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One of the deadliest, un-curable, and common disease, which our nation is plagued with, is cancer. Cancer accounts for one out of four deaths in the United States (Elliot). There are two fields of information concerning this disease, the traditional medical routine of radiation and chemotherapy; and there is also the alternative use of shark cartilage. Due to the unsuccessful results of medical treatments alone, I believe that alternative forms of treatment will become more popular and accepted in the medical world. Upon this acceptance the combination of alternative and medical treatments will over come the cancerous tyrant. This paper is going to take you through the diagnosis, treatment, investigations, and healing of a fictitious character, Amy and her husband Adam.
Amy has gone to her family doctor for an annual checkup, the doctor suspects cancer, so blood work is taken. The results announce that she in fact is in the thirty-three percentile of woman who the American Cancer Society states will be diagnosed with cancer. Amy's doctor informs her of the treatment, which she will undergo; surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. No other option is given, so Amy consents.
In preparing for this battle against cancer, Amy and her husband begin to read about the therapy she will undergo. She found that the article Whatever it Takes reported the following, David Rosenthal, an MD and president of the American Cancer Society, reported that overall cancer mortality rates had decreased an average of 0. 5 % each year since 1991 (Elliot) This was a little encouraging to Amy. She thought, I guess medical technology has found a way to begin increasing the mortality rate of cancer patients. While Amy was at the library obtaining information concerning her treatment, she noticed books in a section entitled Alternative Medicine. She did not approach the section because she had not really heard much about these types of treatments and, quite frankly, they frightened her. She perceived them to be barbaric and untraditional.
The first step to Amy's fight against cancer was removing the cancerous tumor with surgery. Once the tumor was removed she began her first treatment of radiation. The University of Pennsylvania Cancer Centers website OncoLink, describes radiation as a type of high energy that comes from special machines (i. e. X-ray machines) or radioactive sources. When used at high doses radiation can destroy cells or keep them from growing or dividing. (What).
Radiation treatments may be given externally or internally, most patients receive external treatments. Amy received her treatment in this manner. The radiation was given to a defined area through a machine that directed the high-energy rays or particles where the cancer cells exist and the surrounding normal tissue. Amy received this treatment once a day Monday through Friday for seven weeks. Amy was not admitted to the hospital but merely came for the treatment and left when it was completed.
Radiation can be applied internally for a higher concentration on a specific area. In this type of treatment, a tube or wire would have been used to administer the radiation to Amy. If Amy had to undergo this type of radiation treatment she would have been admitted into the hospital for three to seven days. The dosage for both radiation treatments is determined by complex calculations in which the size, the location and the severity of the tumor are factored into. (What).
Amy's doctor told her, The reason that radiation works well is because cancer cells grow and divided more rapidly than normal cells, the treatment works best against these rapidly developing cells. However, SOURCE 12 states, The main disadvantages to radiation may outweigh its advantages in some cases. Radiation destroys cancerous cells but can damage healthy ones as well. (Money). Due to the seriousness of her cancer, phase two is implements, which is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is the use of medication or chemicals with cancer-fighting abilities. (What). Chemo can be administered in five different ways, Oncolink lists these as the following: intravenous, oral, intramuscular, intrathecal, and intraperitoneal. (What) Intravenous is the most common chemotherapy method and is the method used for Amy.
When Amy receives this treatment a small plastic needle is placed into one of her veins in her lower arm. The chemo then flows from the IV bottle / bag and proceeds to flow throughout her bloodstream. The Chemotherapy helps Amy by interfering with her cells growth and multiplication. This phase of Amy's treatment is what causes her the most pain.
The chemo, similar to radiation, damages her normal cells as well as her cancerous cells. Amy's non-cancerous cells include her hair follicles, her cells in the gastrointestinal tract, and her bone marrow. The side effects which she experiences from this treatment include the loss of her hair, mouth sores, difficulty in swallowing, nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, infection, anemia, and increase of bleeding (What). Amy had picked up a biography of a man named Joe Haley at the library prior to her first treatment and began to read it while re-cooperating from the first does of this powerful drug. Joe was a man with cancer much like herself and she read the section that discussed his chemo treatment. It said, Ironically, it wasnt the cancer that wreaked havoc on his health the treatment did.
He had no symptoms from the disease at first. All the side effects came from going to doctors, says David Van Echo, his oncologist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore. Of course with out chemotherapy, Haley would have died. But with it, he has wasted away from fevers, nausea, and fatigue. (Sobel) As Amy continued her treatments of chemotherapy to save her life she found herself dwindling away just as Haley's oncologist had found him suffering from his treatments.
However, unaware of any alternatives, Amy accepted these side effects as a way to overcome her cancer and continued with her treatments as her doctors instructed. As her treatments continued and the side effects of the chemo began to destroy her body she asked herself, Why is my health failing when I am doing everything the doctors are telling me to do? What Amy was experiencing is explained in an article entitled Cancer Treatments: Today and Tomorrow. Intensive chemotherapy has undesirable and potentially dangerous side effects, especially the suppression of a patients immune system, because healthy white blood cells are killed along with the cancer cells. This makes the patient more susceptible to serious infections. (Simone) As her treatment dosages began to increase and some of her vital organs began to fail her, her doctors approached her and Adam. They said, We are sorry to say this but there is nothing left for us to do.
We have given you the largest amount of chemotherapy that your weak body can handle and your cancer is still thriving. We think it best at this point to allow you to return home to rest in a comfortable atmosphere. What Amy heard was, With all our technology and research we do not know how to heal you. We give up. Go home and try to enjoy the remainder of your days on this earth. What happened to Amy?
And why didnt Chemotherapy work for her? The article Cancer Treatments: Today and Tomorrow answers these questions, Chemotherapy is nonspecific; that is, the anti-cancer drug that is used for treatment does not distinguish among healthy and cancerous cells. As a result, one can only administer so much of an anti-cancer drug before it becomes toxic to the normal tissues. The treatment, which was to defeat her cancer, was actually defeating her. Amy returned home under the care of her loving husband, Adam. The doctors provided no other aid or advise for the fight of her life besides, drink plenty of liquids, rest, and enjoy each day.
Amy and her husband were not going to give up so easily as her doctors were willing to do. Amy recalled the section of Alternative treatments, which she saw in the library and at the beginning had ignored. She told her husband of it and he went and checked out almost every book having to do with cancer. As they searched the vast amount of information, they tried to find something that could help Amy recover from her deathbed. They repeatedly came across books that mentioned a substance known as shark cartilage. Neither of them had ever heard of this treatment and were slightly skeptical.
To further their investigation of this they resorted to the use of the Internet. They found an address of a website with critical information concerning shark cartilage: skeptic. com / shark . html. Adam read aloud a quote which caught his attention quickly, Because there are so many cancer victims who have been advised, after undergoing conventional treatments surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy - that there is nothing more conventional medicine can do for them, it is clear that research into alternative approaches, such as shark cartilage, should be explored. Indeed, given the fact that shark cartilage has no to...
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Research essay sample on American Cancer Society Cancerous Cells
