Preview

What Side Effects Of Chemotherapy Did You Deal With Their Diagnosis Of Cancer?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1035 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Side Effects Of Chemotherapy Did You Deal With Their Diagnosis Of Cancer?
Contrast the differences in how Carter and Edward each dealt with their diagnosis of cancer
The diagnosis of cancer is something nobody is every prepared to hear. The doctor sharing that you have less than one year left to live is shocking. Some individuals immediately begin planning a funeral, accessing retirement funds and composing an updated will. Carter processes the diagnosis of his cancer similarly, he accepted the reality of the situation, spent time with his family, and decided to receive chemotherapy treatment. To others, the diagnosis of developed cancer is an eye-opener. This news can encourage risky behavior, spontaneous vacations, and denial. This is how Edward reacted to his diagnosis. Edward wanted to skydive, hire prostitutes and travel the world. Both methods are reasonable for this level of news, deciding to live while you can, or deciding to fight the cancer
…show more content…
In the film I noticed that Edward experiences more emotional side effects of treatment. He is easily aggravated and angered by his roommate and any visitors. The healthcare team shaves Edwards head prior to chemo, so he won’t be alarmed as the hair becomes thin or falls out during treatment. Edward maintains a healthy appetite throughout treatment, ordering room service, and having his favorite restaurants brought in. Unfortunately, Edward isn’t able to keep any of his meals down, and experiences emesis after eating anything. In the film I noticed that Carter experiences a loss of appetite, and the audience doesn’t see him eat during the movie. Carter tells Edward to be careful with what he consumes, since he has experienced the vomiting and diarrhea before. Carter’s wife visits the hospital often, but since Carter isn’t able to come home and spend alone time with her, their relationship also suffers change during this time. Cancer.org published that “changes in libido and sexual function” are extremely common amongst chemotherapy

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Randy Pausch Essay

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One of the most important choices we can make in our life is choosing to spend time with our family and in being happy. Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture expresses this point perfectly. Pausch chose to take his family to Disneyworld, which is a place him and his family both love and enjoy. Pausch still treated his family no differently than when he did not know he had pancreatic cancer. Throughout Pausch’s last six months he stayed completely optimistic and was never gloomy or depressed when around his family or friends. Although Pausch could have been depressed “At the time, I already had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but I was optimistic.”(1) Pausch expresses that even though he is now informed that he had pancreatic cancer, he still is the same man as before and will still continue to be optimistic and happy every day of his life. If you work towards being something you will achieve it eventually and you will be able to remain optimistic in Randy Pausch’s case (37). According to The Art Of Making A Good Decision many people have trouble making the right choice due to their lack of knowing their priorities. In Randy Pausch’s case he chose the right choice and spent his last six months loving and showing his care for his family and enjoying every day he had left to the fullest. Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture shows many examples in which he chose to show his family he is happy despite his illness.…

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Oncology QSEN Case Study

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages

    -Providing an encouraging and open environment for the patient while remembering that a cancer diagnoses can be very scary.…

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Chemotherapy is the most common form of treatment. It is given in cycles, each cycle having a treatment period and a rest period. Chemotherapy increases the chance for infection, bruise, and bleeding because it lowers the levels of healthy blood cells. It will also cause hair loss, but it may change color and/or texture for a while. Chemotherapy can also cause a change in appetite, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and mouth and lip sores.…

    • 1731 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are over 200 different types of cancer. Cancer symptoms depend on the location, size, and expansion of the tumor. General symptoms include fatigue, pain, delirium, shortness of breath, constipation, trouble swallowing, and hemorrhage. The article, “Understanding the experience of pain in terminally ill patients” reports that ill cancer patients’ pain ranges from 36% to 75%. Patients with advanced cancer face many hurdles during their illness3.…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Physically, having to go through all that pain hurts the not only the person but the family as well. Zach overwhelmed by everything is unaware of how or if he can help his mother. Zach being a cousin of mine I asked him to describe what he was feeling on this certain day. He said, ‘That was the scariest day of my life. When I first got to the hospital I waited around for the doctors to finally give us some kind of information. After hearing that my mom had cancer was heart dropping. Being extremely sad by this bump in the road I tried to pull for my family in friends.” Zach shortly after figuring out more about Glioblastoma he realized how bad this cancer truly was. The doctor informed Zach that his mother would only have a year left. Shocked by this he was uncertain what the future would hold. At the age of 19 hearing this kid of new was extremely tough for Zach. Being hit with such news was hard. Since Karen was diagnosed during Christmas break Zach was forced into returning to college to start his new semester. During his time at college Karen underwent two surgeries’ to remove the softball size tumor in her brain. Safely…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Claire Mameli The differences in treatment outcomes due to the amount of hope a patient held in “The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness,” was a perspective I had not yet ruminated. The author, Dr. Groopman, retold the stories of multiple patients suffering from cancer, each showing that hope can have a positive outcome on treatment. This account has shown me that death is inherently a part of life, but by instilling genuine hope in a patient and their family, their remaining days can be affected positively. One of Dr. Groopman’s patients in whom this outcome occurred was with Barbara, where she accepted her condition but never yielded.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lung Cancer Monologue

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “Ah...” the doctor calmly replies avoiding eye contact with me and my father. The room then becomes silent for a second before the Doctor looks up at me and replies, “your results have come back... I’m sorry Jason; it seems you have lung cancer”. “Currently there is nothing we can really do and I’ve discussed your case with specialist in the field and we have predicted that you may not have that long left”. Two words, two words are all it took to destroy my life, lung cancer .My…

    • 1409 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    More than 50% of patients with advanced head and neck cancer have significant weight loss and possible cachexia ( Buntzel and Kuttner ,1995).…

    • 84 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A women named Cynthia Amendt was diagnosed with grade four Glioblastoma. She was a teacher, and at first she thought that she wasn’t going to be able to teach again as she says “ I thought my teaching days were over.” She had treatment in…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wit by Margaret Edson

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the first stage of the play where Vivian is initially diagnosed she shows signs of defiance, which gives the play a real life scenario feeling because it is natural to be in denial for a person under her circumstances. She feels as if she can beat this disease and get back to teaching as soon as possible. There are many of times that she tells the doctors (and audience) to keep giving the highest dosing of chemotherapy. Dr. Bearing understands what she is going to go through and is in terms with that on an intellectual level. She even reads books on medical terminology so as to not feel inferior to the doctors when they are reading her charts to her. This also shows the sense of denial and ignorance Dr. Bearing has to the big picture. And this big picture is that in the end she will die.…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Vulnerable Populations

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Imagine you are going to the doctor for an annual check-up. No real problems have plagued you over the past year, except a few colds. However, the past few weeks you have been extremely tired. The doctor, being thorough, decides they want some blood work drawn. A day after getting the blood work the phone rings. The doctor wants you to have more blood work done because there has apparently been a mistake with you labs. After the blood work has been drawn the doctor calls you again, and this time you are told that you need to seek follow up with an oncologist because the blood work has revealed what appears to be leukemia. This news can be met with many different feelings. Initially shock and denial are at the forefront, and then followed by sadness or anger, fear, and then depression. Many oncology physicians and nurses are great when it comes to assessing lab work, and physical characteristics of the various cancers, the assessment of the patients psychological health though sometimes goes by the wayside. Many of these patients are excellent at masking there emotional distresses but that does not mean they aren’t there. It becomes essential that nurses become proficient in identifying the signs of depression and educate the patients that this is not rare occurrence and that they need to talk to their healthcare providers about their feelings.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eventually they concluded that cancer was a possibility. The doctor also didn’t help with any of this new upcoming stress (but then again it’s not their job). He closed the door, hunched over in his seat, took of his glasses, and in a stern voice told me and my father “we don’t want to scare you but we might be looking at cancer here”. Of course my heart was ready to pound out of my chest due to the immense stress and fear of living with cancer. I’m already an anxious kid and now being told that I could have cancer just made me fear life in itself. Now picture this: you’re a 16 year old where everything is eventually taken away, no more baseball, positive vibes, and stress affecting my performance in school on top of being told I could possibly be living with cancer for the rest of my life. How would I make it anywhere in life when I couldn’t even think straight due to this fear and stress? However even with this news, I took some time to meditate and figure out myself. With this time I contemplated many depressing things. Such as how my funeral would be, who would be there, and who would be sad. With time the doctors confirmed that it was only a scare and that the source was something else that could be…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Diversity Research Paper

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A typical day for me is spent depending on how I’m feeling. If I am feeling well I will go for a walk either around the neighborhood or at a nearby lake. If not, I will spend the day resting at home and spend time with my family and friends. (Question 2). I no longer have a job because my health does not permit it. (Question 3). I have lost most of my hair and I am quite thin due to the cancer treatments I have undergone (Balducci 2003). In my trying to stay active I find myself out in the public eye frequently. Most people around me display other-oriented communication. Because cancer is a subject that people either know someone who suffered from it, or suffered from it themselves, it enables people to display empathy in it’s highest form. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in this country (Bellenir 2009). It is a subject that people think about and are conscious of it being a possibility in their own future. See others display empathy and other-oriented communication is a big part of my everyday life.…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Traditional” cancer treatments are on the rise and are in abundance. The most common treatments are surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. A few of the lesser known are targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and stem cell transplant. Surgery is not only a treatment, but it can be used to diagnose and prevent most cancers. There are multiple surgical techniques, such as, full removal, partial removal, and some techniques are to treat a specific problem caused by the cancer itself. Chemotherapy is the use of strong medications, which have been proven, to kill or damage cancer cells, to treat cancer. There are over one hundred medications that can be used in different combinations. Radiation therapy is the utilization, of high-energy waves, to damage or destroy the cancer cells(Mayo,”Cancer”). Sadly, all of these treatments have horrible side effects, which can start, as soon as the first treatment, and also have terrible consequences, many years after the initial treatment, also known as late effects. When referring to the side effects, of the many surgical procedures, most of common problems can happen during, and/or after the surgery. The side effects during the surgery range from, hemorrhaging, or bleeding out in the middle of surgery, to the possible damage of other organs, and also the side effects after, could be as serious as a deadly infection. Chemotherapy’s side effects are what the average person thinks of when thinking of a cancer patient losing their hair, horrible spells of nausea, including vomiting and debilitating fatigue. Managing these side effects include more medications, with more side effects to emanate. Late effects of chemotherapy include anywhere, from heart problems to developing other types of cancer. When using radiation therapy, the side effects are close to chemotherapy, with the similar possibility of developing another cancer, due to the treatment (Mayo,"Cancer Survivors: Late Effects of Cancer…

    • 2218 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stereotyping With Dementia

    • 1605 Words
    • 7 Pages

    (O’Sullivan). These stages are characterized in scientific research. Shock is a brief initial reaction to the diagnosis. The reaction is described as mental numbness and disorganization of thoughts that can leave you speech less. (Livneh). Anxiety is the worry or fear about the magnitude of the current situation. It can result in physical stress symptoms on the body such as rapid heart rate, hyperventilation, excess perspiration, and digestive issues. (O’Sullivan). Denial is our defensive mechanism to distract us from pain and other unwanted emotions. “It includes wishful thinking, unrealistic expectations of (full or immediate) recovery, and at times, blatant neglect of medical advice and therapeutic or rehabilitation recommendations.” (Livneh). Depression is the reaction response to the realization of the final ending. “Feelings of despair, helplessness, hopelessness, isolation, and distress are frequently reported during this time.” (Livneh). Internal Anger is when a person has resentment and blame for themselves. This can reaction can lead to sabotaging ones progress. (O’Sullivan). External hostility is redirected anger toward people and things around the person. Acknowledgement and adjustment is the realization that the illness is not going away.…

    • 1605 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays