you must know your enemy.
"Know your enemy and know yourself; had you then a hundred years to fight, you would be a hundred times victorious."
-Sun Tzu (The Art of War).
I have wrote before what cancer can do to you. It takes over your body and strip you off your bodily functions (and dignity) one by one. It invades you, weakens you, paralyzes, breaks, blocks, suffocates, makes you bleed, blind and many more. The treatment scares everyone. No doctor will ever declare a patient cured from cancer, they will only say the person is in remission. (This means, for the time being the disease is not manifesting itself).
Therefore, this enemy of ours have to be regarded with respect.
So what is cancer?
In short, a cancer cell is a rebellious cell. Our body is a large community of cells that have different functions but work together in harmonious rhythm. The normal cells respect each other's territories and functions, and when one has finish its jobs, it will commit suicide (this cell-suicide is termed apoptosis).
But not cancer cells (sel tak makan saman). Cancer cells were initially normal cell but had undergone mutation and becomes rebellious. They have minds of their own. They grow and grow, build new (and their own) blood supply, and they don't commit suicide. Eventually, when they are aggressive enough, they send army cells to other organs (eg lungs, liver, brain) to expand their empire to fully conquer the body (mungkin ini yang dimaksudkan rasukan makhluk halus oleh bomoh2 tradisional :) ).
As you can see, they are quite capable of surviving on their own. They can build their own blood vessels (bina salur darah sendiri, yer, jangan main2), they have their own knights to defend themselves (contohnya NF-kappa beta), and if ever you kill 99.99% of them, the single cell that survive is equipped with the ability to multiply and grow its own empire again.
More so if the host (that's you) makes it easier for it to grow and worse, feeds them!
But if they are so strong, full of talents to survive, how can we beat them?
The above image was taken from here. It was photographed at Cancer Research UK using electron microscopy. It shows the cancer cell trying to get out of a pore (a teeny-tiny hole in cells) to spread itself. Clever.
We actually have time on our side (provided you have not been diagnosed ie the disease has not manifest itself). It takes roughly 1-40 years for cancers to become evident (that's why you never hear a baby born with cancer).
Normal cell --> abnormal cell --> abnormal cells become bigger (precancerous) --->
Then precancerous cells develop the ability to spread, therefore termed cancerous --> Spread everywhere.
At the precancerous level, it is possible to detect these cells; this is the importance of screening. For cervical cancer, you can have pap smear. For breast cancer, you can do mammogram. For many other cancers, you can have your blood checks for tumour markers (these cells produce certain chemicals that are detectable in blood, although they themselves are not detectable yet).
When precancerous cells become cancer, it is usually detectable with the naked eye ie a breast lump, a large lymph node (kelenjar, biasanya di leher, ketiak, pangkal peha), a big mole. Or it makes itself evident by bleeding itself (bleeding from any holes you have on your body). Or where it is difficult to see (eg in your skull or in your tummy), it will grow and press on your normal organs, giving you headaches, fits, abnormal movements, pain or your tummy becomes bigger (etc etc banyak lagi lerr).
So, they grow in stages. It is not like infections where you come in contact with the culprit and you will be sick in few days (luckily God gives us antibiotics and vaccines). It is not like stroke where your blood vessel bursts or blocks and you are suddenly crippled. In cancer, there are a lot of areas where we can intervene.
First, why normal cells become abnormal cells? Why they change?
Then how to stop the abnormal cells from becoming cancer cells?
Then how to halt the growth of the already cancerous cells so they don't become bigger?
How to make your body not a favourable place for cancers to grow?
to be continued....(dah panjang sangat)
"Know your enemy and know yourself; had you then a hundred years to fight, you would be a hundred times victorious."
-Sun Tzu (The Art of War).
I have wrote before what cancer can do to you. It takes over your body and strip you off your bodily functions (and dignity) one by one. It invades you, weakens you, paralyzes, breaks, blocks, suffocates, makes you bleed, blind and many more. The treatment scares everyone. No doctor will ever declare a patient cured from cancer, they will only say the person is in remission. (This means, for the time being the disease is not manifesting itself).
Therefore, this enemy of ours have to be regarded with respect.
So what is cancer?
In short, a cancer cell is a rebellious cell. Our body is a large community of cells that have different functions but work together in harmonious rhythm. The normal cells respect each other's territories and functions, and when one has finish its jobs, it will commit suicide (this cell-suicide is termed apoptosis).
But not cancer cells (sel tak makan saman). Cancer cells were initially normal cell but had undergone mutation and becomes rebellious. They have minds of their own. They grow and grow, build new (and their own) blood supply, and they don't commit suicide. Eventually, when they are aggressive enough, they send army cells to other organs (eg lungs, liver, brain) to expand their empire to fully conquer the body (mungkin ini yang dimaksudkan rasukan makhluk halus oleh bomoh2 tradisional :) ).
As you can see, they are quite capable of surviving on their own. They can build their own blood vessels (bina salur darah sendiri, yer, jangan main2), they have their own knights to defend themselves (contohnya NF-kappa beta), and if ever you kill 99.99% of them, the single cell that survive is equipped with the ability to multiply and grow its own empire again.
More so if the host (that's you) makes it easier for it to grow and worse, feeds them!
But if they are so strong, full of talents to survive, how can we beat them?
The above image was taken from here. It was photographed at Cancer Research UK using electron microscopy. It shows the cancer cell trying to get out of a pore (a teeny-tiny hole in cells) to spread itself. Clever.
We actually have time on our side (provided you have not been diagnosed ie the disease has not manifest itself). It takes roughly 1-40 years for cancers to become evident (that's why you never hear a baby born with cancer).
Normal cell --> abnormal cell --> abnormal cells become bigger (precancerous) --->
Then precancerous cells develop the ability to spread, therefore termed cancerous --> Spread everywhere.
At the precancerous level, it is possible to detect these cells; this is the importance of screening. For cervical cancer, you can have pap smear. For breast cancer, you can do mammogram. For many other cancers, you can have your blood checks for tumour markers (these cells produce certain chemicals that are detectable in blood, although they themselves are not detectable yet).
When precancerous cells become cancer, it is usually detectable with the naked eye ie a breast lump, a large lymph node (kelenjar, biasanya di leher, ketiak, pangkal peha), a big mole. Or it makes itself evident by bleeding itself (bleeding from any holes you have on your body). Or where it is difficult to see (eg in your skull or in your tummy), it will grow and press on your normal organs, giving you headaches, fits, abnormal movements, pain or your tummy becomes bigger (etc etc banyak lagi lerr).
So, they grow in stages. It is not like infections where you come in contact with the culprit and you will be sick in few days (luckily God gives us antibiotics and vaccines). It is not like stroke where your blood vessel bursts or blocks and you are suddenly crippled. In cancer, there are a lot of areas where we can intervene.
First, why normal cells become abnormal cells? Why they change?
Then how to stop the abnormal cells from becoming cancer cells?
Then how to halt the growth of the already cancerous cells so they don't become bigger?
How to make your body not a favourable place for cancers to grow?
to be continued....(dah panjang sangat)
2 comments:
sgt menakutkan entry ini sampai take pengkomen
oo menakutkan ek?
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