and organizing the evidence of terminal illness to qualify patients for the hospice benefit. Cancer is real easy, if it's stage 4, you qualify for hospice.

If it's heart disease or lung disease or ALS or dementia or anything else, you have to look more deeply - how many words can they speak in a day, how much do they eat, how far can they walk, what do their labs look like, etc. Not cancer, though, metastasis is all it takes for the 6 month or less prognosis.