Cancer and the Internet

When I first learned I had cancer I really didn't know how to react because I really understood very little about cancer.

I guess I've always kind of had an attitude that I would worry about cancer when I or a loved one had cancer. Until then, I just wasn't going to worry about it, which means I wasn't learning anything about it.

To a large extent, cancer seemed fairly random and struck across genders and ages and ethnic groups. It seemed like being worried about being struck by lightning. If it happens it happens and there isn't a lot I can do about it.

In the paper every week I would read a story like the rest of us that claimed that this may cause cancer or that may cause cancer. I've been waiting for the headline "Air May Cause Cancer." I'm sure we'll see it any day now. Again everything about cancer seemed so random and elusive that I couldn't rationalize worrying about it.

But then when you actually get struck by lightning (diagnosed with cancer) you decide it's time to learn everything there is to do about it.

And this search of knowledge leads one to the internet, the source of endless information both good and bad.

I found endless amounts of information on kidney cancer from an endless array of sources. There was information on origins, growth, effects. There was information on treatments and drugs. There were forums and bulletin boards and blogs, all outlets to meet others diagnosed with the same condition as you.

Once I told a doctor about something I had read on the internet and after his eyes stopped rolling he said, "You can't trust what you read on the internet. What you read was written in the 1960s."

He's right. I know. The advances in cancer research and treatment options is moving so swiftly these days (especially in kidney cancer) that the publishing world has a tough time keeping up.

But there is enough information out there that you really can narrow down fact from fiction and be filled with a wealth of knowledge on your cancer. And knowledge is power.