Last week we spoke with the oncologist. What the heck is that and why is it called that?
If you’re like me, you’ve been snowed under the uncounted number of fancy terms: mastectomy, oncology, lumpectomy, pathology, chemotherapy, lymphodema and a zillion others.
Now we come to the big O…Why don’t they call it what this person is: a cancerologist? At least I’d understand that! So what’s an “onco”? What’s a “logist”?
My dictionary says this: “1857, coined in English from Modern Latin onco = ‘tumor’, from the original Greek word, onkos = ‘mass, bulk’ + logy = ‘science or study of’”. So an oncologist is someone who studies tumors, masses and bulks.
So I get that, now. What about the other terms? After spending time internet searching every word I didn’t understand, I thought I had things pretty well under control. Then the oncologist tossed out some really, really weird terms: Taxotere + Adriamycin + Cytoxan and the next day, something called neulasta. These are what I’m coming to think of as “bust drugs” – at least as far as I can tell, they’re used to combat any possible cancer that has found its way from the breast and axillary lymph nodes (there are those fancy terms again!) into the rest of the body. A friend of ours had a scare that the cancer cells had broken free of the breast and caused a brain tumor. That wasn’t the case, but she does have lesions on her bones. So I did a little reading on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer_chemotherapy , then I went to GOOGLE and in the main page, typed “define: xxxxx” and hit enter. You should be able to do this for any of the drugs you’re going to run into during your wife’s breast cancer battle. In Liz’ case:
Taxotere: anti-mitotic chemotherapy medication (that is, it interferes with cell division)
Adriamycin: an anthracycline (a kind of substance that messes up cancer cell DNA) antibiotic…and like all anthracyclines, it works by inserting itself into the cancer cell’s DNA so the cells can’t make new cancer cells
Cytoxan: a cyclophosphamide that has been converted into a non-toxic "transport form". This transport form is a “pro-drug”, subsequently actively transported into the cancer cells. Once in the cells, enzymes convert the drug into the active, toxic form that kills the cancer cell
Neulasta: recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (GCSF) analog used to stimulate the bone marrow to produce more neutrophils (white blood cells) to fight infection in patients undergoing chemotherapy
OK – I get some of it now! Sorta wish doctors and clinics would speak in plain English, but then, they wouldn’t sound so…doctoral if they did. Anyway, this made me feel better. Hope it helps you, too!
No comments:
Post a Comment