The power of images to understand illnesses

“A picture is worth a thousand words!”

We all react in different ways when we get bad news regarding our health. Some of us just want to listen to the doctor’s explanation and follow their advice without further questions, others fully discuss the issue with family and friends,
others look for a second professional opinion and others like me do all of the above plus additional research and lots of thinking to try and fully understand the situation.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I asked my oncologist to draw a picture to show me the size of the tumour and where it was. He had a basic diagram of a breast on my medical file and drew a dot to indicate the position of the tumour. He also provided me with a detailed explanation but, as I was so terrified with the news, my brain could not process anything related to the tumour.

 

On the day of my operation, I had an ultrasound. At this stage I had already adjusted to the new reality of being a cancer patient, so I was brave enough to ask the radiologist to show me the tumour on her screen.

I was very surprised when I saw the picture of the tumour. I thought that all tumours were like some sort of round ball but what I was seeing was flatter with a little protuberance in the centre.  The best description I could give to people in the room was that the tumour was roughly like an egg when it is put in a container ready to be fried. When the specialist heard my strange description of the tumour, she told me that tumours came in all sorts of forms and textures. I said that mine seemed horrible and was an attack on the perfect aesthetics of the human body that God had made.

I was intrigued by her comment so after my operation, I did some reading regarding tumours and found some clear pictures and diagrams that helped me to understand my cancer better.

The following image is from Mayo Clinic. I found it particularly useful as it shows a tumour in the same side and place of the one I had.  It also shows the lymph glands, so after seeing this image I was able to make sense of the conversations I had had with my oncologist regarding removing two of my sentinel lymph nodes. To read the fullarticle press here.

 

My birth star is cancer and as people usually relate cancer to death, since I was a child, I did not like to have this star sign and wished with all my heart to have been born a couple of weeks later so I could have been a LEO. I could not understand the relationship between a symbol of a zodiac that we can identify as beautiful on the sky and a grave where people end due to cancer.

The shape of my tumour made me very curious so when I arrived home I searched for a formal explanation about the meaning of the word ‘cancer.’ To speak using more medical terms, what I saw on the screen was a somewhat rounded surface from which several legs emerged, in the shape of a crab. I learned that the word ‘cancer’ comes from the Greek language, from “carcinos” meaning crab. The first to call the tumours “carcinos” or cancer were the Greeks due to their shape. After learning this information, the picture from Mayo Clinic made even more sense to me.

I was also able to understand the relationship between the word ‘cancer’ as an illness and the word ‘cancer’ as a star sign. The Greeks are usually credited with the origin of the constellations and in Greek mythology, the constellation Cancer is associated with the crab. 

 

 

Cancer cells image was taken from Nursing Center. To read the fullarticle, press here.

Another situation when an image was vital for me was when I was informed that I was going to have radiotherapy. A friend of mine, who is a cancer survivor provided an explanation regarding her treatment. I was able to understand the theory, however I could not visualise what she was talking about.

When researching about what radiotherapy implied, I found the following image in from the British Institute of Radiology. This image was great to see the setting of the room and helped me to be more prepared for my treatment. To read full article press here.  

 

 

 

As most of my readers are aware, I have written a book to document my journey when dealing with cancer. The school where I work at invited me to talk to students about being an author. However, talking about my book meant I had to talk about cancer as that is the topic of the book.

When preparing my PowerPoint presentation for my talk, I thought I should include some images to explain to students the stage that my cancer had reached.

The following images from the American College of Surgeons were useful to add as students could visualise my explanations with the picture. Toread the full article press here. 

 

 

 

Using images to understand illnesses is a great tool that we can use to visualise what the situation is. Images and diagrams make complex concepts easy to understand, especially when you are dealing with a life-threatening illness like cancer. Furthermore, at times one is so worried about the illness, that one simply cannot take in technical explanations provided by consultants and images can be self-explanatory. “A picture is worth a thousand words!”