Biden's last screening for prostate cancer was in 2014, spokesperson says

[Pachamama]

27. As a multiple cancer survivor and big believer in screening and prevention:

I have now had multiple cancers that I have survived - all caught due to my insistence for the last decades since my mid 20’s in having screening tests - even when they go against “recommended advice”. Sometimes the guidelines change regarding colon cancer screenings, mammograms, skin cancer checks etc. I never cared - I just insisted.

I haven’t followed the recommended guidelines - especially when they changed them. I am fortunate in that I have the means to do so - and insist on getting screenings more frequent or often. In my family has been breast cancer. So even at a young age in my 20’s I began mammograms even when they said it wasn’t needed yet - and when they changed the recommended guidelines for women later. Including on Pap smears. And guess what - it caught a breast tumor early and small and was removed. If I had not - I would have had much more radical removal necessary or worse.

Same for colonoscopy- in my family there is a tendency to have polyps. Polyps that can evolve into cancer. So even when my health insurance provider wanted to do a mail in kit sampler - I insist on getting a colonoscopy - and indeed - each time multiple polyps that are non cancerous and are removed. My most recent one found a few that were larger than usual and therefore now recommended every 3 years a colonoscopy instead of 5 years. Bottom line - if I just went with the mail in sampler tests like cologuard - they wouldn’t have caught the polyps that can develop into cancer. Who knows if they might have developed into colon cancer - thankfully I didn’t have to find out.

Skin cancer - I had melanoma over two decades ago - caught and removed and I had both surgery and immunotherapy. When the skin checks went from every 3 months to 6 months to annual - then to not required - I still insisted and went and had a skin check every 6 months to a year. And guess what - another melanoma was found a few years ago - caught early enough - in situ. Removed and gone. If I had just stopped getting screenings - could have developed further.

So here is my take - preventive screening is perhaps the most effective and important tool in PREVENTING and catching cancer and surviving. We live in times where health insurance providers who watch the bottom line try to void these costs. It is of course penny wise pound foolish because the cost to treat cancer and especially advanced is far more expensive and lives are priceless. When a person has the means to pay where insurance doesn’t cover or recommend - then absolutely do it. What a precious expenditure of money. Who says money can’t buy happiness - it can however buy some more time and quality of time.

I therefore am very confused and don’t understand how someone like Biden - whom I respect and love dearly - who as someone of means and also access to resources and medical officials and also with the history of cancer in his family and also the responsibility that he had to so many to remain healthy - did not do every single possible test for Prostate Cancer - even when not reccomemded or insisted upon. No test since 2014? If it had been me - regardless of the best doctors around - I would have said “do it”. And would with that info made important decisions. I just hope for Joe and for his family and our Nation that it’s not too late that he didn’t insist.