Mesothelioma Victims :

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Mesothelioma Victims :

These victims of mesothelioma are America’s heroes. One third of current mesothelioma victims served the country in the U.S. Navy or in U.S. shipyards. They are people who fulfilled the American ideal of working hard to make a life for themselves and their families. The reward for their lifetime of hard work and service to country is a mesothelioma diagnosis.

Treatment for mesothelioma patients most often is highly experimental, may not be covered by insurance, and involves long distance travel to one of the few centers in the nation attempting to aggressively treat mesothelioma, and then lodging during the recovery from radical surgery and during months and months of chemotherapy and radiation.This is exceedingly expensive, so finances are a concern, but not the main one. When you are facing the loss of your lung, or your life, or your
loved one’s life to mesothelioma, concepts of “compensation” just don’t apply.

What these Americans are concerned about first of all is treatment. Typically their doctor has told them that this is in effect a death sentence; that they have about a year to live and that nothing can be done. Can you imagine how emotionally crushing it is to be told, despite all our society’s progress in the war on cancer, that for your disease no effective treatments have been developed and there is no hope? So the first concern of mesothelioma patients and their loved ones is the development of effective treatments to extend their lives and reduce the horrible pain and suffering they otherwise face. Second, mesothelioma patients and their families are concerned about the future. They first suffer shock at how their own innocent, unknowing actions have led to such a horrible disease. They then become aware of how widespread asbestos is, and how many others are being unknowingly exposed.

They are concerned about the rescue workers and citizens of New York who breathed large quantities of pulverized asbestos following 9/11. Thirty years from now, when some of these heroes are stricken with mesothelioma, will there be as little offered to them in terms of effective treatment as is offered to mesothelioma patients today? Patients are concerned about the people of Libby Montana, and the millions of people living in homes with asbestos-containing insulation. They are also concerned about children being exposed to asbestos in their homes and schools.