Depression, Suicide, and Cancer

Well, clinical depression would probably not set in immediately upon diagnosis...it might take awhile for the early symptoms to show up (eg. early morning waking, extreme loss of appetite). For info, you can google 'depression' and find some sites with basic info. Also, feel free to PM me if you want (I went through it about 8 years ago).

Yep, like pat said. Just google depression, you'll find loads.

Symptoms : http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=18543

Here's a good overall site.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/depression/index.shtml

If you want to PM me that's ok. I have sporadic depression linked to my health condition ( luckily it's not cancer though )

Girl Considers Suicide

Who: Teenage Girl
What: Considers Suicide
Why: Cancer

Okay, from my anecdotal personal experiences from people who have threatened to commit suicide - none of them do. IMO, these people are not serious about it, rather the threat is a cry for help (because they don't want to do it, but they want their depression to be fixed). It's also my anecdotal opinion that the people that actually commit suicide don't go threatening it first (it's like tipping your hand in poker... or a murder).

I assume you're not going to kill this person off, being your main character and all.

Then there's this, from recent news:
"Actor Heath Ledger died from an accidental overdose of six drugs — painkillers and sedatives" which, to me, sounds like an absurd statement (considering the combination of "accidental" and the number of drugs, I digresss, RIP).

Considering is not quite attempting. There are many ways to attempt (pills mostly, poison, prayer, walking in front of a bus, laying on the train tracks). MC could lay on the train tracks as practice but never go through with it. Digressing again...

P.S. Ledger took multiple pain killers, multiple anit-anxiety meds and a sleeping pill.

I have a question. Is she considering suicide because she is depressed or because she was diagnosed with cancer?

Wanting to die with dignity and commiting suicide are two different things.

When someone wants to commit suicide after being diagnosed it is usually due to fear of physical pain or not wanting loved ones to see you sick and helpless. Your mc is a teen so I'd go with fear of unkown/fear of physical pain.
How do I know this? I was diagnosed with a life threatning illness, and I joined a support group for people with terminal illness. I've talked with a lot of people facing illness.

Sure, being diagnosed with something CAN make someone depressed, but that usually happens after the shock, anger, regrets, bargaining, denial....and by that time the docs catch on.

Just my two cents

I believe...

that one of the symptons of some cancers, the sneaky hard to diagnose ones, is that the patient is depressed. The cancer is causing the body to shut down and depression results.

Need to check with a doctor though for which cancers.

And yes, would your MC only be considering death with dignity? That's not suicide that's a sensible option for some people.

From having been the one to find "lumps" I'd ask,

"Have you ever noticed how your two sides are a little different?" or if it was a lump that they couldn't see or feel I'd ask, "Have any doctors ever said there was something unusual about X. Have you ever had X examined before?"

"A lump, just means a lump, an area of swelling. Often it is an infection. If you want we could have you try some antibiotics for a couple weeks and re-examine you then, but to err on the side of caution I would like to go ahead and schedule some X-Rays. It takes a couple weeks to get on the schedule, so this way, if the lump is gone we just cancel the X-Rays. If it's not, then you haven't wasted any time in getting things evaluated. Here's a prescription for some antibiotics and here's one to get some blood labs done. Check in with whatever lab you usually use to make sure that these labs are not going to be a duplicate becuase insurance never pays for duplicates. You don't want a thousand dollar bill just for the fun of it. Also if you find out that you can't sleep, you're just really worried and want to get the tests done sooner, we could put you in the hospital and get in the inpatient schedule which is a lot faster, probably 2 nights in the hospital, and even have surgery to biopsy the lump so the pathologist can look at it under the microscope. That's usually more definitive than X-Rays, but it means having a surgery."

This does a couple things. It gives the patient options and it gives them time to think about things and adjust.

So I take it we're talking about breast cancer? I find it improbable that the diagnosis alone would make someone want to cash in their chips. There are so many degrees of it.

Basically it goes like this: find a lump, schedule a biopsy. Snip a bit of lump, test for malignancy. Then it starts to get interesting. Depending on the size of the lump and the skill of the hospital, the recommendation could be lumpectomy, chemo, radiation, chemo and radiation, or maesectomy. I very much doubt a teenager would have advanced far enough to require a radical maesectomy. Though if it was that fast-growing, it would have had a good chance of spreading, requiring more and more aggressive treatment. Then you might get into a "no more" argument.

Hropkey said:

I know, I know, extremely joyous topics.

So in my novel, my main character is a teenage girl seriously considering committing suicide when she's diagnosed with cancer.

A few questions:

How would this be handled by someone who's depressed?
And how does someone go about getting diagnosed? Does the doctor see a lump during a physical and send them off to a specialized doctor or what?
Also, what would be some good resources to learn about depression?

Quick replies would be extremely useful, I've been bitten with the inspiration bug.

Click to expand...

I would agree with Pat in terms of the different emotions involved. Your MC would go through the stages of grieving (Pat named all of them). By this time, someone in the MC's family or medical treatment team would have noticed it and referred the MC for consultation with a counselor.
In terms of the lump, from my visits to my gyno, it could be first found during the annual visit where the gyno does a breast exam. Then the gyn would refer the patient to a specialist for further testing.
To find out about depression, google it, but you might also want to check out William Styron's book (Darkness Visible). From one writer to another, Styron's give great insight into the process of depression, how it progresses, and what Styron did in reaction to it.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need anymore help.

It's also possible to develop blood cancers (leukemia/lymphoma) where the initial symptoms aren't lumps, but more likely to be unexplained fevers, tiredness and so on. This could be picked up on a routine blood test.