....it's all good....
Friday, November 16, 2007
cancer paranoia-part I
am i cancer free now? i dunno.
is treatment working? i dunno.
you may know someone diagnosed with cancer and given clean bills of cancer-free status after treatment...in remission...whatever terms they used for it.
well, i'm not there yet or i simply dunno yet.
to keep things simple, the guideline is to pass some tests - normally PET scan and maybe some blood tests before they can declare you cancer free and to at least live past 5 years after remission before they consider you cured. i have scheduled my PET scan in mid Jan 08, to allow some time for my body to heal and stabilize after chemo for a more accurate scan. right now i pretty much dunno anything.
anyway, that's the guideline. as of today, the medical screening process is not sophisticated enough to detect macrobiotic cancer cells but only cabable of picking up tumor of certain size (for PET scan as small as 4mm). i'm sure most of you know what cancer is but briefly, cancer are body cells gone wacko, keeps replicating or growing and running amok damaging major organs in your body. okay, it's much more complicated than that but I don’t think you want me to elaborate here. a tumor comprised cluster of millions even billions of cancer cells. the bigger the tumor, the higher the amount of cancer cells.
before i had my surgery, the tumor was seen in the lung and no place else. however, my lymph nodes were affected and even though, no other tumor, nodule or lesion observed, they have to ASSUME macrobiotic cancer cells have spread beyond the lung (which is very likely esp i have more than one lymph nodes affected). since medical scan only pick up nodules/tumors of certain size, macrobiotic cancer cells cannot be detected by scan.
so, i was put through chemo to kill these macrobiotic cancer cells to minimize recurrence. PET scan is very useful in tracking the effectiveness of treatment to shrink tumors but not so much in my case. since scan cannot detect macrobiotic cancer cells, they can't really tell whether chemo has done its job. my incoming PET scan in Jan08 is more to keep check that cancer is not progressing. as long as there is no new tumor detected, they will consider me safe (until the next scan). so, i will have my fingers cross till then.
as you can see, ‘we’ are quietly tip toeing around in tightrope.... juggling living and dying simultaneously. trying to feel and act as normal as possible in the regular world. due to all the uncertainties, its so easy for ‘us’ to turn into cancer paranoia. an ache, a slight pain or discomfort will probably make 'us' wondering....is that bastard creeping back and spreading inside? i experienced my first cancer paranoia a few days ago. don't like the feelings of not knowing. waiting. the negative thoughts circulating my mind.
like it or not, it's part of my life now and i better learn to deal with it.
to be continued.
is treatment working? i dunno.
you may know someone diagnosed with cancer and given clean bills of cancer-free status after treatment...in remission...whatever terms they used for it.
well, i'm not there yet or i simply dunno yet.
to keep things simple, the guideline is to pass some tests - normally PET scan and maybe some blood tests before they can declare you cancer free and to at least live past 5 years after remission before they consider you cured. i have scheduled my PET scan in mid Jan 08, to allow some time for my body to heal and stabilize after chemo for a more accurate scan. right now i pretty much dunno anything.
anyway, that's the guideline. as of today, the medical screening process is not sophisticated enough to detect macrobiotic cancer cells but only cabable of picking up tumor of certain size (for PET scan as small as 4mm). i'm sure most of you know what cancer is but briefly, cancer are body cells gone wacko, keeps replicating or growing and running amok damaging major organs in your body. okay, it's much more complicated than that but I don’t think you want me to elaborate here. a tumor comprised cluster of millions even billions of cancer cells. the bigger the tumor, the higher the amount of cancer cells.
before i had my surgery, the tumor was seen in the lung and no place else. however, my lymph nodes were affected and even though, no other tumor, nodule or lesion observed, they have to ASSUME macrobiotic cancer cells have spread beyond the lung (which is very likely esp i have more than one lymph nodes affected). since medical scan only pick up nodules/tumors of certain size, macrobiotic cancer cells cannot be detected by scan.
so, i was put through chemo to kill these macrobiotic cancer cells to minimize recurrence. PET scan is very useful in tracking the effectiveness of treatment to shrink tumors but not so much in my case. since scan cannot detect macrobiotic cancer cells, they can't really tell whether chemo has done its job. my incoming PET scan in Jan08 is more to keep check that cancer is not progressing. as long as there is no new tumor detected, they will consider me safe (until the next scan). so, i will have my fingers cross till then.
as you can see, ‘we’ are quietly tip toeing around in tightrope.... juggling living and dying simultaneously. trying to feel and act as normal as possible in the regular world. due to all the uncertainties, its so easy for ‘us’ to turn into cancer paranoia. an ache, a slight pain or discomfort will probably make 'us' wondering....is that bastard creeping back and spreading inside? i experienced my first cancer paranoia a few days ago. don't like the feelings of not knowing. waiting. the negative thoughts circulating my mind.
like it or not, it's part of my life now and i better learn to deal with it.
to be continued.
posted by lisaOne at 10:13 AM
2 Comments:
HI Lisa, I've been waiting for 2 weeks for your post...good to hear from you!
You know just this week I accompanied my mom to the oncologist to start her hormonal therapy. This is our second visit which is in the peak hour in the morning while the last visit was at a non-peak hour. The rather shocking thing to me is that there was such a crowd of patients in the waiting area it's almost like in a General Practitioner's clinic where people are having minor illness like cough and cold and the turnaround time is 5 minutes per patient. These patients look really normal that you won't believe they have cancer. Indeed most of them were there for treatment and/or collections of tests results. I wonder if cancer is becoming like the common chronic illness eg. high blood pressure, high cholestrol, diabetes etc. Even if one can't be completely cured from it, it is not so easy to die from it. Fighting these illnesses requires change of diet, taking medication and getting treatment, and most of all -- having a positive mindset. If one gets prepared for the worst ie. death only, then there is nothing to live for. In any case, one day, everyone of us will die anyway.
So Lisa, pls keep your sun shining. Don't get paranoid over things you can't control.
Me and my big mouth for asking you whether are you in remission....
dawn
This feeling must be so lousy.
I do hope you'll get a all clear results in Jan!
Btw, I want to ask you, before you knew about all these, really it was the yearly health scan that you realised you had cancer?
There was no other signs before that?
Life is really fragile for all I can say.
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