Dear Crow

Hi Clarence Crow

You ask,>BTW, are you being sponsored to push it?

I hope you don't live in a state of constant cynicism. It must be
painful. Sour cornflakes everyday. I can understand the basis of your
question; it is necessary to stay alert in newsgroups. But your
question seems designed to wound. Your punishment is to read through
this.

I'm not entirely surprised. I've experienced this kind of question
before. Once upon a time I was very much younger. I had three children
at school. There came a powerful political drive towards social
engineering with schools, including our kids'. The teachers in "elite"
(=good) schools were under attack and their pupils were caught up in
the turmoil. Ours came home from school tired and depressed.

My wife and I became incensed (correctly as it turns out, the
standards of education in England have dropped to third-world levels).
We organised a Parents' Association and held public meetings at which
I spoke. It was then I found that there was often one in the audience
who would ask, "Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?"

When I first heard the question, I could scarcely speak I was choked
with anger. That's rather how I feel now. But I got used to it. They
are always out there.

What's in it for me, Clarence, is belief. Cynics don't think that's
possible. And when I believe, enough, I become enthused and active. I
go for it wholeheartedly.  Sorry, but I can't help it, it's something
to do with genes, apparently.

Far from being sponsored I am a patient in the English National Health
Service. I cannot afford private treatment, and too old and problems
too serious to get insurance (which I had all through my younger
healthy life). NHS is excellent in that it means getting the treatment
eventually. But we wait in line. We are sometimes treated as a human
being, other times as a number. Next please. My wife and I have both
often been to see our specialists and found instead a doctor we've
never met before, who knows nothing about the case, and can't find the
X-ray, scan, whatever results you've been waiting for with bated
breath . The system suffers from creaking bureaucracy stifling doctors
and patients alike.

Sponsored/privileged? Hardly. I was diagnosed in June 2005.  I started
Casodex and was heading for radiation and started anti-androgens. In
September however my urologist  managed to get me into the HIFU
treatment line -because he was involved in it, knew it from first
hand, and I liked the sound of it.  It's going to be May this year
before I am treated.

I started researching the HIFU systems. I started asking questions of
the members of the HIFU team at UCLH.  

I have become an enthusiast for what I have learned.

I am an enthusiast for the technology. I am an enthusiast for my
urologist, because of his record and experience, and because uniquely
he has always been available at any time to answer questions or
worries at the end of an email line. That has sometimes picked me out
of depression. I have become an enthusiast for the UCL HIFU team not
least because I am convinced, from what I've picked up, that the
trials of the system they are using has been highly successful.  

I could be dead wrong - indeed, dead. Or clobbered in some way that
nobody yet knows, because I am number one.  I will find out - and so
will you and this ng.  So much for sponsorship, if it shouldn't work.

I make no apologies that my slip is showing when posting. Because, as
of today, I believe strongly that my information -and eventually my
experiences - could help others. And I know I am posting to an
experienced bunch, experts at weighing it all up, making up our own
minds, and taking enthusiasts with a pinch of salt.

Salt yes. Questions, yes. Wounding cynicism, no, please.

I hope sincerely Clarence you will have a highly successful conclusion
to your own treatment.

Regards
HFMike