Down under or Thai? Aussie mum trades Oz for Land of Smiles

[rooster59]

Get tested: Phuket cancer survivor says you could be next

Isaac Stone Simonelli

PHUKET: The months leading up to July 2015 were the self-described happiest times of Nora Galgoczy’s life. The 29-year-old Hungarian expat was freediving, climbing and in love. She also had cervical cancer, but she didn’t know it.

“I expected that I would feel something: something odd, something bad or just something. I thought cancer didn’t attack people like me,” Ms Galgoczy explained the Phuket Gazette, just weeks after being given the ‘all clear’ by doctors following six months of physical, mental and emotional trauma.

Worldwide, cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in women, with an estimated 530,000 new cases in 2012. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are more than 270,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year.

In 2012, the mortality rate from cervical cancer was 52 per cent; that’s worse odds than a coin flip. It didn’t take long for Ms Galgoczy and her partner to recognize this fact; though coming to terms with it took much longer.

“We were just sitting on the balcony, and trying to figure out what to do today And I remembered that there was the health checkup package at the hospital and said, ‘let’s do that’. It would be fun to have a paper stating that we were both healthy. It was not necessarily a joke, but it wasn’t entirely serious. It was about STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] and stuff,” Ms Galgoczy said.

It was a fairly new relationship and the couple hadn’t had ‘the’ conversation about STDs yet. They headed to Phuket International Hospital for the routine checkup.

Full story: http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket-news/Get-tested-Phuket-cancer-survivor-says-could/63396?desktopversion#ad-image-0

-- Phuket Gazette 2016-03-12

[Goldieinkathu]

It seems to me that Thais are even more less likely to have these check ups or even talk about it, I hope that this article is written in Thai and posted somewhere on a local news website.

[Old Croc]

I've been trying to get a couple of people, Thai and foreigner, to go for checkups as they have complained about/exhibited signs that all is not right. Neither has had a proper checkup for years.

A lot of reluctance to go.

[DonaldBattles]

I have been pushing my Thai wife for the past year to have a pap smear and mammogram breast check. I can't get her to do it as she does not want the doctor to be monkeying around with her private parts. Not sure what I can do other than have a Thai doctor explain to her the importance.

[Ulic]

HPV vaccine would be a big first step around the world.

[DrDave]

I have been pushing my Thai wife for the past year to have a pap smear and mammogram breast check. I can't get her to do it as she does not want the doctor to be monkeying around with her private parts. Not sure what I can do other than have a Thai doctor explain to her the importance.

Would she feel more comfortable with a female doctor?

She can request a female doctor when booking an appointment at the hospital.

[gandalf12]

That is what the HPV vaccine is for

[NoBrainer]

What a bunch of crap this article seems to be. The headline "Phuket cancer survivor".

From reading the article it looks like an ad for some hospital. The bottom line is it looks like a woman got a few genital warts and then they went away on their own, as they often will do.

It states near the bottom of the article "On February 18, Ms Galgoczy was declared cancer free. However, she didnt do anything special to beat cancer."

Then goes on to say " I became a hero because I beat cancer; I was an inspiration for those still fighting cancer, giving them hope."

What a bunch of B.S.

Crap like this belittles real cancer patients.

[shirtless]

Expect a higher rate of cancer this is a fact Nuclear Industry and Japan have failed us all Radiation has been pouring into the pacific and into the atmosphere for 5 years and will continue unabated.

[sendintheclowns]

The headline offers good advice. However, the 'survivor's' story, as reported, is pretty weak stuff. How to become famous for 5 seconds. At the Guardian forums, this would be classified as 'click bait' .

[Khon Kaen Dave]

'You could be next' What a wonderful depressing post for reading over your cup of coffee and first fag.

[SOTIRIOS]

...pandemic due to what has been done to the ecology and the food supply.....

...only to prepare you for 'processing'....

...cures apparently have been available for years...and have nothing to do with surgery....and chemo....etc.....

[howbri]

There is a cure for HPV in men or women. I know personally because I'm cured. Doctors will tell you there is NO cure. Not true!

[timendres]

There is a cure for HPV in men or women. I know personally because I'm cured. Doctors will tell you there is NO cure. Not true!

I doubt that any doctor will tell you that HPV cannot be cured.

Unlike Herpes (which resides in the nerve cells) and HIV (which resides in the blood and other tissues), HPV is entirely a dermal layer (skin) infection. Thus, if the doctor completely removes the "wart", then you are "cured". Thus, HPV can be removed, or cured. Of course, the doctor can only treat what he can see, and sometimes there will be other infections that cannot be seen, which will need to be treated when they become visible.

Furthermore, your immune system will develop antibodies for that particular strain (remember, there are 100 of them) of HPV. This may, or may not, provide you will a level of immunity to that particular strain of HPV in the future.

Condoms are not 100% effective in the case of HPV, as skin-to-skin contact still frequently occurs with condom use.

For men, infections are usually visible and obvious, but this is not true for women. And because HPV can frequently cause cervical cancer, it is quite important for women to get a checkup for HPV and cervical cancer cells. Removal of the HPV infected cells before they can create cancerous cells is important. And early detection, as with all cancers, increases the odds that you can survive.

[Krataiboy]

The HPV vaccine being pushed by Big Pharma is ineffective against the many causes of the disease which are not triggered by this particular virus.

Right now, the best way for a woman to protect herself from all the causes of cervical cancer is to undergo an annual (not five yearly, as suggested in the article) PAP smear.

Any cell changes which are possible precursors to cancer are easily detected and can be effectively treated – as happened in the case of my wife. She did not even need surgery, only regular monitoring of the dodgy cells.

After a few weeks they had suffered the same fate as most of the pathogens which regularly invade our bodies– killed off by the immune system. It was only after she was pronounced clear that the hospital thought to ask her to take an HPV test. It came up negative.

The HPV vaccine is clearly no cure-all. It is also expensive and can have unpleasant side effects.. But my main reservation is the way it is being randomly targeted at women, irrespective of age or circumstance.

A physician at a Hua Hin private hospital recently recommended I get my younger daughter vaccinated. When I pointed out she is only nine, he said: “Yes, but you know Thai boys!”

Indeed I do – which is precisely why I think young males should be sent to the front of the queue in any mass vaccination programme designed to stamp out HPV.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Krataiboy