Elegant Sledgehammers

There's a reason why leeches are still used in modern medicine. Yes, their purposes used to be wide and varied, but mostly ill-advised and deadly... We've "learned" how to use them, though, and now, what used to be a Swiss-Army-Knife application has become a very effective way to coax blood into a body part if you were "relieved" of your possession of that body part too early. (Think "Shop Class.")



I know I've been joking about how I'm being "controlled" poisoned. I'll admit, it's an inelegant way to describe the intricacies of how my chemo drugs are designed.
My cancer is triple+, which means that the millions of cancer cells mostly feed off the hormones (1)estrogen & (2)progesterone, and they also have a special receptor (or rather, extra special receptors) for human epidermal growth factor proteins, (3)HER2 receptors. These extra HER2 receptors make my specific cancer faster growing, which is why it took so little time for them to set up shop in my lymph nodes and bones. My body's tendency to naturally produce their favorite hormones didn't hurt either. I also gave the little buggers an extra dose in the form of hormonal birth control.

As a side note here: I loved my birth control. It made me feel saner, more in control of my emotions and feelings, and generally a better person. The side effect of no babies was certainly of great value. I am not blaming my birth control for giving me cancer, as it just accelerated its growth. For all of you readers who take birth control, I raise a virtual blister-pack in your honor. Carry on, sisters!!

Two of my cancer drugs target the HER2 receptors in my cells, and effectively neutralize the receptors so that they can't help the bad cells replicate... Once blocks the actual protein from binding to the receptor, and the other blocks the cell's signal to the receptor, so that the HER2 receptor doesn't even look for its favorite protein as a snack. Kind of fancy, isn't it?

My point with the leeches and sledgehammers is this: Yes, the side effects are terrifying and terrible and sometimes downright humbling, but sometimes so are the results.