Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recovery
There’s a lot of speculation about what Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s current absence from the Court means. Is this the beginning of the end for RBG? Or just another bump on a long long road?
Ginsburg had major lung surgery on December 21. That’s about 3 weeks ago. I’ve known several people who had similar surgeries for similar reasons, and they were a lot younger than she is, and they were out of commission for far longer than that. It’s a pretty brutal surgery and the recovery tends to be painful.
I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I’m basing my opinion on the experience of those friends of mine, plus articles such as this one:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missed her first oral arguments in more than 25 years on the bench this week as she recovers from a Dec. 21 operation that removed about half of her left lung, including two cancerous growths.
Ginsburg’s absence from the bench…did not surprise cancer surgeons, who say that based on what is known publicly, the 85-year-old’s recovery appears to be proceeding normally.
Top doctors with experience performing pulmonary lobectomies expect Ginsburg to be back on the bench in less than six weeks, with more than enough time to return for the court’s February sitting.
That said, I will add that RBG is 85 years old. People of that age sometimes bounce back from surgery (my mother did well after a hip replacement at 96, for example), but they are obviously at greater risk of complications than a younger person. What’s more, we don’t really know whether RBG’s lung nodules were primary cancers or metastases from previous cancers. The longer-term prognosis is probably much better if it’s the first rather than the second.
We have a few resident doctors and retired doctors here who might be able to weigh in with more knowledge than I have.
Somebody should keep tabs on DC area taxidermists.
The other mention I saw in reports, other than the source of these nodules, was that samples were taken from known pathways such as lymph nodes, to see if the lung issue had spread. Such transfer paths could have been the source, too.
But I agree with you & your informants, that it’s early in recovery … she is taking doctors advice and resting, probably taking meds for comfort which don’t make a person any sharper between the ears.
They caught it, it was not advanced, and even if there is an ongoing spread she could have years yet.
Hopefully someone is advising her that retirement is appropriate and recommended. If she can’t do the job she should retire.
Mike K,
I’m certainly no RBG fan, but that was uncalled for and cruel.
She will stay on the job for as long as possible. Can’t let the orange man bad replace her with a solid conservative judge. I don’t wish her ill, but I won’t miss her when she goes.
If Justice Ginsburg bore any previous sign of being in excellent physical condition (spare me the RBG workout video) then there would be reason to believe she’ll be back in her chair alongside the other Justices this year.
She’s done.
She may not retire. She may go to extreme measures to stave off death.
Her clerks/handlers & accomplices in the media may hide her true condition.
Chief Justice Roberts may continue the charade that she’s “working from home.”
She might even show up for a public display of “recovery.”
But I do not believe she will do a serious day’s SCOTUS work ever again.
I’m certainly prepared to be surprised…but at that point, it’s not about serving the country or about enacting justice it’s about preventing another Trump pick and that’s just plain pride and spite & deserving of the contempt I reserved for the now dead McCain.
Steve Walsh: It is ballhooed from the heights that RBG said “I will do this job for as long as I can do it…”, but they drop her last two words, “… full steam“.
When she loses to much, she will retire.
Mike K:
Not a cruel comment, just anticipating the progressive solution to the problem of the Bad Orange Man. The 25th Amendment is bandied about with respect to the president, I don’t think there is an analogous process for Justices of the Supreme Court. Will her clerks be doing the work for her for the foreseeable future?
John Guilfoyle:
If she really does recover fully—and she certainly might—I don’t see how her return would be about pride and spite. If she really can continue to do the job, she has every right to do so and every reason to do so. I would feel the same about any judge, liberal or conservative, in a similar position.
I’m not a doctor either, but my sweet lord, RBG has had past surgeries for colon and pancreatic cancer plus she cracked three ribs in a fall which is how they discovered the lung cancer.
She’s got spunk in spades; however, there are limits.
I have been reading liberal articles which praise her for her spirit and work. Nonetheless, the writers also note her stubbornness in not stepping down during Obama’s terms, so she could be replaced with a liberal justice. One assumes RBG assumed Hillary would be elected.
Trump sure screwed up a lot of people and plans. The nerve of that man.
Funny that the press hasn’t set up “presence'” outside her residence like they did the Kavanaugh family. After all doesn’t the country have a need to know all about her recovery (not really).
I am with Neo on this episode of RBG, this is her life to play on out to the fullest. I have seen older folks in our family who we thought were on death’s door step in their mid 80’s go on to reach their mid 90’s and some scrappy little old, old people don’t and won’t give up until it is finally the end. With my older friends and relative those who cranked on up in their 90’s had a wicked, fun sense of humor and a peaceful presence because they had seen a lot of silly stuff in their long lived lives. I don’t care for Ruth’s political leanings but I think she is a fantastic old lady and her choices and health circumstances are not ours to decide.
Sorry Boss…I’ll respectfully hold my point.
You used to be a progressive so you should know..as others have noted…from here on it’s all about the “orange man bad” getting a 3rd bite at the SCOTUS nomination apple. She will have one foot in the grave & the other on a banana peel & her clerks/handlers will pretend she’s “fully” capable of rendering decisions.
Those “ifs” you list…not possible at her point in life. She’s the only anecdotal evidence that matters…not my 88 year old mom, your 96 year old mom or the countless ones I’ve known in my life who endured beyond all reasonable limits.
Her last public appearances were every bit “Weekend at Bernie’s.” She had the chance to go out in a blaze of glory while 0 was still there…she chose badly. President Trump is going to get that 3rd SCOTUS pick…this year.
Speaking of health of the elderly, when an aunt of mine was the same age she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. She refused the indicated surgical treatment, telling her family she had a wonderful life and was prepared to face her fate. She died just short of her 100th birthday. One never knows.
It is not honorable for conservatives to continue to wish ill upon someone just because you want her justice seat in the supreme court. just because your enemies are devils doesn’t mean you have to become one to defeat them.
Mike K,
I’m certainly no RBG fan, but that was uncalled for and cruel.
You know what is cruel ? Pressing a sick 85 year old woman to pretend to serve on the Supreme Court in spite of multiple illnesses to try to prevent another conservative justice. Have you watched her in the court or in the Congress at SOTU speeches?
She made a mistake in thinking that Hillary would win in 2016. She is under enormous pressure and, if she did retire, the hate directed at her would be incredible.
I have seen older folks in our family who we thought were on death’s door step in their mid 80’s go on to reach their mid 90’s and some scrappy little old, old people don’t and won’t give up until it is finally the end.
I have operated on a 106 year old woman but she was in a hell of a lot better shape than RBG.
Best comment from Politico:
So RBG passes on to the SCOTUS in the sky and Hillary immediately calls Trump.
“Mr. President, as you know RBG died and I’d like to take her place.”
Trump replies, “Well that sounds fine as long as it’s OK with the funeral home.”
Well, you can wish them away without wishing them dead. Unless they are kin to mosquitoes, which cannot survive without access to your blood.
We live in strange times wherein some [I’m not saying you, Dave] claim or at least imply that refusing to be victimized is sometimes a sign of incivility, or represents the breaking of some kind of social compact.
She may go to extreme measures to stave off death.
Ah, Ginsberg Derangement Syndrome starts, it seems.
Pray tell, if you have surgery in your 80’s, do you intend to fight hard to live? Or will you just die because it is convenient for some other people?
I hope her pain is minimal to non-existent and that she recovers fully.
I think it is sad if she continues to serve on the Supreme Court solely because of politics. Politics is such a tiny part of life. I found it sad that John McCain insisted on running for office at the end of his life, and I also find Nancy Pelosi sad. In McCain and Pelosi’s circumstance the decision had nothing to do with money, or progeny. They will both leave their heirs scads of money, and their congressional pay does nothing to increase their estates.
I have not experienced fame, but it seems to be one of the most difficult things to relinquish once one has a taste of it. I greatly admire people who walk away from positions in the limelight to give others an opportunity. There is tremendous dignity in stepping aside and opening a position for someone younger.
I’m sure it is very hard to know when it is time to step down from an office, but there are many who stayed too long and ended up tarnishing their names and destroying goodwill they had worked decades to build by not exiting the public eye sooner.
What’s more, we don’t really know whether RBG’s lung nodules were primary cancers or metastases from previous cancers. The longer-term prognosis is probably much better if it’s the first rather than the second.
It’s bad either way.
The ratio of annual deaths to new diagnoses for lung cancer is about 0.68. That’s not the worst ratio there be among cancer sites. IIRC, liver cancer, brain tumors, pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer are more lethal. Still, any lung cancer diagnosis is bad news.
My memory may be failing me, but I think they can successfully treat some of the leukemias and lymphomas at stage four, as well as thyroid cancers and a few colon cancers. If I’m not mistaken, just about any other type which metastasizes is ultimately untreatable, and can only be contained for a time. Given that she had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2009, it’s amazing she’s still around.
Pray tell, if you have surgery in your 80’s, do you intend to fight hard to live? Or will you just die because it is convenient for some other people?
See Thomas Sowell on how your disposition toward death changes with age, something he’s felt from personal experience. A dear friend of mine underwent a Whipple procedure in 2007, at the age of 87. His wife tells me “___ only wants five years”. When the cancer resurfaced two years later, he was ready.
Multiple lung lesions is 99% metastatic. Too bad but I feel that she is struggling on because her fans on the left would savage her if she quit.
Sources say she will retire shortly (tomorrow):
https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1083494842838073344
“Ah, Ginsberg Derangement Syndrome starts, it seems.”
“It is not honorable for conservatives to continue to wish ill upon someone just because you want her justice seat in the supreme court.”
Puhleeeze…Just stop it.
I’d bet my last dollar not one regular Neo poster actually wants Justice Ginsburg to die…least of all in some debilitating fashion. I see no one wishing her ill or who seems deranged. Bless y’all’s hearts.
Some of us are at least trying to be reasonable in our understanding of (1) the high position she holds, (2) its demands upon those who hold it, and (3) her current state of physical ill health. (The Drs among us are offering sound input as usual)
It is unrealistic to presume she’s going to fighting fit ever again. If I’m wrong, and she’s back on the bench before the year ends, then I will thank God for the miracles he still performs.
I maintain my absolutely non-medical prognostications. She will not sit on the bench again. If she refuses to retire and clings to her seat from her death-bed, it’s about keeping (or delaying) President Trump from making a 3rd SCOTUS pick.
<i. If she refuses to retire and clings to her seat from her death-bed, it’s about keeping (or delaying) President Trump from making a 3rd SCOTUS pick.
And the converse, if she retires she is a traitor to the left.
It’s hard to tell at this point how she is, without further medical information being made public. A woman I know, aged 50, had a lobectomy this past spring. She was in excellent physical condition (except for the cancer). Recovery was rough. Ginsburg is visibly fragile and, I’m guessing, has fairly significant osteoporosis. She might be able to function as a Justice via video and briefs, working from home. Time will tell how debilitating this is, and whether the cancer recurs. Lung cancer frequently does recur.
I’d bet my last dollar not one regular Neo poster actually wants Justice Ginsburg to die…
Doesn’t matter what we wish or do not wish. The life expectancy of someone her age is shy of seven years.
I certainly wouldn’t wish Earthly immortality on anyone.
(My mother at age 80 was fed up with living).
And the converse, if she retires she is a traitor to the left.
Mike K: I’d say it also gets personal.
Her legacy takes a huge hit, if her choice not to step down under Obama results in a young conservative justice eating away at her work for decades to come.
RBG has no one but herself to blame and she knows it.
Precedent for my suggestion about taxidermy.
Senator Key Pittman.
It was rumored for years that Pittman died before his final election in 1940, and that Democratic party leaders kept the body in Reno’s Riverside Hotel bathtub full of ice until he was reelected so Governor Edward Carville, a fellow Democrat, could appoint a replacement. While the rumor was false the truth was, as former Nevada State Archivist Guy Rocha wrote, “just as disreputable”. Pittman suffered a severe heart attack just before the election on November 5, and two doctors told his aides before the election that death was imminent. To avoid affecting the election, the party told the press that the senator was hospitalized for exhaustion and that his condition was not serious. Pittman died on November 10 at the Washoe General Hospital in Reno, Nevada.[3]
Note the party,
Chester Draws offered:
Ginsberg Derangement Syndrome
Go to Google, put it in quotes.
One hit. ONE. Yikes.
No actually … coverage here, and most-everywhere, is legit. RGB’s seat on the court is an historic matter. A fool isn’t paying attention. Is she in it, or is she out of it?
There’s no derangement here. Not by conservatives and Trump-supporters, anyway. Not even other RGBiers are flinging this at the Right.
Art Deco:
If her tumors were primary and very early stage nodules, the prognosis is excellent, all else being equal. I have known 2 people with that exact situation and they were given a very high chance of basically being cured (although I don’t know if the “cure” word was used). They were told they were highly unlikely to have a recurrence, and neither needed chemo at all. If her cancer is primary, reports are that it was caught in a very early stage.
If it’s metastatic the prognosis is far worse.
Rufus T. Firefly; John Guilfoyle:
I agree that she would have political motives for staying on SCOTUS. But I think she has another motive, too. I think she loves her job.
I suspect she is finished. I haven’t seen any videos of her since she broke the ribs, and that is a kind of tell.
This should be pretty simple- she is the court member who was appointed and approved to issue opinions under the Constitution, not her staff. I think John Roberts will ensure that she is actually the one actively making the decisions written in her name. If she isn’t, then, at first, Roberts won’t allow a vote to entered in her name, and if she doesn’t return to active duty by the end of the term, I think he will demand she retire.
Weighing in here:
From what little I’ve actually seen of Ginsburg over the years, she really does enjoy her job, and my bet is that, absent new medical drama, she will not make any decision about retiring until at least the end of February.
If her tumors were primary and very early stage nodules, the prognosis is excellent, all else being equal.
We would be speaking of lung cancer, not breast cancer or intestinal cancer. There are no excellent prognoses when you’re diagnosed with lung cancer, merely passable prognoses. This site lists some attrition rates:
https://www.verywellhealth.com/lung-cancer-survival-rates-by-type-and-stage-2249401
The very best attrition rate is for stage 1A large cell cancer. They have 49% surviving five years after the diagnosis. (To be sure, some may be dying of something other than their cancer because they were, like RBG, quite old when diagnosed).
This should be pretty simple- she is the court member who was appointed and approved to issue opinions under the Constitution, not her staff. I think John Roberts will ensure that she is actually the one actively making the decisions written in her name. If she isn’t, then, at first, Roberts won’t allow a vote to entered in her name, and if she doesn’t return to active duty by the end of the term, I think he will demand she retire.
You’ve forgotten the real triumph of the taxidermist’s art, Thurgood Marshall. He once told his clerks: “If I die, just prop me up and keep on votin’ me”. He lasted about 16 months after he resigned from the court.
(although I don’t know if the “cure” word was used).
If my experience with oncologists and cancer surgeons is representative, they avoid that word pretty assiduously, except when telling you what they can’t accomplish. Ditto the nurse-practitioners who work for them. Your experiences may be different.
It is not honorable for conservatives to continue to wish ill upon someone
Can we want to win this time instead of be conservative? No more honorable losing.
And since Dewey, Bush, Romney, Thomas, etc. are all Hitler, then Ginsburg is Stalin or Mao or Pot and I most certainly can wish death upon terrible people like Ginsburg, Mao, or Pot. (Turnabout is fair play—and don’t we all want to be fair?)
I can’t go back to undo all the terrible effects of Democrats from (and including FDR) shouting “Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!” at Republicans, but I can pay ‘em back for all ills they’ve done.
Steve Walsh observes, ‘sources say’ her denouement is at hand.
And for sure that is entirely possible. Her fall: Why? What did it do? How is she coming along, really?
Lots of things we don’t know, could compromise her willingness & ability to stick with it. It’s possible, sure.
I’ve seen a couple reasonable ‘sources say’ articles myself. But John Roberts is supportive of her home-study program. ‘Sources say’ might be true, but they ARE a gamble. ‘Possibles’.
And as I understand the Court schedule, there is a matter of some weeks here in which to make the retirement call, … without causing a problem. There is afaik no need or call in any case for her to make a departure announcement, if that is what it is to be, in the very near future, a few days or a week or two. It can wait. The ‘right away’ aspect of these ‘sources say’ sallies sounds a bit off.
And if she does confess here in the next few hours that she can no longer do it “full steam”, I will admit that gamblers sometimes win.
I will avoid anymore on this except to say that in 50 years, I have not seen two synchronous primary lung cancers.
ErisGuy laments: “Can we want to win this time instead of be conservative?”
A primary role, goal, intent of all the Left-wing carrying-on, is to temp & induce the Conservative to return fire. To ‘get into it’ with the opponent.
We win, by standing firm & calm in the face of the gale.
We lose, by doing things that make us look like … the side that lost WWII.
Did we go into Germany after winning WWII, and set up concentration camps and ovens, round up their leadership and decapitate their culture?
Did we continue nuking Japan until it was nothing we would ever have to worry about for the next couple-few centuries?
We did not. And that call goes a long ways to explain the abiding success of the West, over the last 3/4ths of a century.
Moreover ErisGuy, we ARE winning. Trump has broke the ice; pulled the veil off shading goings-on behind the curtain. There is no taking-back this ‘enlightenment’.
We will not win every battle. There are casualties. But even in the event of a serious set-back, we know where we’re going now, and how to get there.
No. RGB will go or stay, whether we act like jerks because our opponents do, or not. Ergo, no contest: Don’t.
Ted Clayton;
Who sets the rules of engagement? The culture of the society and the world.
When you are fighting an opponent that does not abide or agree with rules that are restraining his behavior you will loose.
After you have totally defeated your opponent you can force him to abide with the rules you impose. But you cannot trust him to hold to his commitments unless it is in his interests. History IMO.
Mike K:
My friend had more than two synchronous primary lung cancers. The doctors were astounded, I might add. The cancerous nodules were all small. She had two lobes of her lung removed, I think (if I recall correctly). She never had chemo. She lived about 11 more years and died of something else (sepsis). I believe her case was considered highly unusual, however.
Art Deco:
I have several friends who had lung cancer surgeries. One was in an early stage (I don’t know which number and letter) and was told after surgery she had a 90% chance of no recurrence. She did not have to have any chemo.
I believe her case was considered highly unusual, however.
I’ll say. There are only three lobes and one is quite small.
I have seen someone cured of advanced lung cancer. The story is in my book, “War Stories.” He still had only one.
Mike K:
I wasn’t talking about a cure. I was talking about many many many years of healthy life post-surgery. And I’m just reporting what my friend was told (she was in her 60s): that she had a 90% chance of no recurrence, and that she’d probably die of something else someday. (That’s not the friend I was speaking about in my comment to you; it’s the one I was speaking about here).
With someone of 85 (RBG’s age), ten years would be a great many years, for example.
and was told after surgery she had a 90% chance of no recurrence. She did not have to have any chemo.
Really? Our cancer surgeon offered no quantitative assessment at all, just told us more-likely-than-not no more trouble. The medical oncologist did, but she never placed a frame around the quantitative assessment (no trouble ever v. no trouble in five years v. no trouble in 10 years). She also sent us to an actuarial website which was rather more pessimistic in its assessment than she’d been or than the reference manuals we had had been. Curiously, the radiation oncologist was quite precise and optimistic, but did not specify whether she was referring to recurrences generally or the subset the radiation treatments had been meant to prevent. Lesson learned: physicians and surgeons are not actuaries.
My maternal grandmother battled cancer her last 20 years. The primary cancer was removed, but it kept popping back up, eventually in her lungs, was removed again, but then a few months later showed up in her liver, and she was dead 2 months after that.
I suspect Ginsberg’s cancers of this year are the metastases from her earlier ones.
Art Deco:
Yes, I think that physicians can have very different policies on how to deal with telling patients their prognoses. It’s a difficult area, not the least because all the data (such as, for example, on 5-year survival rates) is necessarily old and doesn’t often reflect current approaches.
I always gave statistics but I added that no one is ever 10% cured. You are or you are not. Five years usually counts as a cure but some cancers, especially melanoma, have no rules. I have seen a recurrence 35 years after a melanoma of the eye was removed.
Oliver Sacks, the author, died of an ophthalmic melanoma 9 years after treatment.
om,
History is a great guide, not to be slightly. Agreed.
In the ’60s-70s, bombs were going off in the USA everywhere, over dozen a day, thousands a year. That should have been addressed differently; more pro-actively, ‘like you say’.
Three-year old on the floor kicking & screaming, turning purple? Not a big problem.
Strapping dude big enough to hunt bear with a switch, crazed, ‘on’ something and maybe armed? Could be a problem. Maybe time to call in the cavalry, or mount-up right here & now.
Big part of good conflict-management, is ascertaining what is & what isn’t our conflict … and guarding against mission-creep. Democrats doing the 3yo on the floor (camera crews packed all around), best addressed ‘minimally’. They start eg making bombs, different conflict.
As it stands today, “When the opponent is busy digging himself into a hole, don’t interrupt”. They’re hurting themself a lot more than they’re hurting us.
Let ’em turn purple.
Five years usually counts as a cure but some cancers, especially melanoma, have no rules. I have seen a recurrence 35 years after a melanoma of the eye was removed.
The medical oncologist tells us, ‘the next patient I’m to see has had a recurrence after 20 years. I need to warn you this happens sometimes. About 2% per year’. The literature we consulted indicated that the annual recurrence rate declines quite slowly with time for stage 1 cancers and resolves into a constant. For the stage 2 and stage 3 cancers, it’s quite elevated to begin with, but most of the distinction between the later stage and the stage 1 rate evaporates after 5-6 years. After about 15 years, the probability of a recurrence is the same w/o regard to the stage of the cancer initially. That it’s a constant is distressing, because that means you’re just never over it.
Yes, I think that physicians can have very different policies on how to deal with telling patients their prognoses. It’s a difficult area, not the least because all the data (such as, for example, on 5-year survival rates) is necessarily old and doesn’t often reflect current approaches.
You need to take from your doctor what they have to offer you, and accept that some things aren’t their stock-in-trade.
The wretched thing nowadays is that they’re all enslaved to computer terminals. One of the more recent physicals I’ve had he hardly looked at me, just typing away at the electronic medical record. Premedical study sums to a couple of academic years. Then you have four calendar years of medical school. Then you have 3-6 years worth of crazy hours for your residency. Then you’ve got two years of fellowship. All that, and the financing system we have now deploys these professionals as … data entry clerks. A primary care physician of my acquaintance tells me that he was debarred from making use of the transcription service by his employers. Transcription’s for specialists only, just like coffee’s for closers. So, he has to enter data in an electronic medical record while trying to interview patients. And, of course, the electronic medical record is designed by programmers in accordance with their own shticks, screw you doctor-losers. He said this maneuver triple the time he had to allot to record keeping, then they bitched that he wasn’t seeing enough patients. Memo to Joe Blow, MD. Don’t ever work for Carillion.
A primary care physician of my acquaintance tells me that he was debarred from making use of the transcription service by his employers.<
Most of the primary care docs I know are unhappy with their practice. I taught medical students for 15 years and worked part time with young docs. I am so happy that I don't have to deal with it. I know a number of older docs, not as old as I am but with grown kids and student loans paid. There are quitting all insurance and Medicare and practicing for cash. Over head drops 70%.
Mandatory age limits for retirement of all judges and justices, and congress.
Without any consideration of who is president.
It’s not about you.
AesopFan,
“Mandatory age limits for retirement…”
FDR was coping a plea, claiming polio. His issue was more serious, and it actively killed him … polio was no longer a problem.
The problem of too-old ranking-figures rolls-in with a public ‘right-to-know’ … even with a robust-seeming JFK, who also hid serious issues, and was very young.
Simply requiring the loss of medical privacy would ‘catch’ both the JFKs, and the doddering Judges… without hardwiring an age-limit into the Code.
Overwhelmingly, though, realistically, our real problem is venality, not senility. Term limits are about breaking up cabals, regardless of age or fitness. That’s the biggie.
Overwhelmingly, though, realistically, our real problem is venality, not senility.
See Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond. Sometime’s it’s senility. In New York, mandatory retirement for judges has been the law since 1846. The utility of simple rules is that it avoids a transfer of discretion to the professional guild necessary to implement the more complicated rules.
Sometime’s it’s senility.
Sometimes it is. But turfing them out (hopefully) before senility sets in does nothing for the decades of venality.
General politics and lower judges is a different thing from Scotus judges. There’s only 9, and they’re under scrutiny. Elsewhere, yeah, we should do something, even if it’s wrong.