Thread by @AuthorDelaneyW, “A cure for cancer” *a thread*Sigh. As a long term cancer survivor [...]

“A cure for cancer” *a thread*

Sigh.

As a long term cancer survivor and fighter, I’d love this. But this narrative is broken and I’d like to tell you why because it may help you understand what cancer actually is. (1/?)

It seems like every day someone new is claiming they have or will have “the cure for cancer!” Or that they will push to find “the cure for cancer!” In a specific time limit. Their term. The next year. Whatever. And every time they say this, we get (rightfully) excited (2/?)

Why? Because a cure would be world changing. There are few people in the world whose lives haven’t been touched in some way by cancer. The lifetime risk of having 1 type of cancer is 40%! That means about 2 of every 5 people will get cancer at some point. (3/?)

I mean- I would LOVE to say “Cancer is cured!” Because fuck- I’ve spent every year since I turned 14 fighting it, and I turn 40 this summer. It’s a fucking tiring and endless process for me. More than half of my life has been spent fighting, recovering, and fighting again. (4/?)

And- For most people, right now, their cancer can ALREADY be cured or controlled by surgery, or by combinations of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and genetic engineering/gene therapy. Never before has the outlook for cancer treatment & cure been so hopeful. (4/?)

So why can’t there ever be a cure? Because there is a vast misunderstanding of what cancer is and most cancer treatments that are designed to work on many or even most cancers end up being effective for just a few.(5/?)

Why? Because “cancer” isn’t actually A disease. Cancer is not ONE thing. It is a collection of vastly different diseases, with different causes, treatments, and outcomes, that we lump together because they all have a few similarities and it’s easier. (6/?)

Saying that someone can “cure cancer” or you will find a “cure for cancer” is a nonsense statement — it’s like claiming to be able to cure all bacterial infections, or all chronic illness, with a single treatment. A cure for cancer is fake news. (7/?)

Because of our lack of understanding, we love to believe there will be a cure. But the reality is, even the most promising treatments and grandiose claims will, if they even make it to human testing, usually end up treating only one or two types of cancer. (8/?)

The first type (yes. I hit the cancer lottery. I’m on type 3. Tumor growing is my superpower.) of canceri had is called Burkitts Lymphoma. It is a non-Hogkins Lymphoma and is recognized as the fastest growing human tumor. Mine doubled in size every 6 hours. (9/?)

On Saturday May 7th, 1994-I woke up a normal 14yr old. I played 4 soccer games that day in a single elimination tournament. I went to bed exhausted but happy. Sunday morning, May 8th was both Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday. I woke up and went to the bathroom. (10/?)

I couldn’t go. I needed to go,but I COULD NOT GO. It hurt. I screamed. We went to the local ER. We got there at 9 am. I remember having blood tests and an ultrasound. I waited in the waiting area for HOURS watching Linda Hamilton kick ass in “The Terminator”. (11/?)

At midnight, the doctors told us they had calledin my pediatrician to come speak with us. At this point we kinda knew something was up... she was 9 months pregnant. It seemed mean to make her come if it wasn’t important. (12/?)

When she got there, we sat in a room with white walls and a round table. They said “you have a tumor”. I remember feeling my face go numb and then asking if my hair was going to fall out (because, teenage girl priorities). (13/?)

They told us it was one of 3 options, all of which were “the worst case” but that we had better pray for it to be 1 specific one because of it was the others, we would have no options at all. Some options are better than none. (14/?)

We got home at 1 am. My whole family slept in my parent’s bed together that night. My mom, Dad, sister, and me. We had to be at Children’s at 6 am for surgery. That surgery was removal of my spleen and appendix as they were completely taken over, placement of a dual port (15/?)

and multiple biopsies. They started chemo that day, after the 8 hour surgery, without a specific diagnosis because they knew that it was that bad. I don’t remember the rest of that week. (16/?)

Thankfully, it came back that ONE type (god- that sounds bad). We had a treatment plan. I didn’t leave the hospital for more than a week total in the next 6 months. I had to have constant suction because I couldn’t even swallow my own saliva it hurt too bad. (17/?)

I lost my hair- all of it. Head to toe. I lost my nails- all of them. Hands and feet. I had zero mucus lining in my throat, stomach, and intestines meaning my own body was eating holes in itself at all times. Mouth to Ass. It was pain like no one can even begin to fathom. (18/?)

Unless they’ve been there. The only thing that has come close since was the pain of the staph and MRSA infection I got in my spine 5 years ago after the 4th spinal surgery in 2 months to remove another type of tumor and bad DNA issues. (19/?)

The treatment for Burkitts had changed 1 month before I was diagnosed. It had gone from 2 years of chemotherapy to 6 months. Upside: 2 years is less. Downside: that time frame was basically the same chemo plan but more intense. My heart was permanently damaged by round 3. (20/?)

I’m still paying the price for that treatment. I have no immune system. I will always be neutropenic. On December 23, 2017, I was lying in bed with my son watching a movie when my heart stopped. The combination of new meds and old damage proved too much. (21/?)

Thankfully my son called 911 and I survived with only 2 broken ribs and a broken sternum - and more heart damage. (Our system is so broken that the responding police told the drs I had OD’d - they told my husband “this is why housewives shouldn’t have pain meds” QUOTE ((22/?))

And I ended up with CPS at my door 2 days later. That was fun. But I digress...) Thankfully, despite all of this, I survived. I survived because of the treatment I received. Because of my “cure”. (23/?)

I say all of this for 2 reasons. 1- a cure often isn’t what we think it is. A cure doesn’t mean what we think- that we can be diagnosed receive “the cure” as some fast thing that hardly registers as a blip. “I had cancer! Can you believe it? TG the dr had the cure!” (24/?)

And 2 - to show how this cancer as different diseases works. Burkitt’s is most commonly found in African children in the face, throat, and neck area. Mine was in my abdomen. Usually, in children with Burkitt’s, it can be linked to Malaria and/or the Epstein -Barr virus (25/?)

Aka: Strep. These diseases change a person’s immune system, allowing it to change infected B-cells into cancerous cells. About 98% of African cases are associated with Epstein-Barr infection. I, a Kiowa/Welsh American, tested negative for ever having BOTH of these. (26/?)

The cause for my cancer remains unknown. This variation of causes is just within my specific type, and it’s not nearly the complete list. If there can’t even be a single “cure” for Burkitt’s due to the variations within it, imagine how must more vast a cure (27/?)

for all types of cancer would have to be- how many variations of causes, types, and stages it would have to cover. It’s IMPOSSIBLE. On top of this, consider that of ALL research, less than 5% of cancer treatments that are tested in pre-clinical research make it to patients.(28/?)

Developing ANY treatment for cancer is astonishingly difficult, not only because of the vast amount of types but also the hundreds of hoops one has to jump through between successfully killing cancer cells in a petri dish&curing cancer in actual living human beings. (29/?)

Cancer is HARD. The sad reality is that there will never be a “cure” for all cancers. Anyone who claims otherwise is either woefully ignorant of what cancer actually is, hyperbolizing their claim, or simply lying. (30/?)

The truth is, the majority of the claims of a cure are based on preliminary research and not something that has been trialed on people. Like I said- only 5% ever make it this far. Why? Because of the amount of varieties even within one type of this disease. (31/?)

By the time these treatments get to human testing, they don’t pan out or work only for a few types and varieties- not the entire picture. That’s not to say that these are important. They are! (32/?)

I’m here today because of them. There has never been a time with more hope for cancer patients. Between chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy, gene therapy, and combinations of these and more, the odd of surviving cancer has never been higher. (33/?)

But we need to switch from this idea that there is a single cure, because when this doesn’t happen and doesn’t happen and doesn’t happen, the effect can be damning for those both in the research realm: ie-loss of funding due to lack of a cure w/in a timeframe (34/?)

And patient realm. A cancer patient’s outlook and attitude can make or break the effectiveness of the treatment. (35/?)

So what was my point in all of this? My point is that if we want to find a “cure”, we need to understand the word. We need to know it won’t be a single thing that happens overnight, or within one President’s term. (36/?)

We need to understand that at the end of a specific time period, when people are still getting cancer, this doesn’t mean that it’s been a failure because within that time period there could have been a cure- for one or more types of cancer. (37/?)

In the last few years, melanoma, for example, has gone from a ten-year survival rate of 30% to more than 90% due to the development of new treatments. This is ASTOUNDING and important- but not the “cure for cancer!” (38/?)

We can’t judge support, or failure for that matter, of a single person’s goal for cancer based on any one thing. Because cancer isn’t one thing. We need to support ALL people with cancer treatment goals and not pull it when we think they failed because odds are (39/?)

Though cancer hasn’t been cured, it has been made survivable for more during that time because of the support and funding that person/company/thing gave. The spotlight they supplied. (40/?)

We need to see cancer like we do other illnesses, vast in variation and treatment. We need to see the small cures that are happening because they are! Treating a single type of cancer effectively can be done (it’s also INCREDIBLY lucrative to those who do succeed (41/?)

(Thus the continuation of research despite the odds being against the effort).
Basically- we need to continue to support those who do support the research- because while we won’t see a single grand world changing cure, we will see many small life changing cures. (42/?)

And that, my friends, is well worth it.

I hope this makes sense and my point has gotten across-it’s been a long rambling post. Please support cancer research even when you’re disappointed in the current outcome of a claim. I guarantee, that claim came true for someone. (43/?)

And that, my friends, is just as worthy and important.

~FIN

#cancer #acureforcancer #CancerFighter #fuckcancer #survivor #research #hope #science #medicine #love

*for more info and supporting stats start here: https://medium.com/@gidmk/there-is-no-cure-for-cancer-712da12dd41a H/T Gid M-K

There Is No Cure For Cancer

Why we should all be skeptical of big claims about cancer

https://medium.com/@gidmk/there-is-no-cure-for-cancer-712da12dd41a

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