When you walk out of that first diagnosis appointment all some people remember is the word “lymphoma”, “leukemia” or “myeloma”. But to understand what is actually wrong with you if you have lymphoma or leukemia the real question is which type. You may also have been given a three letter acronym or abbreviation that indicates what variety of blood cancer you have. At the end of this article is a list of the main types of blood cancer with their full names and abbreviations.

You can learn more about Blood Cancer and the types here:

What is Blood Cancer?

But in this article I want to hone in on the letters A or C that are seen at the beginning of several of the three letter names and what those mean. 

A is for “Acute” or aggressive. This means a fast growing form of blood cancer that tends to grow quickly and often needs treatment straight away. Nowadays some acute blood cancers can often be cured. Examples include Acute Myeloid leukemia (AML), Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) which both grow in the blood and bone marrow and progress very quickly if not treated, and some types of lymphoma including Hodgkins and some types of non Hodgkins lymphomas, which include Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBL). In the past acute blood cancers all had very low survival rates. Even now there is a huge sense of urgency and danger about having one of these acute blood cancers. You are immediately put into a life and death battle. However, thanks to developments in treatments it is now the case that in several of these acute cancers the majority of patients can be successfully treated and even be cured.

When you hear the word “acute” it can be very scary and of course these cancers are dangerous and there is an immediate risk to your health and even your life when you get such a diagnosis. But the doctors are also going to want to start treatment quickly and will usually offer you hope that the aggressive treatment these forms of blood cancer require will be well worth it.

I recently interviewed our newest author, El who spent much of the pandemic being treated for one of these acute types of blood cancer, Hodgkin Lymphoma. 

C is for Chronic or Indolent. This means a slow growing form of blood cancer that may not need treatment straight away but can often be harder to cure. Often people are put onto “watch and wait” which can sometimes mean “watch and worry”. This phase of not needing to be treated can sometimes last many years. When treated the cancer often responds well, but may well return months or years later. Chronic blood cancers may need repeated treatments, but patients will often live for many years living in a kind of truce with the cancer. Examples of these types of blood cancer include some types of non Hodgkin’s lymphoma including follicular lymphoma, and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), as well as Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML).

In summary, some of us are diagnosed with acute aggressive cancers that are very dangerous and require immediate aggressive intervention. But others are diagnosed with chronic slow growing cancers that we are told are “indolent” and just need watching and waiting till they get worse and we feel worse, then treatment will be offered.

When you are first told there is no need for treatment for you, it is easy to be mistaken and think that means there is no hope and there is nothing to be done. The doctors of course do not mean that and they think they are telling you good news.

One year into my own chronic cancer journey I exchanged stories with someone who had a classic acute story. As a young person they’d had to endure aggressive surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy in an effort to deal with an acute solid tumour. Treatment. Activity. Action. Care.

When I shared my story of waiting, inaction, although I did have a number of weird things that went on, I felt almost like I didn’t have a real cancer.

But my new found cancer colleague had just been told that she was in remission. They’d just been told that the hope was that the cancer might never come back, that they may well have been cured. Something that will never happen with me. I have been told that mine will always come back no matter what we do to try and contain it. 

And my new friend then said something I didn’t expect to hear them say “I would never want to trade places with you”. “Why not?” I asked feeling somewhat like I didn’t even deserve to be talking with this cancer warrior. After all I’d not even had chemotherapy at that point, although that was to be in my future. And my cancer journey is in slow motion compared to theirs. Death by a thousand cuts some call it.

The reason my new friend didn’t want to swap places is actually the reason why some studies suggest chronic cancer can actually sometimes be associated with even worse mental health consequences than acute cancer

“The only thing that kept me sane this past year was knowing that we had a plan. That there was a goal to get the cancer out of me. To be told I had cancer and that it had spread everywhere but nothing was to be done. I have no idea how you could possibly cope with that.”

And in that moment I resolved never to do the mental “comparison” again. It’s not some kind of competition. And yes some people’s journey is harder or more dangerous than others. But each persons journey is unique and what each person has to bear is unique. And for some people a slow growing chronic cancer that will never go away would be much harder to deal with than an acute one, which in some cases with aggressive action has a reasonable chance of being cured.

There is no such thing as a good cancer.

It’s like asking us to grade whether we’d rather be robbed at knife point or gun point. Me I’d rather not be robbed at all!

Don’t feel guilty for how you feel about your cancer journey. Don’t try and deny or surpress the emotions your experiences bring up. This cancer story you are in the middle of is most likely the most challenging thing you have ever faced. Do not make it harder on yourself by judging yourself and trying to decide if you are coping “well” or “badly”.

Coping well is each period of five or ten minutes you manage not to be thinking about it and perhaps even accomplish some small thing. It’s each time you are able to reach out and offer love and support to someone else who’s also suffering with something they are finding hard, which the big C word has made shrink in their mind. Their burden is still hard for them even if you do really wish you could switch yours for theirs.

If we can somehow learn to carry one another’s burdens even across that great chasm between those with cancer and those without, then just maybe these journeys of ours will become just slightly easier to walk along, as perhaps we might feel slightly less alone.

Here at Blood Cancer Uncensored we cover the broad spectrum of all the different types of blood cancer. Whatever your diagnosis whether acute or chronic we invite you to join us both here on this website, in our Facebook Group, and on our weekly zoom call every Saturday. Please join the Facebook group or email us for the dial in details.

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