During the early part of the nineteenth century, a common equation was cancer equals death. Even when people had symptoms, they were hesitant to go to the doctor because they thought there was nothing that doctors could do anyways. Many people were reluctant to share information about a family member or themselves having cancer because they felt like they would be considered outliers. They felt as though it would bring their families disgrace in future generations. Some physicians even thought that the patient would commit suicide when they were told that they had cancer. Cancer was actually known as “the big C” because it helped people avoid using the word cancer (Holleb, 1986).
Cancers definition is;
Cancer is not just one disease, but a large group of almost 100 diseases. It is a genetic disease, with two main characteristics of uncontrolled growth of the cells in the human body and the ability of those cells to migrate from the original site and spread to distant sites (Dupler & Odle, 2005).
Some other common cancer terms are the following; remission is the disappearance of cancerous cells (Burtner, 2000). Another common term is carcinogen, which is a cancer causing substance (Richards, 1972). Biopsy is a term used to describe a test used to find cancer (Burtner, 2000). A final term is prognosis which is a prediction an oncologist makes about a patients cancer (Richards, 1972). An oncologist is a cancer