Happy Drugs

I attended a dinner last week for the National Lymphoma Research Foundation.  It was primarily two hours of medical updates on trials (tribulations) and treatments.  I have to say that there are very few industries that can conjure up such complicated names for products.  It's almost as if they work hard to create the most difficult names possible for drugs so that no one can remember them.  A couple of my favorite chemotherapy drugs that they discussed are Cyclophosphamide and Mechlorethamine.

Currently I am on, or have recently been on meds including Adriamicin, Vinblastine, Diphenhydramine, Cimetidine, Intelence and Insentress.  

I have always wondered why they don't take note from the technology industry (eBay, iPod, Google, Yahoo, etc.) and give drugs cute snappy names we can remember.  What's wrong with Goober, CureMe, iSick, or MakeMePoop?   Who would forget the name of a medication if they were taking SuzieSuppository?  And that way, instead of guessing which drugs don't interact with each other, we would easily know.  For instance Cheerleader Cheryl would never socialize with Viola Volleyball.  MakeMePoop or SuzieSuppository probably wouldn't be too popular with PartyTime.

At any rate, lurking within all their very complicated vocabulary, I learned some extremely promising news about my cancer.  (Let's bring this all back to me.)  B-Cell Hodgkins Lymphoma is the only cancer that can be cured.  And with a negative PET Scan after the third cycle of chemotherapy, there is a very high chance I will be included in those miracle cases.  

All other cancers can go into remission but not completely eliminated.  That tidbit was well worth the two hours of medical education.  I can only hope that through research, other cancers can eventually be as effectively treatable.