I am writing a book and my girl gets cancer, (leukemia) and I don't have a clue about it! *What is the whole process? (when you get to the doctor what do you do? And what doctor do you go to?)
*Can you be diagnosed with leukemia when you are 14?
If you have had experience with leukemia please tell about it. I would like to put in my book what happens step by step.
Thank You! And anything else you can think of would help! (:
Olivia - people can get leukemia at any age. the process of diagnosis is first you must find symptoms, which are bruising, bleeding too much for certain wounds, anemia, and such. One would probably find out at a regular check-up, or visiting a doctor because of these symptoms. Leukemia is a common cancer, so it would be easy to diagnose. Doctors would not be able to conduct MRI's, CT's, or PET scans to detect leukemia since it is a blood cancer, but they could find out using blood tests. Then the patient would be transferred to a specialist and given Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is actually a poison that destroys mostly deformed cells, but it is also very destructive to the rest of the body, which is like most patients lose their hair, and feel very sick, and often need blood transfusions. The kind of doctor your patient would visit is an Oncologist- a doctor that studies cancer. Your particular patient would go to a pediatric oncologist, since they are younger. If the Chemotherapy did not work, the patient would have to have a bone-marrow transplant. Someone i know had leukemia, and she got her bone marrow transplant from her brother, and i had hodgkin's lymphoma a few years ago, which is how i met her.
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