Rudy T = Lou Gherig... Is History Repeating Itself?

I am not a medical doctor, so I am not qualified to give an expert opinion, as you are requesting.

But, my family has done a variety of hospice care for cancer patients, who would rather die, than go through the treatments again, and have also cared for those under various cancer treatments. Often people experience extreme mood swings, as a side effect to those treatments, causing them to be overconfident and almost manic one day, depressive the next.

This could explain Rudy's excitement to be back, and talking about going full tilt forward, and then days later, losing heart, or giving up. The treatments are exhausting, painful and emotionally draining. Its just too bad that a decision was made under these circumstances.

Probably Les wanted to let him go, and jumped on Rudy's downswing, whether he understood the situation or not, so it gave him an out to get a new coach. If Rudy would have consulted his attorney, he would have told him never to make a decision under his state of mind. Rudy might see everything differently in another 6 weeks ...

 

I do not know the actual staging of Rudy's cancer.
However, since he need BCG therapy, I assume that he has stage 0 with diffuse lesions or stage 1 disease.

The disease prognosis also depends on the tumor grading.

In stage 0 tumor
Treatment with BCG will eradicate the disease for more than 1 year in 70% of patients.
The majority of cases will recur within 5 years.
The higher the tumor grade is, the higher risk of recurrence rate.

In stage 1 tumor, the recurrence rate is 50% by 1 year.
Treatment with BCG will reduce the recurrence rate in 50% of patients.

After the initial treatment, if there is a persistent disease found in the bladder, another 6 weeks course of BCG therapy will be given.
If the disease still does not respond to the therapy after 2 courses of treatment, cystectomy (surgical removal of the bladder) is recommended.

You can find more information at http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancerinfo/

Because the nature of needing closed follow up and the potential of needing more intervention in one year, it may be benefit Rudy (physically and emotionally) if he has less stress at least for a year.

Eventhough, people deal with stress differently and need to make decision by themself,If I were his doctor, I would give that information to him.

I personally believe that even if the decision of Rudy's resignation is not entirely from the health standpoint, it will benefit his health.

My best wishes to Rudy!

 

Comparing this to Lou Gehrig is insane. There was no doubt that he would die shortly after his speech, and whatever Rudy said won't have the same effect as Lou's did, even if he did die (which is pretty damn doubtful).

Now, if he had a terminal disease, that's a different story.

 

Rudy's cancer is very treatable. He didn't even have side effects from chemo that means he probably had small doses.

My uncle just got into remission from having leukemia. He had 3 sessions of chemo. Basically what this is, you get your chemo through an ivy 3 days a week for 1 week. It takes about an hour. You take a session each month. So trust me, Rudy is fine otherwise he would be having more agressive treatments that would make him sick.

comparing lou to rudy is ridiculous

 

You don't get chemo with this type of cancer. It is a topical treatment of medication.

 

apparently he did, ive heard a bunch of different news outlets talk about rudy getting 6 chemo treatments. he finished his last one last week.

 

It was not chemo. As Jeff stated, they were topical treatments.

 

comparing Rudy to Lou Gehrig is an over exaggeration. One can be treated for his ailment and the other suffered a fate that no person would ever imagine if they didn't have this horrible disease.

My father has been diagnosed with ALS and I find this very offensive to compare the two people. I wish my father had gotten something treatable instead of ALS. I'm sorry if I'm emotional about this, but the comparison is wrong.

 

It is not a Systemic Chemotherapy but a tropical Chemotherapy giving directly into the bladder using BCG (most common) or others.

BCG is a vaccine used to prevent tuberculosis that is still given to children in other countries. However, it also works as tropical treatment when used for bladder cancer.