What cancer is …
and what it isn’t
Thanks to
technological advances, cancer is no longer automatically considered the
terminal disease it once was, according to Linda Wiland, RN, a patient nurse
educator at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) in
“Cancer is considered a chronic disease to be
treated,” she said. “There are so many ways to work against those cells that
are out of control, if we deal with them soon enough.”
Cancer is still the second leading cause of
death in the
According to Rev. Michael Langham,
director of pastoral care for the CTCA, “Nobody knows your body better than you
do. If someone feels something is not working right, we need to encourage those
people to speak up. One of the reasons many cancers are not caught early is
because the patient is not assertive enough about sharing what’s going on with
the physician.”
Wiland went on to explain what cancer is and
some of its causes:
“Smoking does it,” she said. “The lining of
the lungs are not made to be able to tolerate smoking. The lining has to replace
cells again and again and again.
“If you have heartburn, let me encourage you
to get rid of it. Don’t eat and go to bed. Esophageal cancer is on the rise. We
have to look at what we put into our body, especially if it hurts.”
When the cancer grows and travels to other
parts of the body, it is called “metastasis,” Wiland explained. “As long as the
host is alive, the cancer will grow.” At that point, it has to be removed
through surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.
When a cancer is first determined, it is
given a stage, she said. Stages are largely based on the size of the tumor and
if it has traveled to other tissue.
“How fast are the cells dividing? How much
does it look like the original cell? If it started in the colon [for example],
and has not gone elsewhere, it is at stage one.”
The older a person becomes, the greater the
risk they have of getting cancer, primarily because the body slows down in cell
production, causing a higher chance for them to divide irregularly. But not all
causes of the more than 100 kinds of cancer are immediately apparent. Cancer
can be caused by heredity, chemicals in your diet, or even severe emotional or
spiritual stress.
“As a nurse, I get people in their 90s who
are young and vibrant,” she said. “And I’ve had people in their 50s who were
old. What is common to people still young regardless of their age, is that they were giving – not of objects, but of
themselves.
“I’ve chosen the age 32,” she said, smiling.
“That’s the age I’m taking into eternity. ...”
For more
information, go to www.journeyofhope.com.