Treatment
While early detection has vastly improved outcomes, the unknowns still grip us with fear.
Advances in cancer treatments and early screening practices have greatly changed the face of cancer. Death rates for many types of cancer have been significantly reduced. In many instances, treatments have become more tolerable than in decades past. Early detection practices have improved the five- and ten-year survival rates for many. I believe firmly that even if we do not find cures for every cancer out there, we will someday soon reach a point where many are treated like more manageable diseases such as asthma or diabetes.
Yet, for all the advances, the “C” word still–and rightly so–sends shivers down our spines and causes our hearts to shudder. For patients and their families, it’s the unknown factors that give cancer it’s powerful grip: Will I respond like most patients to therapy? Is my cancer highly aggressive or indolent? Which outcome percentage will apply to me? Did we catch it in time? Even with more patients living with cancer these days, these are valid questions and powerful catalysts for doubt, anxiety and a fair number of sleepless nights.
I was watching CNN yesterday and caught a half-hour documentary on Martina Navratilova’s recent battle with breast cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer in one of her mammary ducts earlier this year. She underwent a lumpectomy as an outpatient and was then given six weeks of radiation therapy. Her prognosis is good. She vocalized, like me, that she can’t imagine where she might be a year from now had she not had regular screenings.
She also addressed the powerful grip that cancer still exerts. Using different phrases, she spoke of her fears of the uncertainty factors. Martina also referred to being lucky in that her case required “just radiation.”
I related as she told her story. I too have said that I am glad that I will “need just two to three years of hormone deprivation and just radiation.” It’s funny how easily we accept powerful treatments with sometimes serious side effects in the face of a life-threatening disease, how willingly we cling to the comfort word “just.”
While we believe that my case of advanced disease is being treated at an early stage with a good prognosis and are grateful for the “justs,” the uncertainties still find ways to creep into our lives and exact their tolls. Everything being relative, I am oddly grateful that my body chose prostate cancer instead of pancreatic cancer or glioblastoma for which the fear factor is exponential.
Just two days ago, I was talking with a good friend who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. His preliminary biopsy numbers indicate that his cancer might very well be in its earliest stage–perhaps his is even the indolent, slow-growing and non-life-threatening variety of prostate cancer. Yet the fear in his voice is no different from someone who was just told that he had late stage cancer. At the risk of sounding insensitive or that I was trying to marginalize his case, I told him that I would gladly have taken his Gleason scores and involvement percentages. I winced as I said it, but I was handing him a “just,” a toehold on comfort and assurance to help ward off his uncertainties.
I hope he understood the gesture and will continue to send me wonderfully rude and insensitive birthday cards every year. More importantly, I hope he appreciates how powerful a “just” can be…
Advances in cancer treatments and early screening practices have greatly changed the face of cancer. Death rates for many types of cancer have been significantly reduced. In many instances, treatments have become more tolerable than in decades past. Early detection practices have improved the five- and ten-year survival rates for many. I believe firmly that even if we do not find cures for every cancer out there, we will someday soon reach a point where many are treated like more manageable diseases such as asthma or diabetes.
Yet, for all the advances, the “C” word still–and rightly so–sends shivers down our spines and causes our hearts to shudder. For patients and their families, it’s the unknown factors that give cancer it’s powerful grip: Will I respond like most patients to therapy? Is my cancer highly aggressive or indolent? Which outcome percentage will apply to me? Did we catch it in time? Even with more patients living with cancer these days, these are valid questions and powerful catalysts for doubt, anxiety and a fair number of sleepless nights.
I was watching CNN yesterday and caught a half-hour documentary on Martina Navratilova’s recent battle with breast cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer in one of her mammary ducts earlier this year. She underwent a lumpectomy as an outpatient and was then given six weeks of radiation therapy. Her prognosis is good. She vocalized, like me, that she can’t imagine where she might be a year from now had she not had regular screenings.
She also addressed the powerful grip that cancer still exerts. Using different phrases, she spoke of her fears of the uncertainty factors. Martina also referred to being lucky in that her case required “just radiation.”
I related as she told her story. I too have said that I am glad that I will “need just two to three years of hormone deprivation and just radiation.” It’s funny how easily we accept powerful treatments with sometimes serious side effects in the face of a life-threatening disease, how willingly we cling to the comfort word “just.”
While we believe that my case of advanced disease is being treated at an early stage with a good prognosis and are grateful for the “justs,” the uncertainties still find ways to creep into our lives and exact their tolls. Everything being relative, I am oddly grateful that my body chose prostate cancer instead of pancreatic cancer or glioblastoma for which the fear factor is exponential.
Just two days ago, I was talking with a good friend who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. His preliminary biopsy numbers indicate that his cancer might very well be in its earliest stage–perhaps his is even the indolent, slow-growing and non-life-threatening variety of prostate cancer. Yet the fear in his voice is no different from someone who was just told that he had late stage cancer. At the risk of sounding insensitive or that I was trying to marginalize his case, I told him that I would gladly have taken his Gleason scores and involvement percentages. I winced as I said it, but I was handing him a “just,” a toehold on comfort and assurance to help ward off his uncertainties.
I hope he understood the gesture and will continue to send me wonderfully rude and insensitive birthday cards every year. More importantly, I hope he appreciates how powerful a “just” can be…