There are many out there who work hard, pay the bills, and get to retire still with many years ahead and relatively good health.
But there are also many Australians who are not quite as fortunate.
Meet Jack*.
Jack worked hard for his entire life, until retirement. He worked as a bricklayer, a teacher at TAFE, a Workcover inspector and a state Safety Manager.
Despite surveying and assessing harm acquired through poor work environment in his everyday job, little did Jack know of the damage lurking in his own body, wreaked by his furnace-building work approximately 50 years prior…
Still working, at the age of 74, Jack had a workplace accident and was taken to hospital for some scans of his head and neck. Incidentally, a shadow was seen over his lung, and after testing, it was diagnosed as mesothelioma – a malignantcancerous, may grow and spread to other areas of the body cancera disease where abnormal cells split without control and spread to other nearby body tissue and/or organs, caused by asbestos exposure. Jack had mesothelioma of the lung, caused by the work he’d done in his early trade years building furnaces, which included lining the steel shells of furnaces with asbestos batts.
Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer, caused by inhalation of asbestos, meaning it has affected many people who have worked with Fibro sheeting or Asbestos insulation in the construction industry, or those who have worked with wet Asbestos (eg. insulating piping on ships). It can form in the lining of the lungs, abdomenstomach, stomach area, belly or heart, and grows very slowly, so often isn’t diagnosed as a cancer till decades after the initial exposure.
Jack was shocked. He’d never been warned of the dangers of his workplace so long ago. He’d not had any of the usual symptoms everyone expected, like shortness of breath, chest pain, ongoing coughing, etc. And yet, here he was, being told that he had an aggressive cancer with a poor prognosisto predict how a disease/condition may progress and what the outcome might be.
It was deemed inoperable because it was so complex. He was prescribed treatment involving radiotherapy, then chemotherapya cancer treatment that uses drugs to kill or slow the growth of cancer cells, while minimising damage to healthy cells and immunotherapya treatment that uses a person's immune system to fight cancer. Much of the medical advice was that he only had 12 to 18 months to live after diagnosisthe process of identifying a disease based on signs and symptoms, patient history and medical test results.
Jack is now in reasonable, stable health, 15 months since diagnosis. He lives with his wife and has treatment every 3 weeks to keep his cancer stable, and stays physically active, playing golf and walking regularly. He retired 6 months after his diagnosis because he wanted to focus on his mesothelioma treatment. His 2 adult children overseas are in contact with him regularly; they’re worried about the mesothelioma. Jack himself feels well and is still asymptomatic from the actual cancer.
This COVID-19 pandemic has brought its fair share of extra concerns, especially considering Jack is already an immunosuppressed person, with lung disease, in his 70s, requiring regular hospital visits. But he and his wife take precautions – they wear masks, they don’t go out much and try to reduce exposure to the public.
The phasing out of asbestos products in Australia started in 1981 and continued until completion at the end of 2003. Even though asbestos products were progressively banned from installation in Australia between 1981 and 2003, there is still a lot of Fibrolite (Fibro) sheeting in older buildings in Australia, as well as some corrugated Super 6 roofing sheets still on buildings. Sadly, it has come to our attention again more recently, as the discovery that dry-saw cutting of artificial stone benches is causing similar issues and diagnoses (eg. Silicosis) amongst some younger construction workers.
If you or anyone you know are dealing with a new diagnosis of mesothelioma, or are worried about a possible diagnosis, please discuss these concerns with your GP. There is plenty of support available – through government information programs and the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute (ADRI).
As we have just observed Mesothelioma Awareness Day, we need to remember all of those who have lost their lives to this awful disease acquired from exposure to a material previously accepted as harmless. We need to think of those who are going through treatment currently, like Jack, and we need to continue to consider safety precautions in the workplace.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at Rare Cancers Australia on 1800 257 600 or email [email protected].
*Name has been changed for privacy reasons.
With thanks to Jack* for sharing his story