What is Cancer?
In healthy people, human cells grow and divide to make new cells when the body needs them, like when they become old or damaged. When cancer develops, abnormal cells stick around and new cells form when they aren’t needed. The extra cells that develop can continue to divide quickly and may form solid growths, like tumors. Unlike normal cells, cancer cells don’t die when they need to, can damage the body’s healthy tissues, and can then make people very sick.
What is Lymphoma?
Lymphoma, along with Leukemia, are blood cancers. Unlike other cancers, these typically do not form solid growths (tumors) of cancer cells. Lymphoma is a type of cancer that originates in the infection-fighting cells in the immune systems (called lymphocytes). These are usually found in the lymph nodes, spleen, thymus, bone marrow, and other parts of the body. The Lymphocytes are then the cells that change and grow out of control to form the cancer.
There are two main forms of Lymphoma: Hodgkin and Non-Hodkin. I have a form of Non-Hodkin Lymphoma, which is what most people with Lymphoma have.
How does Chemotherapy work?
Basically, Chemotherapy uses drugs to try to target and destroy cancer cells. It works by stopping or slowing the growth of the cancer cells. While it works to destroy the cancer cells, it also can harm healthy cells, which can cause side effects.
What is R-CHOP Chemotherapy?
R-CHOP is the type of chemotherapy that I will be receiving through my treatment. Each letter in R-CHOP stands for a different medications that are combined to kill the cancer Cells (Rituxan, Cyclophosphamide, Hydroxydaunomycin, Oncovin, and Prednisone). Rituxan is not a chemotherapy drug, but instead it is a type of antibody that is used as a Targeted Therapy, which attach themselves to cancer cells in order to trigger the immune system to work against the cancer.
What are the biggest side effects of Chemotherapy?
Although each person experiences side effects differently, many side effects to come up in a majority of patients. These side effects can include fatigue, pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, digestive distress, and hair loss (along with others). One of the most important side effect of chemo is that the drugs reduce the white blood cell counts (which help fight infections), so the possibility of getting sick is very high.
Why do people lose their hair?
Like I mentioned above, when chemotherapy is given, it works to target and kill the rapidly growing cancer cells. But, in doing this, it also often harms the other cells in the body that grow quickly. One major type of rapidly growing healthy cells are in the roots of hair. This doesn’t include just the hair on the scalp, but all over the body. But, just like the rest of the side effects, some people only get slight thinning of the hair or only specific parts of the body lose hair rather than all over. It varies from person to person. The good news of all this is that after chemotherapy is over, hair grows back like normal, sometimes even with a different color or texture.
What is the difference between being in Remission and being Cured?
Remission means that the signs and symptoms of cancer are highly reduced. There can be partial or complete remission, where complete remission is when all signs and symptoms have disappeared.
The line between cured and remission is a blurry one. Cured means that there are no traces of cancer after treatment and the cancer will never come back. But, after 5 years of being in remission, some doctors consider this to be “cured” though there is a possibility of the cancer coming back one day. Most cancers will come back within the first 5 years of treatment if it is going to come back.
Leave a Reply