Cancer and your bones

When I was undiagnosed and other people had cancer I'd ask "has it spread?" and "is it in the bones"? I thought that if it spread and if it was in their bones then that person was a goner and yes, it was totally incorrect and sort of unkind, in an ignorant way. Now, as a person who has cancer that has spread and is in my bones I know more information such as:

1. Cancer in your bones may lower your immunity because of your marrow being a source of white blood cells but it doesn't really kill you.
2. Cancer in your bones may cause bone breakage due to structural integrity lost. This happened to me in April 2012 when I had some disintegration in my vertebrae due to cancer eating the marrow (it's delicious, who knew?) It heals itself or there's a cement surgery and although it is pretty painful, it's temporary but get on biphosphonate medication to keep it from happening again.
3. Cancer in your bones (not the same as primary bone cancer)* isn't as great a risk to your life as when cancer in is your organs because bones can break but they don't shut down and remove a vital service like kidney filtration.
4. The body can actually handle a lot of cancer before it is unable to function. For example, at the time I was diagnosed I had 12 tumors in my liver yet my liver's function was still at full capacity. How can a liver work perfectly well with that many tumors? It's one of life's many miracles.

One last little nugget of information would be that when I first told people that I had cancer they would often say "I hope that it was caught early" or "I hope that it hasn't spread" which are both kind sentiments but I felt like a failure having to say "no, they didn't and it has spread". I think that I'd say to someone now "How are you coping? How is your mum/dad doing? Where are your appointments? Do you need rides?" I'd say these things because that person has already answered the other type of question a lot and so I'd just ask them about themselves but not about cancer for a while. I hope that helps you in case you ever need this info but hopefully, you never do.

 That post was like school but good job for understanding it,

Cail

p.s. a shout out to the cool dentist who borrowed our macrobiotic book and left a sweet surprise inside :). I'd love to meet her one day!

p.p.s. Here's a video from one of my favorite french bands to liven up your day. It's about how attractive people are when they have mustaches.

*Primary refers to the initial location of cancer and health professionals believe that this type of cancer is like the motor in your car. You can change the body but the motor is what delivers the power so that means that breast cancer in your liver is still called primary breast cancer. Different motors or cancers have different characteristics and respond to differing medications no matter where in the body they have spread.