Cancer treatment asks a lot of the body, and immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors can feel like a brave bargain. While these powerful cancer treatments make your immune system awake and watchful, strong enough to push your cancer back, maybe even into remission, sometimes that same immune fire spreads to places it shouldn’t, including the…
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The Loss of Taste Due to Cancer Treatment
The Loss of Taste Due to Cancer Treatment I’ve been a practicing maxillofacial trauma surgeon for over 30 years. Six years ago, I began my own journey through cancer treatment: chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, stem cell transplant, and CAR T-cell therapy. I write about the practical side effects that show up at home, not just on…
Read moreHow to Read a Cancer Pathology Report (and what “positive” really means)
If you’ve ever held a cancer pathology report in your hands, you know the feeling. The paper is quiet, but your mind isn’t. One word can sound like a sentence. One number can feel like a countdown. A cancer pathology report is not a prophecy. It’s a careful description (such as in a biopsy pathology…
Read more“lymphedema after cancer surgery”: Early Signs, Compression Basics, Safe Exercises, and When Swelling Is an Emergency
After cancer surgery, your body has already done something brave. It has endured loss, healing, and change to the lymphatic system, all at once. Then, sometimes, a new worry shows up quietly: swelling that doesn’t quite make sense. Lymphedema after surgery can feel like a second storyline you didn’t agree to. It can arrive weeks…
Read moreMetastatic Spinal Cord Compression: The Back Pain Pattern You Can’t Ignore and What to Do in the First Hour
Back pain is common. During cancer treatment, where spinal cord compression in cancer is a risk, it can feel almost expected, a side effect of stress, scans, long days in waiting rooms, or medicines that change how your body feels. But there’s a type of back pain that doesn’t politely wait for your next appointment….
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