Even in these difficult times, wealth will still get you far better service than the average person. Would you do anything different if you were faced with life and death and were really rich? Money is there to be used, after all.
This is how someone with a terminal illness spent $250,000 to add years to his life.
Mr. Joseph, a senior executive at a large company learned that he had terminal Stage 4 kidney cancer. Mr. Joseph was not famous but he was wealthy. He took bold action and contacted consultants for drug companies and offered himself as their next project.
He spent $50,000 to get a personal medical symposium - with four of the best kidney cancer experts in the world - immediately organized. The doctors soon recognized the best treatments for him, recommended the most appropriate drugs and treatment programs and got him admitted into a treatment program.
Mr. Joseph's health improved dramatically from the treatments, just like the not- so- wealthy people in that same program. But he stayed relatively healthy, while other patients with similar disease stages were going downhill; these other people did not have the knowledge or money to find the best therapy or the money to travel to the specific treatment site was at. But Mr. Joseph's health began to decline after six months in the program. By that time, other patients, not in the program, were already beginning to die.
But now he needed another treatment regimen or he was a goner. The medical researchers recommended experimental treatments for him, and the consulting company tried to get him admitted into these clinical trials.
Mr. Joseph was not allowed into these clinical trials because he had other unusual medical conditions. No amount of money would get him into controlled clinical trials. So he needed another way to get those medications.
Sometimes drug companies will make exceptions, but not this time. No amount of money was enough to open a slot for him in controlled clinical trials. So he needed another way to get the medications. He didn't have enough money to buy a drug company, so he did the next best thing.
Mr. Joseph spent $100,000 to have the experimental medicines formulated - just for him - by medicinal chemists. By that time, his symptoms had become very serious, and he was too tired to get out of bed. He knew he had only a few months of life left.
But the chemists delivered on time and Mr. Joseph got his very own supply of an experimental cancer drug. With that drug, he began to recover within two weeks. Three weeks later, he got out of bed and four weeks after that, he was able to walk around his neighborhood. Then, he went back to work part-time. That wonderful situation lasted almost a year when the cancer spread again and he began to go downhill once more.
Another $100,000 got Mr. Joseph a second experimental cancer drug and kept him alive and at work for almost another year before the cancer began to spread again. But this time, it kept spreading and none of the experimental medicines could help. He died a year later, surrounded by his friends and family. His money bought him an extra two years with his wife and kids.
Would you do anything different?
Stephen Goldner is the President of Cancer Information Center and the organizer of the Colon Cancer Resource and other cancer related web sites. He is a toxicologist and lawyer with almost 40 years experience in the medical field as inventor, developer and innovator of drugs and medical devices for people.
The Colon Cancer Resource website is dedicated to providing a complete understanding of colon cancer and colorectal cancer in clear understandable language for patients and their families.
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