Why I Stopped Being A “Good” Cancer Patient
“You are allergic to your oral chemotherapy,” explains my oncology team at a recent appointment. “We are going to try a newer drug,” I am on my fourth attempt to find an oral treatment suitable for both my body and my cancer, so that I can maintain a remission that took three years and a stem cell transplant to achieve. “We want to get ahead of it before it gets ahead of us.” In my headphones, Weezer achingly croons, “Say it ain’t so, your drug is a heartbreaker.”
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Since being diagnosed with phase three chronic myeloid leukemia in 2017, finding oral chemotherapy that my body agrees with has been a turbulent experience. While these targeted therapies are often considered a more humane method of leukemia treatment, they have almost always brutally interrupted my life. From bouts of nerve pain lacerating through my limbs, leaving me agonized and frozen in place for days on end, to medically induced pulmonary hypertension, to muscle spasms knocking heavily against old bone marrow biopsy sites making daily tasks feel near impossible, every new prescription almost always felt like my cancer and my body were teaming up to say, “Nice try, but absolutely not.”
In 2020, thinking I had discovered an “out,” I believed a stem cell transplant could cast out my cancer permanently. To be worthy of such a “blessing,” I fashioned myself into the perfect p...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Walela Nehanda Tags: Uncategorized freelance Source Type: news
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