Just wanted to mention... if you (or one you know) get cancer, once the type of cancer has been established, ask where it typically spreads to. Monitor changes in those areas.
A relative got cancer in a lymph node, and got it successfully operated out. A couple of years later got shortness of breath and back pain. Doctors gave asthma medication for the breath and physio for the back pain.
After a year of no real progress, an unrelated shoulder x-ray showed spots in the lung tissue. X-ray technician noticed this and escalated it, and only when they verified it did we learn that the original cancer typically spreads to the lungs and bones...
Now in this case, finding the cancer had spread to the lungs and spine a year earlier probably wouldn't have done much to delay the inevitable, but it would have allowed them to start pain medication much sooner, making that year less painful.
This is definitely good advice. Also, from my own experience with cancer that spread: get a second opinion from another oncologist (get a third if you feel the need). It's your body, it's your life, do your homework.
After all of that, do your follow-ups.
Oddly enough, I'm two years out of my initial diagnosis, sitting in the oncologist's waiting room for results of my latest scans as I write this.
A relative got cancer in a lymph node, and got it successfully operated out. A couple of years later got shortness of breath and back pain. Doctors gave asthma medication for the breath and physio for the back pain.
After a year of no real progress, an unrelated shoulder x-ray showed spots in the lung tissue. X-ray technician noticed this and escalated it, and only when they verified it did we learn that the original cancer typically spreads to the lungs and bones...
Now in this case, finding the cancer had spread to the lungs and spine a year earlier probably wouldn't have done much to delay the inevitable, but it would have allowed them to start pain medication much sooner, making that year less painful.