These chemotherapy quotes will inspire you. Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment where medicine is used to kill cancer cells.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging chemotherapy quotes, chemotherapy sayings, and chemotherapy proverbs.
Best Chemotherapy Quotes
- “In America, we have always taken it as an article of faith that we ‘battle’ cancer; we attack it with knives, we poison it with chemotherapy or we blast it with radiation. If we are fortunate, we ‘beat’ the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having ‘succumbed after a long battle.'” ~ Abraham Verghese
- “It’s the closest to death I have ever been. The chemotherapy takes you as far down into hell as you’ve ever, ever been.” ~ Melissa Etheridge
- “The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn’t have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?” ~ Maggie Smith
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“For a couple of days after chemotherapy, food tastes really bland, even the best foods. I haven’t been sick, but have been a little tired. I haven’t lost any weight.” ~ Grete Waitz
- “I look upon cancer in the same way that I look upon heart disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, or even obesity, for that matter, in that by dramatically strengthening the body’s immune system through diet, nutritional supplements, and exercise, the body can rid itself of the cancer, just as it does in other degenerative diseases. Consequently, I wouldn’t have chemotherapy and radiation because I’m not interested in therapies that cripple the immune system, and, in my opinion, virtually ensure failure for the majority of cancer patients.” ~ Julian Whitaker , Chemotherapy quotes cancer
- “I have friends who are going through chemotherapy, and they make the darkest, most hideous cancer jokes you’ve ever heard.” ~ Kathy Griffin
- “Two to 4% of cancers respond to chemotherapy….The bottom line is for a few kinds of cancer chemo is a life extending procedure-Hodgkin’s disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), Testicular cancer, and Choriocarcinoma.” ~ Ralph W. Moss
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“I had a prostatectomy in the fall and fortunately it was encapsulated and I didn’t have to go through chemotherapy.” ~ Steve Garvey
- “….chemotherapy’s success record is dismal. It can achieve remissions in about 7% of all human cancers; for an additional 15% of cases, survival can be “prolonged” beyond the point at which death would be expected without treatment. This type of survival is not the same as a cure or even restored quality of life.” ~ John Diamond
- “NCI now actually anticipates further increases, and not decreases, in cancer mortality rates, from 171/100,000 in 1984 to 175/100,000 by the year 2000!” ~ Samuel Epstein
- “A study of over 10,000 patients shows clearly that chemo’s supposedly strong track record with Hodgkin’s disease (lymphoma) is actually a lie. Patients who underwent chemo were 14 times more likely to develop leukemia and 6 times more likely to develop cancers of the bones, joints, and soft tissues than those patients who did not undergo chemotherapy .” ~ John Diamond
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“1.7% increase in terms of success rate a year, its nothing. By the time we get to the 24 century we might have effective treatments, Star Trek will be long gone by that time.” ~ Ralph W. Moss
- “The great success stories of chemotherapy were always in relatively obscure types of cancer. Childhood leukemia constitutes less than two percent of all cancers and many of chemotherapy’s other successes were in diseases so rare that many clinicians had never even seen a single case” ~ Ralph W. Moss
- “I couldn’t possibly lead the kind of life I lead, and keep the schedule that I do, having radiation or chemotherapy.” ~ Nancy Reagan
- “Most people think, “Life sucks, and then you die.” I disagree. I think life sucks. Then you get cancer. Then you go into chemotherapy. You lose all your hair, you feel bad about yourself. Then all of the sudden the cancer goes into remission, and then all of the sudden you have a stroke. You can’t move your right side. And then, maybe, you die.” ~ Denis Leary
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“I simply cannot see how denying chemotherapy treatment for Palestinian children increases Israel’s security or advances U.S. national interests.” ~ Lois Capps
- “Chemotherapy isn’t good for you. So when you feel bad, as I am feeling now, you think, ‘Well that is a good thing because it’s supposed to be poison. If it’s making the tumor feel this queasy, then I’m OK with it.'” ~ Christopher Hitchens
- “If cancer specialists were to admit publicly that chemotherapy is of limited usefulness and is often dangerous, the public might demand a radical change in direction-possibly toward unorthodox and nontoxic methods, and toward cancer prevention. …The use of chemotherapy is even advocated by those members of the establishment who realize how ineffective and dangerous it can be.” ~ Ralph W. Moss
- “It is very easy for me to imagine in 200 years, people looking back at chemotherapy as proof that people of the 20th century were insane and just morons.” ~ Chuck Klosterman
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“Chemotherapy is an opponent in itself – simultaneously curing you and hurting you.” ~ Jenna Morasca
- “Chemotherapy is just medieval. It’s such a blunt instrument. We’re going to look back on it like we do the dark ages.” ~ Eric Topol
- “The bracelet says ‘Fear Nothing.’ It was given to me by my friends, and it was made for me and my friends during the period of time that I was going through chemotherapy. And I still wear it, because it’s a great reminder of friendship and how my buddies and others came together in my time of need.” ~ Joe Lhota
- “I’d stop calling it “chemotherapy.” I’d call it “transformational juice.” Infusion suites would become “transformational suites” or “journey rooms.”” ~ Eve Ensler
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“Chemotherapy tests your sanity.” ~ Melissa Etheridge
- “I think one possibility [in the future] might be chemotherapy. And I’m always hesitant to say that because it makes it sound like I’m against chemotherapy. Right now, chemotherapy is the best cancer treatment therapy we have. But let’s say we find some way where we can almost genetically engineer the DNA of our being and fight cancer that way. Then, the idea that we used to pump poison into people to fight off cancer will almost seem like the use of leeches or something.” ~ Chuck Klosterman
- “Chemotherapy is a good thing even though it kills healthy cells. But we still hope for something better. We’d like to prevent cancer in the first place.” ~ Jaron Lanier
- “Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an ‘Owner’s Manual’ to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.” ~ Regina Brett
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“Chemotherapy takes its toll; the more you keep doing it, you lose your energy, and it gets more difficult to swallow.” ~ Michael Douglas
- “If you avoid the killer diseases and keep the degenerative ones under control with sensible diet and exercise and whatever chemotherapy you need to stay in balance, you can live nearly forever.” ~ Wallace Stegner
- “[M]ilitary metaphors have more and more come to infuse all aspects of the description of the medical situation. Disease is seen as an invasion of alien organisms, to which the body responds by its own military operations, such as the mobilizing of immunological “defenses”, and medicine is “aggressive” as in the language of most chemotherapies.” ~ Susan Sontag
- “…One of the side effects of (surgery, anesthesia,) X-ray…, and chemotherapy, is the suppression…of the patient’s immunological defenses…A simple cold often leads to the death from pneumonia – and (‘pneumonia’) is what appears on the death certificate, not cancer.” ~ G. Edward Griffin
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“I’m happy to tell you that having been through surgery and chemotherapy and radiation, breast cancer is officially behind me. I feel absolutely great and I am raring to go.” ~ Carly Fiorina
- “For most people, chemotherapy is no longer the chamber of horrors we often conceive it to be. Yes, it is an ordeal for some people, but it wasn’t for me, nor for most of the patients I got to know during my four months of periodic visits to the chemo suite.” ~ Geraldine Brooks
- “A study was done which shows the majority of oncologists who refer patients for chemotherapy for lung cancer would not themselves take chemotherapy for lung cancer. And in fact, if the chemotherapy involved cis-platen, something like 75% of them said they wouldn’t take it. But what do these people do all day long? They’re sending people for cis-platen.” ~ Ralph W. Moss
- “There are three types of chemotherapy that work for cancer. Testicular, like Lance Armstrong. Childhood leukemia, they’re doing great things. And lymphoma and non-Hodgkin’s.” ~ Suzanne Somers
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“Writing isn’t a source of pain. It’s psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.” ~ Dean Koontz
- “I have to say that after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn’t that scary anymore.” ~ Barbara Boxer
- “Chemotherapy is brutal. The goal is pretty much to kill everything in your body without killing you.” ~ Rashida Jones
- “And all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was think, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.” ~ Chuck Klosterman
- “The survival rate of Dr. Burton’s patients approximately doubled the maximum survival rate of conventionally treated patients. Had these findings pertained to a chemotherapy drug instead of IAT, massive amounts of funding would have been allocated to investigate the drug. Once again, the politics of cancer barred a potentially valuable treatment from reaching the public.” ~ Jared Diamond
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“Chemotherapy isn’t easy. I felt very fortunate I wouldn’t have to go through that.” ~ Jaclyn Smith
- “Chemotherapy and radiotherapy will make the ancient method of drilling holes in a patient’s head to permit the escape of demons look relatively advanced…. Toxic chemotherapy is a hoax. The doctors who use it are guilty of premeditated murder, and the use of cobalt and other methods of cancer treatment popular today effectively closes the door on cure.” ~ Ernst T. Krebs
- “Everything was going for me, I didn’t even know the meaning of the word insecurity and suddenly I am surrounded by words like operation, cancer, chemotherapy, radiation.” ~ Delta Goodrem
- “In 1975, the respected British medical journal Lancet reported on a study which compared the effect on cancer patients of (1) a single chemotherapy, (2) multiple chemotherapy, and (3) no treatment at all. No treatment ‘proved a significantly better policy for patients’ survival and for quality of remaining life.'” ~ Barry Lynes , Chemotherapy quotes patients
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“Chemotherapy is such a hard, hard kiss. Anything we can do to alleviate its side effects should be intelligently explored with an open mind.” ~ Diane Ladd
- “Insects leave (Madagascar periwinkle) Catharanthus roseus out of their diets. So, for that matter, do deer. The reason is that the plants are loaded with alkaloids so potent that they are the source of vincristine and vinblastine. These are drugs important in routines of chemotherapy for treating Hodgkin’s disease and certain forms of leukemia.” ~ Allen Lacy
- “Aside from certain rare cancers, it is not possible to detect any sudden changes in the death rates for any of the major cancers that could be credited to chemotherapy. Whether any of the common cancers can be cured by chemotherapy has yet to be established.” ~ John Cairns
- “A noted cancer specialist in Boston said he believed that if some simple and inexpensive replacement for Chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer were found tomorrow, all US medical schools would teeter on the verge of bankruptcy, so integral a part of their hospital revenues is oncology, the medical specialty of cancer treatment” ~ Barry Lynes
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“I have leukemia, and my chemotherapy has destroyed my immune system.” ~ Eric Reeves
- “I had three sessions of chemotherapy so it was really tough, it was hard to go through it. But while I was going through my treatment, I was always motivated that I was going to come back and play for India. I think that’s what kept me going and got me through.” ~ Yuvraj Singh
- “I was told by six doctors over six days that they could start me on full-body chemotherapy. And I said, “If you know where I’m coming from, I’d rather die.”” ~ Suzanne Somers