Our Duty As People: The Fight Against Brain Cancer
As a citizen of the world, it is imperative for us to recognize the struggles of others and take actions to improve their current situations. A struggle that affects the lives of millions globally is cancer, but more specifically, brain cancer. Brain cancer starts out as a tumor in the brain, and it becomes larger and larger as it spreads throughout it. No cure has yet been found for this type of cancer, but doctors still are able to treat it through radiation. Though, it does not always permanently suppress the disease; it can grow back.
Brain tumors are created by abnormal division of cells, in the brain itself. They can also grow outside of the brain: on the skull, in blood vessels, and can also spread into other organs. Brain tumors are life threatening because there is little room for the tumor to grow, which forces it to push the brain to one side due to limited space.
The skull is around the brain so unlike other tumors, you cannot act on the tumor until it is formed. That then causes unexplained symptoms. Brain tumors are about the trickiest to work on because it is risky to operate on the brain, especially after the patient is weak from prior surgery.
My best friend's fat
her has brain cancer, and cancer in his stomach. Everyday after school in November, I went to Lankenau Hospital to support my friend and her father. On November 30 of this year, he was released from the hospital. The cancer had finally spread to the entirety of his stomach and brain; there was nothing else that the doctors could for him except try to comfort him, and give him pain pills. He was far too weak for surgery; it would’ve been very risky to perform it on him at that stage in.
Being there, I learned much more about brain cancer, and just cancer in general. It then became clear to me that it is very important to raise awareness on this disease because it could affect us at any given time in our lives. This is why I chose brain cancer as my topic- I hope to inform people because it is a disease that can heavily impact our lives. I have personally witnessed someone I that I care about forget his own name, due to cancer. I am personally affected by it because I’ve seen its effects as recently as yesterday.
I plan to raise awareness thro
ugh trendy things such as t-shirts and buttons (pins)-things that teens could catch on to. That sort of advertisement, in my opinion, would be the most effective way to raise awareness to that one specific audience. Though to target a larger demographic, I would have to incorporate interests that mi
ght appeal to that group. However, there isn’t much anyone can do to stop cancer in general, until a cure is found. But what matters is showing just the extent to which cancer can affect the lives of the patient as well as his or her family. Being caring and supportive people is what matters.
Brain tumors are one of every one out of one hundred cancers diagnosed in just the United States every year. These being the most deadly tumors because there is no room for it to go inside of your skull. Which in turn causes the cancer to spread which is the most fatal part to having this kind of cancer. The person in which I had initially done this blog on has since passed it is going on almost a month now since the passing of my friend’s dad. It was most painful to watch someone die so slow over the course of a year. It was probably even more painful for him knowing that he was also going away and he watched his family and friends try to do anything to save him. In fact there was nothing anyone could do at all. The chances of him even surviving this illness were slim to none already.
Most of what I am writing is based off of opinion since I witnessed first hand what it was like to see someone going through such a painful illness. The entire time he expressed that he just wanted to live which was horrible to hear because he was in fact begging for something that no one could aside from make him comfortable and wait around until that one day where everything shuts down because your body is so sick of fighting. I recall him asking for constant pain medication and something to make this headache go away. Later, the cancer had officially spread through his entire body which made everyone give up hope. I was unaware at exactly how fatal this form of cancer was and why once it had spread they let him come home. I was numb to the fact that this deadly strain of cancer which most people do not survive was killing him and once someone is gone you can not get them back.
I tend to take a more opinionated stance on this subject because it directly affected me. I look at the facts and understand them but at the same time I feel like for all cancer it is really a matter of luck whether you survive or not because it is so rough on the body it really takes a toll on the whatever organs it decides to spread to next leaving the body weak; so weak that you cannot even perform surgery on it to directly go after where the cancer is. The entire idea of cancer is tricky, especially brain cancer. This is scary because he was perfectly healthy the cancer essentially came out of no where. One out of twelve people in my survey knew/know someone who has had cancer.
Types of cancer brought up in the survey were brain, breast, and lung; along with other cancers which were listed under “other”. 80% of people who did know someone with a form of cancer did not not survive. Eight out of twelve people said they would be open to donating money to cures for cancer of all sorts. Eight out of twelve people have also never donated to cures for cancer, but would be open to doing it. Finally one out of twelve people said that cancer has had an impact on their life.
Here is the link to my b
ibliography.
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