Hour 1, Fouts
What is Leukemia?
The story of my search on leukemia.
March 19th, 2004. I was 14 months old so now that I'm 14, I was not able to recall anything. But this was the night, that I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. Up until now, my parents have always told me about what I went through but only little bits. I wondered : How is leukemia even formed? How dangerous and quick can this cancer spread? What were the side effects showing the doctors that I had to be immediately rushed to a hospital at 11:00 at night? How much does treatment cost for leukemia?
I already knew some information that my parents had given me. The doctor could feel something was wrong in my stomach. I wasn't walking around the …show more content…
I didn't know how each one could be different from the type of cancer I had. Turns out they are all unique in their own way. There were two groupings, how fast Leukemia progresses and what white blood cells are affected. If we were to look at how fast Leukemia progresses, we could find that there is Acute and Chronic Leukemia. Acute Leukemia is where immature cells can't function normally and it is a very quick spreading cancer so it has to be treated aggressively and has to be treated immediately. Chronic Leukemia can go unnoticed for years because cells can function normally for a while but then start to spread this disease slowly. If we look at what white blood cells are affected there were two different cells, Lymphocytic and Myelogenous cells. The lymphocytic cells form lymphoid tissue which makes up the immune system and can affect how you fight off diseases. The myeloid cells form WBC, RBC and Platelet-Producing Cells. There are four different types of leukemia formed from these different classifications, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) and Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). ALL is very common in children under 10 years old but can occur in adults. AML is the most common Leukemia in adults and occurs in children and adults. CLL is common in adults and can untreated for a while. CML mainly affect adults and might now have symptoms for months until the cells