CANCER-->NEW SPECIES -

AquaticAmbi · #31 03-20-2006, 12:34 PM

My great grandmother died from some sort of cancer. I'm not sure what kind, but it seemed long and horrible, and completely untreatable. My grandfather developed skin cancer because he was raised on a farm and still works it, meaning he's been exposed from childhood to intense sunlight daily. I imagine spf lotion wasn't available as he grew up...

I'm pretty scared of skin cancer because I fall into the category of people most likely to get carcinoma if I move to Florida and constantly expose myself to sunlight (like my grandfather) even if I don't allow myself to get burnt. =/

used:) · #32 03-20-2006, 12:56 PM

There's a girl in my school who has spinal cancer or something. I have no idea how she's been able to survive it for so long.

PM me if you want the link to the website. And please don't post anything sick ro crude on the guestbook.

T-nex · #33 03-20-2006, 01:16 PM

My grandfather died a few weeks ago from cancer... Don't remember which kind of cancer, but it was spread all over his body. He managed to get better, by eating well and taking care... but then he probably thought he was too strong, and went back to his old unhealthy routine... The cancer spread down to his liver i think... or something like that...

Mojo · #34 03-21-2006, 10:44 AM

My condoleances.

Wired · #35 03-22-2006, 04:03 PM

Since the liberty of turning my thread of science into a share and care fest has been taken, I guess I'll add to it. Yeva's mother died from liver cancer in Ukraine last year. Yeva attended the ceremony but we couldn't afford for all four of us flying to Ukraine for it. It was heartbreaking to miss the chance to say good-bye to my grandmother and even worse for sweet Yeva to be forced to make the trip alone.

Facsimile · #36 03-22-2006, 07:13 PM

Every time I read the first sentence in this thread I laugh. Henrietta is a terrible name.

My uncle died to cancer, I was only three I think so I don't remember him though...

Biggy Bro Slig · #37 03-22-2006, 11:19 PM

Thankfully, I don't think anyone has died of cancer...except for my Great Grandma of Lung Cancer...

Adder · #38 03-26-2006, 02:06 AM

:

Since the liberty of turning my thread of science into a share and care fest has been taken, I guess I'll add to it.

I'm not good at care fests, but on the science side:

Cancer is essentialy one mutated cell that decided to divide endlessly. It's been mutated to the point that normal things that say "Dude, stop dividing" don't work. This is how you get tumours.

While I can see why cancer would be called "a new species" (since it's a mutant of another species and mutation and evolution are linked), I still see it as just something going wrong inside the body.

Getting back to opinions, the amount of "this cures cancer!" crap around is really worrying. I found out about vitamin B17 (which isn't recognised as a vitamin and contains cyanide), the "Quabalah center"'s healing water (and book that you don't even have to read), and got disgusted. Yes, there are drugs that help cancer. There's ways to just all-out kill cancerous cells (and there's the Mind over Matter idea and placebo effect), but saying "eat this poison" or "drink water" to someone who really needs a cure, and then selling it to them, is just so... capatilist in its worst form.

AquaticAmbi · #39 03-26-2006, 10:05 AM

Maybe the whole "poison" idea is based on chemotherapy since chemo is pretty much putting toxic chemicals into the body to kill the cancerous cells. But it's also terrible for the immune system since, of course, they're toxic drugs.

Hmm, just looked some stuff up... The drugs are supposed to be selective for the most part, meaning they mostly just kill the cancer, but it's still really rough on the immune system as a whole.

Adder · #40 03-26-2006, 11:58 AM

The given idea behind B17 (which some have claimed can prevent you getting cancer and can cure cancer) is that the compound containing cyanide is broken down by an enzyme that is unusualy abundant in cancer cells but not in normal cells (so only cancer cells get poisoned by the cyanide). There is NO scientific backing for this.

I know chemo is not very selective about what it kills, but at least it's known (in practice and theory) to work... although with a pretty big loss of over-all health.