Cancer And Its Many Consequences

I chose to write an essay about the “Topic of Cancer” by Christopher Hitchens. In this short autobiographical essay, Hitchens discusses his experience with Esophageal cancer. Just one day after lanching his book “Hitch-22” Hitchens was made aware of his illness, where he later describes the news as “taking me from the country of well, to the stark frontier.” It was then he chose to write about his experience for the purpose of documenting the changes that he, and his body were about to go through with chemotherapy, and also for the purpose of contemplating his current situation. The reason that I chose this story is because of my own personal experiences that I have had with many loved ones in my life. There is one case in particular that stands out in my memory, among the rest. It was when my friend of many years discovered that he had a very rare form of brain cancer. Soon after undergoing chemotherapy, he lost his battle. There are many people that believe chemotherapy at any stage is the best, and often times, the only way to cure cancer, yet others claim that chemotherapy is not the answer at all. A close analysis of recent statistics can settle this debate.

In women, one of the most common cancers of course is breast cancer, in men prostate cancer and in men and women, lung cancer and colon cancer are common cancers. It is important to understand that the cancer that occurs in one individual is very different from the cancer that occurs in another. Everyone is different; a lung tumor in one person will be different from a lung tumor in another person. Once a diagnosis of cancer is made, the next obvious question is what do you do? There are several things that are really relevant, for example, the stage of the cancer which is information about where is the cancer?

From surgery to radium exposure to such extremes as radiation therapy, as doctors’ knowledge of the varying types of cancer, and the expansion of medical research regarding cancer has changed, so has the preferred method of treatment. Doctors and researchers dedicated to studying cancer have led to a greater understanding of cancer development; consequently the development of treatments and cures that are more effective, less harmful, have fewer side effects, and in some cases serve to prevent the spread of cancer.

Cancer is a deadly disease that has some very serious effects on a person both physically and mentally. Cancer can result in a simple surgery that may take only a couple days, or a life-long struggle that leaves someone so fatigued and tired that it makes them want to give up. It will put fear in anyone's eyes and will devastate even the strongest of people, but cancer can bring out the courageousness in a person to fight this disease and not give up. It can be a fatal disease but it can also bring out the strength in someone which is an amazing thing. Cancer has many serious effects on a person's body and their mental health and others, but can also inspire a person to dig deep and fight this disease

Terry Williams, on the other hand, instead of focusing on the numbers of the cancer, she focuses on the descriptions of cancer through her all five senses in seeing her mother’s struggle with cancer. She let us feels, the grim hand of cancer that wraps around her mother’s life. To her, cancer has become a “disease of shame” which encourages people to hide and lies (Williams 93). But, it’s also more than just a disease caused by random mutation, but it was also the rope at which her mother’s life hang on. Perhaps it’s not that she didn’t focus on the statistics and the numbers about cancer, but perhaps it was because the thought of her mother’s suffering alone had her mind occupied. Terry Williams’s poetical tone in explaining about her mother’s fighting with cancer allowed us to understand the effects that cancer had caused to the victim. Cancer, as she believes, doesn’t only affecting her mother’s life but it also affects herself, for “perhaps the umbilical cord between Mother and [her] has never been cut”

Document A is mainly about how people are getting cancer and it also shows the rate of people that getting cancer and the number of rates that dying from cancer. Document B is mainly about whats causes cancer and things that can cause cancer would be food, drink, habit such as smoking tobacco and basking in the sun Document C. mainly talks about how you can prevent from getting cancer id by making sure proto oncogenes dont turn on by keep a healthy growth. Document D mainly talks about how employees who are accidentally or chronically exposed to carcinogenic agents are at risk of developing cancer Documents E is mainly talking about how when normal cells get turned into cancer some of the protons would change. Document F shows how the immune

Topic of Cancer by Christopher Hitchens is a powerful tale of a person diagnosed with cancer. Hitchens likens having cancer to a trip through a strange town with a strange dialogue. He says this best by saying “I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of the malady.” (Hitchens) I am fortunate not to have a personal experience to measure the one of Mr. Hitchens but I do have several second hand experiences from the death of my Great-Grandmother, My Grandmother and my best friend Alice. I truly believe cancer is one of the lonely roads anyone must ever travel but like the Author adrift in Tumortown those close to the people involved ultimate have a piece of themselves live or die with them.

To begin with, I will look at what cancer is. I would like to look at cancer as a disease and the social determinants of this perspective. I would then like to investigate cancer as an illness and look at the narrative of this experience including its social determinants. Finally, I will address the differences and similarities between the two.

The types of treatment vary depending on which stage the cancer is found, the age, overall health of the individual, and life expectancy (American cancer society, 2015). Each stage has different treatments available so picking just one type of treatment would not be easy. According to the American Cancer Society, there are 2 types of staging, clinical and pathologic, with 4 categories, T1-T4, for this particular type of cancer. Although there is more than one system used to stage this type of cancer, most prostate specialists now use the TNM system. There are many factors and subcategories of each stage as well.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in economically developed countries and the second leading cause of death in developing countries. Based on the GLOBOCAN 2008 estimates, about 12.7 million cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths are estimated to have occurred in 2008. The leading cause of cancer mortality in females is breast cancer, accounting for 23% followed by lung cancer and cervical cancer accounting for 11% respectively. Furthermore, estimates show that, the leading cause of cancer mortality in males is lung cancer accounting for 17% of the total new cancer cases and 23% in total cancer deaths. [2].

The diagnosis of cancer upon a loved one can be hard, not only for the person diagnosed, but also for close family and friends.

According to Khalil et al. (2016), normal people also may experience some anxiety and fear as a part of their life. But, the high frequency of anxiety may be due to a lot of physical symptoms caused by cancer itself like sweating, shortness of breath, dizziness etc. This may be due to excessive fear about cancer progression or the impact of the illness. Patients having anxiety problems may also experience depression, but it should be remembered depression can make anxiety worse or vice versa (National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), 2012; https://www.nccn.org). According to a study by Khalil et al. (2016), gender is not a significant contributor to depression and anxiety in cancer patients. These results contradict a study by West et al.

Cancer begins with the body’s cells uncontrollably reproducing, invading and destroying healthy tissue, which includes the organs as well. A collection of cells which grow together to create a lump or mass referred to as a tumor. That starts in one part of the body then expands to the surrounding areas where the mass began, known as metastasis which is extremely problematic to treat. MNT (2015) says, “Tumors can grow and interfere with the digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems, and they can release hormones that alter body function.” There are more than 200 types of cancer that will affect 1 in 3 people including those cancers that affect the blood stream (leukemia) and skin.

“Cancer: the Emperor of all Maladies” tells the story of humanity’s struggle to eradicate cancer, as well as the leaps and bounds we have taken in understanding the nature of the disease. Sadly the War on Cancer declared by Richard Nixon in 1971 is still ongoing, and although many new technologies, medicines and techniques have been introduced, there are still instances where we are wholly defenseless in our fight against an ancient illness. Cancer is not a foreign infectious disease, nor is there one single cause for all cancers, cancer instead is when your own body cells stop following the instructions they need to remain liver, bone or epithelial cells, and instead because autonomous and self-serving. We started back in Egypt, knowing that cancer was a disease, and that it could not be stopped, and throughout history, humanity has fought hard for the chance to finally eradicate cancer. Unfortunately, this has not yet happened and our fight with cancer has been mostly driven by luck. Blind attempts that actually appeared to work sparked excitement, and caused huge pressures from desperate people for the release of untested drugs, most of which ended up being failures (like VAMP). The one thing that has become clear throughout the documentary, and one of the main themes, is that we cannot effectively fight what we do not understand. Increases in our knowledge of cancer, when translated into medicines and treatments have led to some of the most innovative and

Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases in 2012.2 The amount of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next 2 decades. Cancer which causes nearly 1 in 6 deaths, is the second leading cause of death globally, and was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. Approximately 70% of deaths from cancer occur in low- and middle-income countries. In 2012 about 14.1 million new cases of cancer occurred globally (not including skin cancer other than melanoma).3 The most common types of cancer in males are lung cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and stomach cancer.