Cancer 101

Cells have a normal life cycle. They grow in one place and then they die. Cancer cell forget to die and they don’t stay in one place. Cancer cells can only be spotted when they are grouped together into tumors. If a cancer cell develops close to a lymph node it has a freeway to any part of the body. Chemo therapy is used to kill any cancer cell that is moving around the body but isn’t grouped together with enough other cancer cells to be seen. Doctors look at different markers in the blood that would only be present if there were stray cancer cells to determine if cancer has spread. For example: The doctors took blood samples and looked at the bhcg levels weekly when I had placenta cancer. They knew that if I was producing the bhcg hormone I had to be pregnant of have cancer. I had just delivered Aaron so the levels couldn’t have been climbing high from a pregnancy. They have a large number of other markers they watch for different types of cancer.