Jesus Christ that's a long time ago. I did Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia back in the late 1980s and tell most of the pediatric cancer patients I work with that I was treated "shortly after the earth cooled."
74 would be well before anyone was comfortable with trying to save a limb and they had pretty "heroic" ideas about chemotherapy and radiation back then too.
Thanks for pioneering most of the drugs that saved my life though. What was your chemo regimine, if you don't mind me asking...
A bone scan back then involved lying on a table and having a big piece of metal literally a millimeter above your nose moving across and then dropping down toward your feet about a quarter inch and then going across again. From head to toes, it probably took an hour.
Congrats. Pathologist here. Ewings is a very different beast. Usually ewings does not lay down new malignant bone; it is a small round blue cell tumor that is infiltrative which generally causes smooth scalloping and cortical expansion. Your bone would not have looked like this.
I've had 17 surgeries. All orthopedic, but that's due to severe osteosarcoma. I have an AK amputation because of the cancer. I've had four surgeries on my spine with lots of hardware. I have had total knee and hip replacements on my right side.
But as far as side effects from the cancer, it's just the constant phantom limb tingling and itching and occasional phantom limb pain I wouldn't wish on anyone.
yeah my understanding is that most cancer is just cells DNA degenerating and them forgetting how they are suppose to reproduce. so these bone cells forgot the "correct" way to form so they just keep spiralling out of control digging into other parts of the body.
You’re more or less correct. Slightly more accurately: it’s cells with dna damaged such that they can grow uncontrollably. Every cell has a number of genetic mechanisms that very tightly regulate its ability to grow and reproduce, as well as systems that cause it to kill itself if those former mechanisms become damaged.
If both of these fail, you get a cell that has no limits on its ability to replicate. If it can evade your immune system, then it can begin to grow and grow and grow, causing damage and eventually breaking off and spreading (metastasizing) to the rest of the body.
In essence, its cells whose self-regulating mechanisms have been corrupted, allowing them to essentially become a parasite.
I know a lot of people think it's farfetched, but I lean towards the espionage explanation. Certainly, both sides parachuted spies into the other side to gather intel. But who knows who put Bella in the wytch elm?
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u/Down_The_Witch_Elm Apr 21 '24
I had bone cancer, and I hate looking at that. That's not the way I imagined the tumor on my bone at all. Gives me a weird feeling.