This is an interview i found on youtube for a kidney cancer survivor. His name is Bob Gallner, who is a patient who suffered from stage IV kidney cancer. This is a self narrative about a patient who started off complaining of abdominal pain, went to the doctors office and had a CT of his abdomen done where he was found to have renal cell carcinoma. He then underwent a procedure called a partial nephrectomy, which is when they surgically remove one of the affected kidneys. After 6-7 months, he was able to recover from the surgery, but had another CT done where he found out that his cancer had metastasized and caused a second incidence of renal cell carcinoma. After having the surgery to remove that tumor, he recovered well from that surgery. He was finally diagnosed with Stage IV renal cell carcinoma after finding out that the cancer had metastasized into his liver. This is when it became most severe, since the cancer started effecting other vital organs. He was given interleukin-2 two, which is a treatment where the patient was given 8 days of intensive treatment of interluekin-2, was given 10 doses on the first day. Because this is a toxic, side effects included extreme headaches, diarrhea, rigors, nausea, skin pealing and bloating. The patient goes onto explain that this treatment not only affected him, but also his entire family, who had to watch him suffer through these painful and uncomfortable side effects. At one point he mentions that he doesn't believe that it is worth it anymore, and believes he is going to die because his quality of life was not going to be the same. The doctors decided to CT after the first regiment of treatment, and found that his body was responding in an even more positive manner than expected. This encouraged the patient to believe that he was going to beat the cancer, and gave him the drive to continue 4 more treatments through the course of a couple weeks, and eventually went into full remission. The patient goes onto explain how he beat this cancer, and states that for one to do that you have to believe it's possible, to believe that this disease can be beat. He explains the personal techniques he uses (visualizes roman soldiers attacking his cancer) to help him cope with his treatment and advocate himself to continue to fight. In a way, this is also a quest narrative because it talks about his journey through the whole process and what it took for him to continue on battling, to continue to fight and believe he could beat this cancer.
This was an interesting case because although it showed that the patient had many resources, he still had to have the will to fight through the side effects and the doubt. If the doctors hadn't given him the hope, if they hadn't used the anthropological approach to not only treat the symptoms but to also the patient, to have him truly believe based on what he knew and they knew, that he could fight through this disease, the patient may have given up on the therapy and accepted his fate. The patient was able to have not only an internal belief, but also a supportive community of family, friends, and doctors, who believed he could beat this cancer.
This was an interesting case because although it showed that the patient had many resources, he still had to have the will to fight through the side effects and the doubt. If the doctors hadn't given him the hope, if they hadn't used the anthropological approach to not only treat the symptoms but to also the patient, to have him truly believe based on what he knew and they knew, that he could fight through this disease, the patient may have given up on the therapy and accepted his fate. The patient was able to have not only an internal belief, but also a supportive community of family, friends, and doctors, who believed he could beat this cancer.
This image shows what a CT scan looks like with positive signs of renal cell carcinoma. In this image, it is seen bilaterally, or on both kidneys, but has not necessarily shown signs of spreading, or stage IV cancer, as was the case in the narrative above. This imaging is not always available to specific areas of the world, and so the patient was very fortunate to have that available to him. In some cases people will continue their lives unaware of the cancer, while suffering all the symptoms.
Below is an image of the treatment of interluekin-2 and its receptor sites. Interluekin-2 is a chemokine which is a cell signaling mechanism that is used to tell cells where to go and then undergo phagocytosis (destroy) the infected cell. It is considered a toxic because the issue with cancer is that it is hard to determine which cells are cancerous and which are not, and so the body ultimately suffers a brutal breakdown of both cancer and healthy cells when given treatment like these.
Below is an image of the treatment of interluekin-2 and its receptor sites. Interluekin-2 is a chemokine which is a cell signaling mechanism that is used to tell cells where to go and then undergo phagocytosis (destroy) the infected cell. It is considered a toxic because the issue with cancer is that it is hard to determine which cells are cancerous and which are not, and so the body ultimately suffers a brutal breakdown of both cancer and healthy cells when given treatment like these.
SOURCES:
Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njz37DZ0Q28
Image for interluekin-2:
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n8/images/nri1901-f2.jpg
Image for CT:
http://static.wikidoc.org/2/2c/RCC.jpg
Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njz37DZ0Q28
Image for interluekin-2:
http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n8/images/nri1901-f2.jpg
Image for CT:
http://static.wikidoc.org/2/2c/RCC.jpg