They say that no two snowflakes are alike, and similarly with cancer patients – no two human beings with cancer are alike.
When I first learned of my membership in the Cancer Club, I felt like another one of the growing cadre of people with “that” disease. As much as that may make one feel like just another statistic in a haunting headcount, each patient is as unique as a snowflake. And since the completion of the sequencing of DNA (back in April 2003), now science can begin to understand the very uniqueness of one’s diagnosis, treatment and possible outcomes.
Don’t get me wrong, this is now no guarantee of the accuracy or probability of any results – mainly because of the very aforementioned uniqueness, but it does help my Med Team better understand what is going on inside of me, and how to address the treatments and their inevitable side effects.
So it all comes back to the snowflakes (why are people from Minnesota so obsessed with snow analogies?). Each medication that I receive comes with a long list of possible side effects. Some may happen and some may not. I look at the list; attend to the ones of highest concern; acknowledge the overlaps with the many other lists from the many other medications; then move on prepared to catalog any symptoms and share them with my Med Team. Rather than live under the weight of these possible adverse side effects, I try to feel empowered with the knowledge of their existence and comforted that my Med Team will help steer me away from these potholes and keep us truckin’ on down the treatment trail.
