I always hear advertisements about cancer cures. This or that herbal supplement say it can cure cancer among other illnesses. Almost everyday I hear these things over the radio, in television, in the internet, from other people.

But is there really cure for cancer? My review of medical literature says there is no single cure for all types of cancer. The success of treatments for cancer varies as cancer manifests in many ways. The progress of cancer also depends on how serious that kind of cancer is.

My wife, for example, has thyroid cancer or follicular carcinoma. Initially, we thought that thyroid cancer would really be a serious condition that will leave only a few months in her life. I have heard people saying somebody died of cancer just a few months since those afflicted were diagnosed. It’s a morbid scenario.

But my wife’s thyroid cancer has been there for already more than 18 years since she was diagnosed in 1992. And we even had a child, now a grown up, in 1996. And I learned later, that this type of cancer can persist for a long time or is slow growing. They call thyroid cancer the “friendly cancer.”

According to Thyroid.org, people with thyroid cancer can live for even 25 years. Only 1 out of 100 died after 25 years. This means that thyroid cancer patients can get to live a normal life expectancy. The only inconvenient thing with my wife is that she has a tracheostomy tube embedded in her neck. But she moves just like anybody else.

I am unsure if the life expectancy stated for thyroid cancer is with medical intervention or untreated. My wife has undergone more than six surgeries including total thyroidectomy or removal of the thyroid gland and the inflamed nodes on her neck region. After those surgeries she had radioactive iodine therapy. She is on a daily dose of Thyrax, to maintain her thyroid hormone levels.

Cancer is something that people should fully understand. Once diagnosed, it is not necessarily a death sentence.