The Medicine That Fights Cancer

Doctors have a whole team of ways to fight cancer. Which ones a person gets depends on the kind of cancer they have. Here are the three big ones.

Chemo

Chemo is strong medicine that travels all through your blood. Because it goes everywhere, it can find cancer cells no matter where they're hiding. It can be a liquid that drips in through an IV, or sometimes a pill.

Chemo is a hard worker. But it can also make you tired. It can make your hair fall out for a while.

Why? Chemo goes after cells that grow fast. Cancer cells grow fast. So do the cells that make your hair. So do the cells in your tummy. The medicine can't tell them apart. So those parts of you feel it too.

Feeling yucky does not mean something went wrong. Feeling okay does not mean the medicine is lazy. How you feel does not tell you how the cancer is doing. Doctors use scans and tests for that.

If something bothers you, tell a grown-up or a nurse. There are lots of ways they can help you feel better.

Radiation

Radiation is a special beam, a little like a very powerful X-ray. Instead of going everywhere like chemo, it aims right at one spot where the cancer is. You don't see it or feel it happening — your job is just to hold still for a few minutes.

Surgery

Sometimes a doctor needs to take a tumor out of the body. That's called surgery. Before surgery, you get special sleepy medicine so you're fast asleep and can't feel a thing. When you wake up, the surgery is over.

Working together

A lot of times, doctors use more than one of these together — like chemo and surgery — because as a team they work even better. Everything they do has the same goal: to get rid of the cancer cells so your body can heal.

If you ever want to know what treatment you or someone you love is getting, just ask your doctor or nurse. They're happy to explain it in a way that makes sense to you.