Writing about cancer...

[icecheetah]

http://little-details.livejournal.com/
That place should be a help. They often have medical questions, and there are people in medicine who go there regularly.
Seriously, I once got some really detailed information on typical pharmaceutical pracitce in japan there, when google was useless.

[papillon]

Things I should not do: Write a horrific parody of Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo where the plump heroine miraculously starts losing weight and becomes pretty and popular with boys because she's got cancer and then she dies at the end.

[AnthonyHJ]

Given that I knew someone who died of ovarian cancer because it was so hard to recognise, I think that might not be a bad one to go with. For some reason, it is not one with such obvious symptoms and you can have a pretty massive tumour without really knowing it. In fact, I have known two other people who had tumours on their ovaries (one of them 7" across!) who just thought they were putting on weight and got saved by a routine CA-125 blood-test. (the UK does those, luckily)

I'd also look into how the treatments affect people. The cancer itself is probably less dramatic than the treatment for many cancer patients. Chemotherapy has some serious side-effects, for instance, and surgery is a major thing for someone already weakened by radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

[WatchJessieGo]

Given that I knew someone who died of ovarian cancer because it was so hard to recognise, I think that might not be a bad one to go with. For some reason, it is not one with such obvious symptoms and you can have a pretty massive tumour without really knowing it. In fact, I have known two other people who had tumours on their ovaries (one of them 7" across!) who just thought they were putting on weight and got saved by a routine CA-125 blood-test. (the UK does those, luckily)

I'd also look into how the treatments affect people. The cancer itself is probably less dramatic than the treatment for many cancer patients. Chemotherapy has some serious side-effects, for instance, and surgery is a major thing for someone already weakened by radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

I wasn't thinking of including treatment. My idea was it would either be so far gone that chemo would ruin the quality of life she has left and probably wouldn't work, or she would make the decision that she wouldn't want to go through something as hard as chemotherapy and such and just spend her last days with the one she loves.

[wulfae]

I wasn't thinking of including treatment. My idea was it would either be so far gone that chemo would ruin the quality of life she has left and probably wouldn't work, or she would make the decision that she wouldn't want to go through something as hard as chemotherapy and such and just spend her last days with the one she loves.

Deciding not to do chemo, or whatever the treatment, is a huge thing... It would be interesting to know how many people decide this... Humans are such fighters usually, to just give in seems odd.

Where does the story take place? Would financial concerns work into it? I have literally no idea how it works in the states, but my impression is you need to pay for things like cancer treatment and the like. Perhaps she doesn't want to leave a debt for a treatment that probably won't work for her husband to deal with, after she dies?

If that's the case, there could be an interesting dynamic where he says, 'damn the money, get the treatment and stay with me longer!' and she still refuses. How would that affect a relationship?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Deciding not to do chemo, or whatever the treatment, is a huge thing... It would be interesting to know how many people decide this... Humans are such fighters usually, to just give in seems odd.

Chemo does horrible things to you. It is basically carpet bombing your body with radiation, killing healthy and cancerous cells alike in order to try and get all the cancer. It has a lot of side effects that make you feel even worse than the cancer. And if the chance of killing the cancer is low, or the cancer is very advanced, a lot of people would rather spend the extra time feeling better and spending time with family and friends, because chemo therapy treatments also take up a lot of time. Chemo basically means having cancer and radiation poisoning at the same time, on the chance the radiation will kill the cancer before it kills you. If the success rate for that is going to be very low in an individual's case, it isn't very odd for them decline.

[wulfae]

Chemo does horrible things to you. It is basically carpet bombing your body with radiation, killing healthy and cancerous cells alike in order to try and get all the cancer. It has a lot of side effects that make you feel even worse than the cancer. And if the chance of killing the cancer is low, or the cancer is very advanced, a lot of people would rather spend the extra time feeling better and spending time with family and friends, because chemo therapy treatments also take up a lot of time. Chemo basically means having cancer and radiation poisoning at the same time, on the chance the radiation will kill the cancer before it kills you. If the success rate for that is going to be very low in an individual's case, it isn't very odd for them decline.

What really got me with chemo is how innocuous it looks. Most of the stuff that I've seen looks just like water, which is unsettling. How can something that has such an impact on a body look like absolutely nothing?

What I meant is that chemo, or any sort of treatment, isn't just given for no reason. If there is an option for treatment, then the doctors think that it will help extend someone's life, or have some other benefit to the patient. You don't just have six months to live, with or without treatment. Perhaps the treatment will stretch that estimation, if you react well, to something like a year. But do you want to be dealing with the effects of chemo for that year?

I hope that I never have to make the decision to either try to prolong my life with a treatment that has as many horrible side effects as cancer treatments can, or enjoy what quality of life that I can and just let the disease take its course. That choice is mind boggling, which is why I find it interesting... And scary.

[Endorphin]

Hmmm... My father had cancer.
Did go through chemo though as he had something to life for, kind of.
(He didn't want to leave his wife with her young child alone in a country which language she didn't know.)
He told me that it was a horrible time, and when I remember how he talked about it... well, then I can kind of understand why somebody would decline chemo if their will to life is low / they don't feel responsible / they are satisfied with their life to this point and thus don't regret "giving up".

But whatever.
I just wanted to thank icecheetah for the link - I already love this side. <3

- R.

[WatchJessieGo]

Someone suggested that I just make something up, so I gave that a shot... I thought, maybe this character is kind of a Nagisa Furukawa and has always been weak and gotten ill easily. One day, this character collapses feeling shaky and weak and stuff, and so she goes to the hospital. They tell her her immune system is failing, and that in a couple months, she will grow ill and die.
What about that idea? Does it seem plausible? It doesn't matter to me if it's entirely medically accurate, as long as it's believable.

[redeyesblackpanda]

Well, that's pretty much AIDS, so you might want to check that out to see what sort of things she'd suffer from. It sounds believable enough. I think what's most important in beleivability is writing reasonable reactions and emotions.

[CheeryMoya]

There's always the "ambiguous terminal illness"

Popping in to say that I hate it when someone pulls this card. "I was too lazy to do the research so I'm just going to say that he/she's going to die from something! From what? Who cares, they're dying!" If you don't like that example, here's another: suppose you're going to a debate, and you only have a vague clue of what the subject's about. Either you don't talk to avoid embarrassing yourself, or you speak up and have everyone else yell at you.

If you're not doing the research, then how do I know the story's even going to be good in the first place? Sure you can make something up, but that still requires research. A quick look around the web will give you results on nearly anything that you need to find, all it takes is your time and effort to do the searching.

Alternatively, you can use Advanced Congestive Heart Failure. Though I was going to use that one myself :/

[hwypirateIIturbo]

Hmm.... how about transplant rejection?

Or maybe it's deep in the past, and the character has something that wasn't curable back then.

[dramspringfeald]

Well Try a more 'aggressive' and dirty cancer like small cell lung, thyroid, Pancreatic cancer. Which can hit like a train you never saw coming. My grandmother was diagnosed with stage 5 fast acting Pancreatic Cancer and died in 5 weeks.

Mom's got Stage 4 Lynch syndrome and has anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 years, as well as kemo for life.

remember the more you know about a subject the more real it comes across in your writing. so Just Ask them.

If your interested and have any 'sewing' or knitting skills make hats and donate them to your local cancer research center and just Ask them. there are an alarming number of 18 to 25 year old's taking kemo. Many of your older patients are willing to talk and tell you stories, because they have no one to talk too at home. Just remember doing this will make you cry.
Hats of American Cancer Society

as for the other what would YOU do if you had 2 months and remember the last 2 or 5 weeks will be hell.

Deciding not to do chemo, or whatever the treatment, is a huge thing... It would be interesting to know how many people decide this... Humans are such fighters usually, to just give in seems odd.

Chemo does horrible things to you. It is basically carpet bombing your body with radiation, killing healthy and cancerous cells alike in order to try and get all the cancer. It has a lot of side effects that make you feel even worse than the cancer. And if the chance of killing the cancer is low, or the cancer is very advanced, a lot of people would rather spend the extra time feeling better and spending time with family and friends, because chemo therapy treatments also take up a lot of time. Chemo basically means having cancer and radiation poisoning at the same time, on the chance the radiation will kill the cancer before it kills you. If the success rate for that is going to be very low in an individual's case, it isn't very odd for them decline.

Not anymore really, hell since about '96. Yes Chemo is targeted mustard gas, but it's not radiation. That's like comparing Pineapples and Hand Grenades. The newer Chemo's are targeted Viruses W/ a little less Mustard Gas. they attack certain cells or areas instead of the whole body. It's Still not fun but it's not as bad as it use to be. Sadly my mother is illergic to the NEW stuff coming out in a year or two (Woo poor people beta testing) but she's doing well on the older stuff (2001-2009 that my grandmother betaed) she's doing fine she just cant go out into the sun for too long and is loosing her hair.

Chemo and Radiation are only used in extreme cases. such as lymphoma and other Lymph Node/skin cancers or people that have built up an immunity to the other Chemo's because it is like hitting yourself with mustard gas and Radiation. two things that just aren't good for you in the long run.

and the number 1 reason people don't get chemo is because their religion forbids it. the second is the cost.

Hope this clears things up.

[puppetbomb]

One way to make an ambiguous illness work can be that the patient doesn't want to talk about or acknowledge it. The natural progression becomes that trying to know more about the illness against their wishes makes the character feel violated, and can result in a bad ending.