untreated cancer- what would happen?

Question

I am a writer, and I setting a story in an alternate universe that basically equates technologically with the middle ages. I'm considering having a character die of leukemia. What I am looking for, basically, is for her to sort of slowly weaken and then die in a slow drawn-out way. It'll all be very tragic for my main character.

Is this reasonable? What WOULD happen if she had leakemia and it was totally untreated? What would her early symptoms be? As it progressed unchecked? Would her physical appearance change at all? As she was dying? What would the cause of death actually be? I can't find this, because obviously we do treat these things these days.

Answer 1

Cancer did not exist in the middle ages, because there were no vaccines.
So middle age technology is far better than today's 'technology', because it wasn't based on profit'

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Cancer
http://dgwa1.fortunecity.com/body/cancer.html

Answer 2

Well, if its set as far back in time, how would society have the technology to diagnose lukemia? It would be more believable if your character died of lets say, tuberculosis,or yellow fever. Well, to answer your question, your character would probably die of bed bugs or fever before lukemia will take them. Lethargy, bloody stool, immune deficiency, and these can all be related to cancer. Try searching the American Cancer Society, if cancer is left unchecked, ultimately another symptom occurs and after awhile the symptoms stack up, until a person does go to the doctor. These are called stages. No one survives stage III lukemia. Check it out. Good luck!

Answer 3

A cautionary note: if you want to be a good writer, then learn to do actual research, or only write about things you already understand well. What if someone here told you that purplish blotches on the skin were a symptom of leukemia, you went with that, the publisher loved your book, it went to print, and then someone at the publishing house found out that was nonsense? Are you going to say "it's only fiction"? Or are you just going to write them a check for their advance back?

I don't mean to discourage your idea, but you'd be far better off writing what you know!

Answer 4

Perhaps you could read books from author authors for some ideas...or look for older medical textbooks. I realize that won't help a whole heck of a lot since you are going back to the middle ages. I recall in one of Anne Rice's, I think it was Lestat's mother was insinuated to have cancer. Just overall sickliness I guess...lack of energy, coughing, bruising...look up what the common symptoms are for leukemia and perhaps embellish that a little? The actual cause of death...hmm...people do die from this disease frequently to this day. Again, refer to a medical textbook, specially an oncology one.

Answer 5

The first indications of leukemia often are nonspecific or vague. They may occur with other cancerous as well as noncancerous disorders. Although signs and symptoms vary for each type of leukemia, there are some general features. Broad symptoms of leukemia may include:

Fatigue
Malaise (vague feeling of bodily discomfort)
Abnormal bleeding
Excessive bruising
Weakness
Reduced exercise tolerance
Weight loss
Bone or joint pain
Infection and fever
Abdominal pain or "fullness"
Enlarged spleen, lymph nodes, and liver

Chronic leukemia often goes undetected for many years until it is identified in a routine blood test. In fact, nearly one in five chronic leukemia patients have no symptoms at the time of their diagnosis. Most symptoms of acute leukemia are caused by a lack of normal blood cells. This is due to overcrowding of the blood-forming bone marrow by leukemia cells.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Early symptoms of leukemia would be fatigue and susceptibility to bruising. . A person's physical appearance would change--she would become very pale (lack of red blood cells), dark circles under the eyes, bruise easily, lose weight. She would not be able to fight off infections, and pneumonia would be a very likely cause of death.

Answer 8

Try looking up cancer cachexia - it's a process of wasting away due to cancer...

Answer 9

I am not very sure about the disease you titled, But untreated cancer leads to death....

Answer 10

she would slowly get thinner and weaker, and she would not be able to fight any illness and any cut would take a long time to stop bleeding and heal