Ever hear the statement “sometimes the cure can be worse then the disease”? Well in the case of cancer, a truer statement cannot be found.
There have not been many advances made in the treatment of cancer in the last 20+ years. Standard treatments still consist of infusing deadly chemicals (chemotherapy) into the body, along with the use of radiation, at dosages many times greater then would be seen from normal chest x-ray, to kill the cancer. Some have likened these treatments to blood letting in the dark ages.
Unfortunately, these treatments can’t differentiate between cancer cells and normal cells, resulting in a plethora of egregious effects on the body. Due to the destruction of healthy cells in the body, numerous deliterious side effects can occur, i.e. drop in blood counts, nausea, fever, chills, mouth sores etc. While these can typically be treated with common medications, it is the other effects that may occur shortly after treatment or several years down the road that are the real concern, such as peripheral neuropathy and the increased risk of contracting other cancers in the future.
Fortunately there are new treatment options becoming available, such as monoclonal antibodies which are less harmful (but still carry substantial risks) then chemotherapy. And the use of transplants are becoming more wide spread, although this is typically a treatment of last resort as it carries a high mortality rate. (I discuss more on transplants in Chapter 4 – My Treatment Choice)
Now in the case of hard tumor cancers, the choice seems relatively simple. Treat with the deadly chemicals, and attempt to get through the side effects as best as possible. Not doing that will almost certainly cause the cancer to spread with death soon to follow. History has shown that such treatment produces excellent results, with very long lasting remissions or cures.
But in the case of lymphoma and leukemia the decisions are not quite that simple. With few exceptions there is no cure for leukemia or lymphoma, regardless of when it is caught i.e. early diagnosis or late diagnosis. There are only varying degrees of remission. In 99% of the cases, the disease comes back, and many times more aggressively then before. Plus repeated treatments with the same, or even different chemicals may not produce subsequent remissions (if a remission can be obtained at all) lasting as long as the previous one, as the cancer developes resistance to the treatment. Top that all off with the fact that your life might not even be prolonged over not doing anything at all, doing nothing at all becomes a viable alternative.
