When you were diagnosed with cancer, was it the first health condition you have had?

BobsProstate

I hear about people with a laundry list of health problems and cancer just seems to be the destination, but when you've never even been to a doctor for a serious problem, cancer seems like a jump over the line.

legaljen1969

"the destination." It's somewhat interesting that you ask this question because I have had a number of health issues that no-one ever mentioned could be leading me down the path to cancer. Now that I look back on them collectively, they seem to be a direct path and a one way street to cancer.

The only health problem I have had that anyone acknowledged to have a direct connection as a cancer risk factor is obesity. Even so, my doctors were more focused on keeping me from becoming diabetic, reducing cardiac and pulmonary issues, eliminating sleep apnea. Not once did anyone say "You need to lose weight or you might get cancer." I don't recall being aware that dense breast tissue was a risk factor. Maybe as a woman I should have known this. I performed regular self-exams. I had mammos yearly for 5 years and then it sort of slipped off my radar when life got busy and I got a new job with a more demanding schedule and a longer commute to my testing facility. Had more been made of this, I would have made the time. I have been diligently watching my diet for several years and following a nutrition plan set forth for my husband who has Type 2 diabetes. I have been working with a personal trainer and doing yoga. If anything, by all "conventional wisdom" I was working to reduce my risk factors. Yet in November 2019, I found out I had breast cancer. It was nothing I was ever expecting or anything that my doctors seemed to see coming.

But I started looking back at my road map to this destination and I see it pretty clearly. So here are some more "road signs" to what may have been inevitable. Some are not particularly within my control or things I would consider "health problems" but they are definitely risk factor road signs in existence at the time of my diagnosis:
* Stress and anxiety
*Overweight
*Caucasian
* Female
*49 years old
*Never had a full term pregnancy

I would say that the "never had a full term pregnancy" risk factor is a really tough pill to swallow for a woman who wanted children and then winds up having breast cancer. To have been denied one of the things many women want and then have that denial increase your risk to one of women's greatest fears. It is another "judgment" on childless women and recently that came to me in a very brutal conversation when a friend who offered several years ago to be a surrogate so my "life wouldn't be empty" found out I had a mastectomy. She said "Well, now you won't have a child to take care of you when you die. I know it still wouldn't have been YOU having the child, but now you'll die alone." You can imagine I told her to where to go.

po18guy

Cancer is "Us" - it is our own cells gone rogue. Babies are born with it. Why? Too many, and too many unknown reasons. The majority of cases seems to b the inevitability of cellular mutation combined with an aging immune system not being able to identify and kill it. At times, it seems like I have been created to undergo medical procedures. Started early with allergies causing chronic sinus infections. Had two "irrigations" (basically pressure washing) of impacted sinuses. Better leave it at that. Two lumbar spine surgeries, the second with a spinal fluid leak; two sinus surgeries, the second, you guessed it, with a spinal fluid leak. A knee surgery and I'm cheating the surgeon on the other knee. Cataract surgeries and interocular lens replacements in both eyes. Not to mention all of the bone marrow, lymph node and skin punch biopsies, two chemo port placements and removals, two Hickman line placements and removals. Oh! Almost forgot the stem cell transplant. :-0 And, in a few hours, I head in for surgery to repair a retinal tear/detachment in my left eye. WooHoo!

Does it all get to me? On occasion, yes, but just a generation ago, I would be dead of cancer. And before that, very likely blind in both eyes and walking with a limp, disregarding all of the other issues. The point is to keep it all in perspective. Life is still worth living and each morning is a blessing.

centered1

If I had not had endometrial cancer, I would probably never have had a mammogram. This mammogram found a cancer that had no lump. Had I not been seeing a plastic surgeon about re-construction on my breast, I would never found a malignant melanoma on my back which I couldn't even see. Had I not learned not to trust my body because of the other three cancers, I wouldn't have paid any attention to the swollen lymph nodes in my neck while applying lotion. That turned into non-hodgkins lymphoma. So I am alive today because of that first cancer. Some times, even bad conditions can turn into something helpful. God bless.

fusilier

Me? I had scarlet fever (systemic streptococcus infection) at age 7, measles at 15! (no, I don't know whether it was rubella or roseola,) bacterial pericarditis at 31 (multiple misdiagnoses as "job-related stress" but finally had a proper blood test done,) hypertension at 50, bilateral detached vitreous bodies at 55 or so, and prostate CA at 62.

However, listen to po18guy. Don't go looking for some "pathway that was telling me X." There's such a thing as confirmation bias. Quacks selling secret cures use that normal process of human thinking to grift off people.



fusilier

James 2:24

BoiseB

If you call radiation burns a "health condition" yeah that's a health condition that probably lead to my esophageal cancer. But I also had a lot of health conditions that before I was diagnosed with cancer. I had chronic pain and fatigue from the age of 5 years old and I was a very sickly child. However I don't think those conditions led to my cancer.

GregP_WN

Yes it was for me. I didn't have a family doctor, had only been to a doctor for two emergency trips before.

LiveWithCancer

I hadn't been to the doctor in 10 years when I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I went to the doctor because I kept gaining weight and thought I had thyroid issues that needed to be addressed with medications available only through a physician. I didn't have thyroid issues (until immunotherapy gave them to me a few years later) ... but the doctor felt a tiny knot on my throat that concerned her. Praise God for incredible doctors!!!! Both of my oncologists were more than impressed that she found the knot and even more so that she acted on it immediately.

I had not one symptom of lung cancer. I never have had a symptom of it. I am knocking on wood here as I say this and hope I don't jinx myself, but I am an incredibly healthy person ... if you ignore the lung cancer..... Colds, flu, whatever ... they mostly stay far from me. Other health issues - just haven't had them. I am a very fortunate person.

Jayne

Yes, I was 43 at the time and in perfect health. At least I thought......