Ted Kennedy has brain cancer

Now the story is on boston.com However, it is posted an hour after your posting.

According to Dr. Timothy Johnson, “In an adult, a first-time seizure, is a brain tumor until proven otherwise.”I haven’t gone through the media coverage of the last few days, but what I remember reading has pretty much avoided saying that a brain tumor was the most likely explanation — although brain tumors were mentioned in passing or buried among other possible diagnoses.Were the media being particularly conservative or hesitant in their reporting over the weekend on the most likely cause of his seizure?

Michael: Yes, the media were being conservative and hesitant. I don’t blame them. Why would you want to get out ahead of a story like this? What if you were wrong? I’m not even sure what the value is of guessing right.

the media reported what they were told by authoritative sources. That inluded noting that a seizure might be set off by a stroke. No place in preliminary coverage for speculation about a brain tumor. yeesh. you can’t win with some people. the only odd thing i noticed was the globe’s reporting “two seizures” when the docs now say it was one.

I find it odd that all major news blogs will not allow anything bad to be said about Ted Kennedy. But I am going to say something anyway–I find it hypocritical of him to be given the best medical care, being whisked away in helicopters inorder to avoid long waiting hours in an ER and to basically say to the health care work he has apparently done over the years, “who cares, I actually need help now and I can’t be kept waiting on an HMO type system!” I honestly feel he should be put through the motions any typical American would have to go through in this situation.I personally have had eleven brain surgeries for my tumor, but some of them were cancelled because of my lack of health coverage and at other times business office representatives would come knocking on my ICU door demanding 400,000 dollars for unpaid neurosurgery bills. I was shunted around and around, and had to wait and wait to get MRIs, to get admitted, to get diagnosed, to get a biopsy, and this guy gets diagnosed in 48 hours??? Not right Ted! Not at all!http://www.theidaexpress.com

ida, obviously you aren’t a US Senator. And, you’re not wealthy. There is a difference.That said, given the type of tumor Kennedy has, if it is indeed located in the left frontal lobe, he is in effect a former Senator, at best. If it’s too big to cut out, the treatment (radiology and chemotherapy) is very aggressive and kills brain cells to the point he will be left with — what’s the nicest way to put this? — insufficient brain function to be useful.

Some people will take any opportunity to make cheap political comments.When Teddy Jr. was diagnosed with cancer, Ted Sr. made a point of the fact that his kid would get care not available to less fortunate (read: not wealthy) americans…and that it was wrong. He’s tried to do something about it. If any politician in America is going to speak out about the inhumanity of the business office knocking on the door of a stricken patient, it is Kennedy. To suggest that he not use his resources for his own medical care is an absurdityAS long as someone other than the patient is paying the bills, some treatments will not be approved — it happens every day in every country in the world. At least with “socialized medicine” the patent isn’t turned away at the admitting ward

In an earlier response, I wrote frontal lobe. That should have been parietal lobe.

Nick shows up at Meyer’s office following Gatsby’s funeral. Meyer explains his absence by saying: “Let us learn to show friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”It’s not about playing the Grim Reaper so much as it is telling the man what you think while he’s still alive to hear it.

Let’s hope this “anonymous” character gets precisely the same justice and mercy in the hereafter, or lack of same, that he wishes on Sen. Kennedy.