T.V. Cancers

I haven't watched Desperate Housewives much this year. It lost a lot of its charm for me. But when I read that they were giving Felicity Huffman's character, Lynette, Hodgkin's lymphoma, I knew I had to start watching again.

And it's really eating at me today. I must say, as a Hodgkin's survivor, I am a little torn about how they're handling it.

I read EW's wonderful "TV Watch" columns to get me up to speed. So I knew going in to it that Lynette had sustained some kind of injury to her shoulder and the scans she had after the accident showed what the doctor thought might be lymphoma. I thought they would start with her getting a lymph node biopsy (usually an outpatient procedure, but still no walk in the park) and getting the dreaded news. But her story started with her on the phone very glibly telling her sister that she had Hodgkin's and saying, "If you have to get a lymphoma, it's the one to get." Hm.

That's very true. Really, if you have to have cancer at all Hodgkin's is a good one to get; it is very curable. The character's nonchalance about the whole thing during her conversation with her sister just didn't sit so well with me. I know Lynette is a strong woman who doesn't let anything get in her way, and who would rather walk on hot coals than appear weak or need help, but telling people that you have cancer, especially family members, can be the hardest part of having cancer. Even if you know deep down that you're going to beat it, and retain that optimism when you tell people you're sick, people usually don't react well to hearing the "C" word and don't let you off the hook as easily as Lynette's sister seemed to. No matter how steely your persona, telling your sister that you have cancer is going to be an emotional moment. Even if, like Lynette, your main purpose for spilling your news is to ask for money for your high insurance deductible.

Most of Lynetts and Tom's struggle last night seemed to be with the financial logistics of cancer treatment. We struggled with that, too. But what I didn't see, and wanted to see, was the elephant in the room of any cancer diagnosis: what if I don't make it?

Maybe the writers will address this next season. And we did get a great little monologue from Lynette's mom, herself a cancer survivor, about how the chemotherapy will take Lynette lower than she's ever been in her life. My favorite line: "You can fight the cancer, or you can fight me. You won't have the strength for both." It seemed to me, though, that Hodgkin's was not given its due respect last night. Yes, it is among the more curable cancers. But the 5-year survival rate is still not 100%. For the stage I had, it's not even in the 90-something percent.

People do die of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Even young, strong people like Lynette. Every so often, I do a Google search to find the latest updates on treatment and such, and inevitably I will come across a web page dedicated to someone lost to Hodgkin's. These stories break me heart; many of these people were young, and underwent treatment successfully once only to have the cancer come back.

Not only do we have to worry about recurrences, which are so much harder to beat, but the treatments themselves damage our bodies. The standard chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin's can cause lung and heart damage and is associated with an increased risk for a particularly nasty flavor of leukemia. Adding radiation to the mix, like I had, means that heart disease risk goes up even more and adds a risk for both lung and breast cancer. Some risks aren't as deadly, but still life-altering; it takes a long time to get over the fatigue caused by such intense chemotherapy, and because Hodgkin's is essentially a cancer of the immune system, we survivors get sick more than our cancer-free friends and have a harder time recovering from even the common cold. Then there's the whole fertility issue; if you are a woman treated for Hodgkin's past the age of 30, it is very likely you will have early menopause.

T.V. cancers seem a lot different from cancer in real life. So many of the characters experience miraculous recoveries that sadly don't happen that often in real life. I think this is particularly true for breast cancer; it seems every T.V. woman diagnosed with it beats it. Because of this, I didn't think it was too big a deal when my sister's friend was diagnosed with it at a fairly early stage (this was before my own cancer.) Not long after I finished treatment, my sister's friend had a recurrence and only lived a few more weeks. She was 40 years old. Look at Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow; not even the famous are given happy endings when it comes to cancer.

Maybe I am being a little too harsh on the Housewives. Perhaps this is a setup to show how the very tough Lynette will be shaken by cancer. I hope so; when I watched regularly, Lynette was the character I most identified with. She admitted that dirty little secret that parenting isn't easy and broke down from the stress of trying to be the perfect mom. I don't think it would be fair for her to have that admission, but then breeze through Hodgkin's lymphoma as though it's no more serious than having gall stones. It would be a slap in the face to the thousands who die of this cancer every year.

And you know what bothers me the most? I am going to be glued to the television every Sunday night next season, watching how they treat her illness. Darnit.