Archive for the ‘Cancer’ Category

IMMEDIATE SIDE EFFECTS OF RADIATION – TESTS

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
The testes and ovaries are also very sensitive to radiation. The ovaries may be irradiated either deliberately, or incidentally when * nearby organs are treated. Because they lie within the pelvic cavity it is difficult to shield them from nearby irradiation. The effect depends on the dose. Anything more than very small amounts of radiation is likely to stop menstruation permanently. You would become infertile—unable to have babies. Unless you took replacement hormones, you could experience any of the possible symptoms of a normal menopause, such as hot flushes, relative dryness of the vagina and possibly a loss of interest in sex. If your periods stop, I strongly suggest that you take small doses of female hormones until the usual age of menopause (about fifty) to replace those that would normally be produced by your ovaries. Ask your doctor to prescribe these if they are not offered to you.
The testes, because of their position, are much easier to shield off when nearby areas such as the groin are irradiated. They should receive only a small dose in such cases. If they received a large dose for any reason, they would become small and soft, your libido (interest in sex) would diminish and you would probably become permanently infertile. You might still be able to get an erection and ejaculate (come). However, regular injections of male hormones to replace those normally produced by your testes would probably be needed for normal sexual feelings and function. With or without the hormone injections, your ejaculate would contain very few or no sperm. There is no treatment that could make you fertile.
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Cancer
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ENSURING FULL EVALUATION BEFORE SURGERY – EXAMPLES

Monday, May 18th, 2009

As with other treatments, so it is with surgery— no one can look into the future and tell you exactly what will happen to you as an individual. In the case of surgery, they can’t even always tell you exactly what the operation will involve.

Let’s start with an example. Say a person agreed to removal of part of the lower bowel, on the understanding that this would give him a good chance of being cured of bowel cancer altogether. At the operation, his surgeon finds something that was not known before the operation—the cancer has grown through the bowel wall and into the wall of the bladder. The cancer cannot be completely removed without removing part of the bladder as well. Even if this is done, the chance of cure is much smaller than was advised beforehand. This surgeon has two choices. He or she can take the decision away from the patient by going ahead immediately with whatever operation seems best. This is what most surgeons do. Or the surgeon could simply sew the patient up again and discuss the new situation with him when he wakes up. Clearly this wouldn’t be good for the sick person, who would then have to consider having another operation within a very short time. It also wouldn’t be good for the surgeon. The average surgeon is much too concerned with maintaining his or her power and authority over the patient to even consider such a course of action. Doing this would mean admitting lack of care in planning the operation. More importantly, it would also mean acknowledging that the person having the operation was indeed the best person to make the decision.

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