(Original title: At Flourish and Blotts)

I forget how I actually stumbled across the original of this, but I saw it and thought I would list a glossary of cancer terms related to mutant mammaries for everyone to gain a better understanding of medical terminology that I might occasionally use.

 

Acute – rapidly developing, generally short lasting. Not to be confused with “oh, that’s a cute haircut!”

Alternative Therapy – all of that dumb shit that people reckon “cures cancer” but is nothing more than snake oil for twelve easy payments of $16,000 PLUS YOUR HEALTH YOU DUMB FUCK. See related: homeopathy, ozone therapy, rubbing kale on mountain lions.

Anaesthetic – the good shit that numbs you to pain locally, or puts you to sleep while doctors remove bits of your body generally.

Benign – a growth that doesn’t spread to other areas and isn’t cancerous.

Biopsy – the process of using a big fucking needle to stab and remove bits of you, sometimes guided by ultrasound to make sure they’re getting what they’re looking for. If it wasn’t for local anaesthetic, this would really fucking hurt.

Blood – the red stuff that leaks everywhere when you break your skin. Also known as Vampire Juice.

Blood Count – the blood tests us Cancer patients have done regularly to check our red and white cell counts and platelets, as well as liver functions. It’s important because it gives a picture of whether or not a treatment is fucking around with your health or you’re tolerating it well. Too low in your counts and treatment needs to be paused until your levels come back up again, or stopped completely.

Breast Cancer – cancer that starts in your tit and can spread through your Vampire Juice or lymph fluid to other areas of your body because it’s a son of a bitch disease.

Cancer – the abnormal growth and spread of cells. It’s actually a large group of diseases, not just one disease that affects different body parts and organs.

Chemotherapy / Chemo – it’s pooiiiiisoonnnnnn yeah, yeah, it’s poison running through your veins (thanks Alice Cooper). Like Cancer, there are varying types of Chemotherapies that are administered intravenously or by tablet, in varying amounts and for varying lengths of time, with varying side effects.

Complementary Therapy – therapies provided in addition to, not in replacement of, conventional treatment, to ease the side effects of treatment, not to treat the disease, e.g. massage, acupuncture, meditation, art therapy.

Contrast – comes in at least three forms. The CT Contrast uses iodine which causes death in me, and the MRI one does not. There’s also an alternate CT Contrast that does not contain iodine, but they won’t use that on me just in case.

Conventional Treatment – the actual process of treating cancer using tried and tested methods and science properly. Things like Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Immunotherapy, and Surgery.

Curative Treatment – whilst there is no “cure” for cancers, when you have a good prognosis (i.e. not going to die) they will throw everything at you, as much as you can handle, as intensely as possible in order to shrink and control the growth, ideally killing it off entirely. It’s hard on your body, but the idea is to kill the cancer. Curative Treatment is the Bear, Cancer is the Mountain Lion, and the Bear has to go through you to get to the Mountain Lion. You end up a bit mauled, but hopefully you don’t die and you can recover.

Cure For Cancer – yeah, great. But which cancer? They’re all different, they all have different treatments. See also: mythical creatures.

Genetic Testing – if you’re young, like me, and you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, like me, you’ll automatically get genetically tested for any gene mutations that may have contributed to the wonderful new ability you now have to rapidly grow mutant cells, like me. This testing will be done for free if you are under 35 years old with breast cancer, otherwise you will probably have to pay for it.

Immune System – helps to protect your body from disease and illness. Your white blood cells and lymph nodes are part of your Immune System, and work together. When your Immune System overreacts, you end up with anaphylaxis. This is why “boosting your immune system” is such a ridiculous idea – support it instead.

Lumpectomy – when doctors opt to remove just the tumour and some of the surrounding tissue. It leaves you with a dented boob.

Lymph – clear fluid that contains a bunch of proteins and white blood cells and other nutrients. It flows through its own pathways in your body, separate from blood. It’s why you can have a super fat foot from excess fluid from heart failure, but it’s not blood that’s causing it. Lymph fluid only flows in one direction, rather than in a continuous loop like blood does, and that direction is up. When you have a cancer below your neck, doctors will check the lymph nodes under your collarbone and in your neck at every appointment.

Lymphatic System – members of this rockin’ band of dooveys and whatsits are the spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes, thymus and bone marrow.

Mammogram – the squishing of your boobs between two cold plates on a really fancy and expensive piece of equipment that then takes images of what’s going on internally. It’s not the best diagnostic tool for inflammatory breast cancer apparently, but it worked for mine.

Mastectomy – when doctors opt to remove your entire boob, leaving you with a really ugly scar. Usually done because the cancer has done it’s spreading thing and decided to take up residence in the rest of your boob and probably your armpit, instead of staying in one spot.

Menopause – what usually happens to women when they reach an age where their ovaries run out of eggs. Symptoms include hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings, body aches, headaches, no periods, depression, fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, and hair loss. Men undergoing some prostate cancer treatments experience similar symptoms.

Metastatic / Metastasising / Metastases – the process of cancer fucking all your shit up and growing in other places like weeds.

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) – a hugely powerful magnetic field and radiowaves are used to produce some pretty amazing looking pictures of the inside of your body. Sometimes they inject Contrast to get a better picture of blood flow into tumours. It’s wicked cool and that’s what the header image of this is – it’s an MRI image of my tit cancer.

Oncologist – the Cancer Masters. They know what they’re talking about because cancer is their livelihood. They come in various models – medical oncologists (the ones who know all there is to know about chemo and immunotherapy), radiation oncologists (they deal specifically with radiotherapy treatment), and surgical oncologists (they get all creative with a scapel and do the actual removal of tumours).

Oncology – the big machine that is the study, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

PET (Positron Emission Tomography) Scan – you get injected with a radioactive sugar type thing, sit in a chair as still as can be for an hour, then get scanned. The images produced show where the sugar uptake is higher, generally a sign that cancer is fucking all your shit up. It’s not a clear picture, but it can show where cancer might be lurking without you knowing about it.

Primary Cancer – the supreme ruler of mutated cells in your body.

Radiation / Radiotherapy – basically super strong x-ray radiation that is used on a particular area, designed to shrink growths and prevent cells from reproducing like bunnies by destroying them. Think of it like a shrink ray. Side effects include internal ulcers, external burns, and a different cancer. Does not result in superpowers.

Remission – when the cancer has reduced or disappeared.

Secondary Cancer – the minions of Primary Cancer. When the Primary metastasises, the secondaries are still referred to by the type of Primary Cancer you have – e.g. breast cancer metastasising to your liver, your liver has breast cancer (#boobsonyourliver) because they’re breast cancer cells, not liver cancer cells, and are treated with breast cancer therapies and not liver cancer therapies because they’re not liver cancer cells.

Side Effects – the unwanted, unasked for additional bullshit that you go through treatment hoping to avoid but inevitably experience. A short list includes nausea, hair loss, weight gain, weight loss, heart failure, reduced immune response, insomnia, fatigue, exhaustion, loss of appetite, loss of tastebuds, hot flushes, sweats, chills, aches, menopause, infertility, fever, dry eyes, ulcers, diarrhoea, constipation, chemo brain, toenails falling off, weakness, anaemia, headaches, osteoporosis, fluid retention.

Tumour – comes in two varieties. Benign is a growth that is not cancerous, and Malignant which is cancerous.

Ultrasound – much like looking for a baby in a uterus, the same equipment can be used to find cancer in someone. It uses soundwaves to produce an image, and the way you hold the “wand” determines whether you look at the images from the top down, or from side on #funfact

 

Here’s hoping you’ve learned some new jargon. Feel free to add these words to your regular vocabulary and impress all your friends and relatives with your newfound medical smartness.