The word “cancer” most often symbolizes “death” to those unfortunate patients and families who have to hear that them or a loved one is diagnosed. Yet people can beat this disease, and beat the odds to overcome or surpass their diagnosis. One of the most common treatments to try to eliminate cancerous cells is chemotherapy, which has been one of the most successful of treatments for many people. However, this treatment may not be the best option for every patient and there are other therapies people can experiment with to try to find the best results for themselves.
If I was diagnosed with a deadly cancer and only had a year to live, I would definitely want to explore my options with different treatments and therapies in addition to receiving chemotherapy. First, I would visit different doctors to see if they had any variation in my diagnosis and find out what they think the best treatment would be for myself. Also, I would want to research survivor stories and see what kind of alternative treatments they used. Chemotherapy is an intense therapy so there are probably not many other radiation therapies you can do along with chemotherapy, unless it was on a low radiation dosage. In addition to chemotherapy or radiation treatment, there are alternative drug therapies. For example, antiangiogenesis therapy uses drugs to prevent tumors from making the new blood vessels they need to grow and spread cancerous cells. Also, I presume that if I predicted to have only one year left to live that surgery would not be a possible cure. However, surgery may be an option to decrease the size of the tumor. This option could possibly allow doctors to target the tumor more efficiently in radiation and prevent further growth of the tumor. The most effective way to fight this disease is explore the options that other survivors have found successful and work with doctors to find the best treatment for you.
By: Hanke, Kerra
