[TOPIC] Cancer

Uterine cancer? Detected by smear tests, might involve a...whatever the technical term for removing the womb is, and if she doesn't have children but wanted them you also have the whole "I can't have babies any more" thing.

Remember, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

Hysterectomy was the word you were looking for. That could work. In any case, having seen people go through all forms of therapy, there's no "easy" cancer treatment.

The other one I thought of was Hodgkins' lymphoma, which attacks the lymph nodes. Treatment has a really high success rate; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodgkin_disease

What about breast cancer? I have known many women with it. A mastectomy (sp?) might be your answer to a cure.

-Dawn Joyce
2009 SF: Vindicating Mya (Can I do it?) NO I lost.
2008 Nano: Vindication (51K)WON!

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow

Thyroid cancer is *sigh* sometimes seen as the "easy" cancer, that is, no chemo. Treatment includes surgery, and then radiation to get rid of any nodules left behind. Radiation scans are then done as often as required (usually every 6 months, then every year, then every two years). Technically you still have the "5-year-cure-rate" myth but the scans are still required because it can come back. The patient also has to take thyroid hormones for the rest of his/her life. Thyroid cancer is highly curable and is often caught early.

The scans require the patient to go on a low-iodine diet for 2 weeks prior to the scan and then during the scan. This means no dairy, no iodized salt, and no soy. (Kosher salt is fine though - so you can eat the chips at Chipotle, haha!) The patient also goes off the thyroid hormones during this time. The radiation is given in pill form and is radioactive iodine. A normal thyroid takes up iodine and therefore the scan is checking to see if there is any functioning thyroid left that is taking up an obnoxious amount of iodine (cancerous). You can also test, especially later after you've passed a lot of them, using a stimulant thyroid hormone injection that means you don't have to go off your drugs and are only on the diet for one week instead of two. You can also check using an ultrasound (usually how it's diagnosed-ish to warrant surgery or a biopsy) and a measure of another type of thyroid hormone. The thyroid scan lasts about a week. On the first day you go in and take the pill. You come back two days later to get the first scan, and the next day to get the final scan. If you're clear you can get back on hormones and off the diet, if not, you have another radiation treatment (which works the same way but is just more radiation). While on radiation the patient should stay away from small children and pregnant females and his/her throat is going to be very dry. He/she should eat with paper plates/utensils/etc and wash his/her sheets/clothes separate from the rest of the family. If you are receiving TREATMENT (not the scan) the patient has to be in isolation. This can be at home (you have to stay a certain number of feet away from other people in the house and the precautions are more strict) or if you need a lot, at the hospital. The number one side effect is sore throat, though some people get nauseous.

While the patient is off the thyroid hormone they are going to feel very depressed, always cold, never want to eat, and gain weight (but you lose it when you get back on). Another possible side effect from the radiation is depression, but this is usually clinical and so an antidepressant would usually work.

If anyone wants more info, feel free to send me a message. I am a thyroid cancer survivor, but it is more common among middle age/older people. (Mine was a side-effect of radiation for another disease.) I can also tell you more about the specific hormones and treatments, I have a few websites bookmarked that I could provide/cite. I can provide info on what the character would eat while on the low-iodine diet, what they would feel like if they were on an antidepressant, what it feels like to be hyperthyroid (too much hormone - mine resulted from a dosing error), etc. Okay, and the actual treatment itself was "easy" for me, but I've done worse things; the part that was hard was all the side effects, and I got every one plus more, lol.