ask a cancer patient
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When you got the Chemo, what went through your mind?
I know you knew you weren't going to die, but even so, "Chemotherapy"...
Ugh...
Apart from "I'm GOING to be sick" all the time, and "Hey, I'm bald!" what did you think?
I know you knew you weren't going to die, but even so, "Chemotherapy"...
Ugh...
Apart from "I'm GOING to be sick" all the time, and "Hey, I'm bald!" what did you think?
This is a myth - benign does not mean harmless, it merely means that is going to stay in one place. Malignant means that it will spread and attack other organs. Here's an example of the two from my own personal history:whaleswiththumbs said:
I have a rare genetically caused form of thyroid cancer that is malignant. One of the really bad things about thyroid cancers is that they do not spread through the lymph nodes but through the blood, which means that the cells can go anywhere in the body and having clean lymph nodes in your neck doesn't mean it hasn't spread.
I also have another rare condition called hyperparathyroidism, which is tumor on your parathyroid gland. It is benign. You usually have 4 parathyroid glands, and despite the name and the fact that they are next to the thyroid, they have absolutely nothing to do with it. They instead monitor calcium in the blood, and when they become hyper they start pulling more calcium out of your body, including from your bones and organs, then you even need, making your calcium spike. This can be a horrorifically painful condition due to bone pain from calcium loss and the constant syphoning of calcium from your bones and some people actually end up in a well chair. The bone pain is usually in your legs and there were some days that it felt like I was literally trying to walk on broken bones, it hurt to the point of collaspe. It also can and did cause a heart condition for me which is ongoing, along with causing a mirad of other health problems.
So no, a benign tumor can still cause massive health problems, you just aren't going to die from it or have it take over your whole body.
And btw, not all cancers are malignant.
Holy jesus, thats was so many words i couldn't read it all. I just use the Webster's dictionary of benign, which would be not dangerous to health. So i have no idea what you said other than about the benign definition, if you could please put it into layman's terms I'd apprieciate it.Amoreyna said:
I said at the very begining of my post that when referring to a tumor malignant means that is aggressive and will spread and eventually cause death while benign means that it will stay in one place.whaleswiththumbs said:
I don't know how much clearer I can get then that. You must not ever read books, or newspapers because if that's a lot of words, to the point you couldn't read it all, then it seems like a resturant menu would be a challenge. I was trying to tell you that I've suffered from both types of tumors, benign and malignant and that just because a tumor is listed as benign doesn't mean it doesn't have a devasting effect on your health while it's there.
At the risk of being too long again I'll give you this example: a little girl at my mom's school has a benign brain tumor. It is so big and buried inside her brain that it is causing her to go blind and suffer from headaches that are like migraines x10. The tumor cannot be operated on and she has to undergo a special type of chemo therapy. Even if it is sucessfully treated, her vision may be lost forever.
Just because a tumor is listed as benign doesn't mean it doesn't cause problems - it just means that it isn't going to invade your entire body and slowly kill you.