- Image by NationalLungCancerPartnership via Flickr
Having cancer means having questions. There are not a lot of people who might put these two things together but having cancer means having a lot of questions both the kind that you can answer and the kind that you can never answer. The first line of defense in answering these questions is the doctor themselves but the patient often wonders what is being kept from them. They wonder if they are hearing the whole story or just a portion of the story. They wonder what the bigger picture is and where they can get information. This is where the internet comes into play. It’s the one stop for the most information anywhere in the world but that doesn’t mean everything you are looking for is the right information.
When searching online you need to take everything you read with a grain of salt. For instance, if you are looking for information about lung cancer you can find a ton of it online but is what you are reading applicable to you? Many times these sites are paid to write in generalities to reach the largest number of audiences. So everything they are saying applies to some one a little bit but it doesn’t apply to you and your specific case.
The other thing is that you are looking for advice without ever been examined and without having a chance to know your medical history. It’s like trying to fix a car with a blindfold on. It’s not something you can do and trust in the results at all.
When you are online you have to think about these things. It’s hard to want to wait for all the questions to be answered but they need to be answered by your doctor. Anything else is just a guess and you deserve more than that.