The IT Guy Joins Us to Share trip to Ghana on a Humanitarian Medical Mission

So, so you, you're a man in demand because the Pope, as we now know, Pope Leo, no, put your vis up.

Uh, w- we hear he, they found a, a nodule on his lung, and that he was gonna go have it taken out, not a big deal.

And then we find out today that it was cancerous.

So what happens?

Well, you know, there are three variables that we don't know.

Um, first, what type of cancer it is.

You know, lung cancers, there are a number of different types.

Two, we don't know the size of the nodule that they took out of his lung.

And three, we don't know if it's spread anywhere else.

I know on Sunday at mass he said that it was, uh, limited or restricted where it was.

But, you know, when they do the surgery, they took out the lower section of his lung, but they also take samples of all the lymph nodes, of a whole bunch of lymph nodes in the center of the chest.

Over the next couple of days, those will be...

Well, they're probably being looked at right now because he's the Pope.

Um-

He's the Po- He doesn't have to wait for test results like the rest of us.

No, no, no, no.

Well, uh, as the Pope, shouldn't he already know the test results? Ah, there you go.

[laughs]

Ooh, that's an esoteric question.

Um, and, uh, and so once you know those three different variables, then we'll have a better idea.

Now, i- if we go statistically speaking, long as his nodule, i- if it hasn't spread as they're implying, that it was just localized, he... very, very good prognosis.

I, I have patients who had small tumors that were taken out, w- didn't spread anywhere, you know.

Uh, I guess statistically, the five-year, we look at five-year survival, is 92%, and most of the time they feel if you survive five years after cancer, lung cancer treatment, th- you're, you're essentially in remission.

And now they're actually for the first time in my, what, almost 30 years of doing medicine, we're actually starting to use the term cure.

So it's good.