TASK 1.4 (ASSIGNMENT 1):

Select a particular health topic that interests you for any reason (it could be a friend or relative’s medical condition, for instance). Find out more about the topic using the Internet. While you are doing this, note down the main ways you’ll begin looking and your process of selecting useful sites. How would you say your knowledge of the topic has changed in the course of this research? What are the criteria by which you’d select sites? Finally, briefly describe 2-3 of the most useful sites and Internet applications and the ways in which they’d be useful to people visiting them. Not more than 500 words.
In May 2008, my mum started to show signs of pancreatic cancer. She had only one symptom… she had turned jaundice. She was well in all other aspects of her life. But at the time when doctors were determining her diagnosis, I turned to Google to research each step of her treatment and progress in determining her diagnosis. I did so to stay positive that the prognosis would be good and she would recover from her sudden bad health.
So my journey with using the internet as a tool to help me understand more about my mothers condition began after she had a minor procedure done to open her bile duct. The surgeon discovered a mass, not prepared to say it was cancer at this stage, but to prepare ourselves that that was what we may be dealing with. So I began to search the internet for pancreatic cancer.

The first website I looked through was http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au. After reading through this website on pancreatic cancer I was sure she didn’t have this disease. “She is only jaundice. None of these other symptoms apply” which, in hindsight, is why the doctors didn’t want to call it cancer until they were sure. The http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au was helpful as it gave full definition of the disease, the list of symptoms, how they would come about a diagnosis, links to other helpful websites and the last thing it said was;

Things to remember

• The pancreas is a gland that secretes digestive enzymes and insulin.
• The symptoms of pancreatic cancer are often vague and are common to many other disorders.
• Pancreatic cancer is often only diagnosed in its later stages, which makes it difficult to treat.¹

This last paragraph was what started me to worry a bit and to continue the research into what my mother could possibly have.
When I continued my research, I was shocked to learn about low the survival rate of pancreatic cancer patients was. Less than 5%! On website http://www.cancercouncil.com.au it read;
“Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death with five-year survival rates of less than five percent.”²
Still with my positive hat on I wanted to believe that my mum will be one of the lucky 5% survivors because that had found the cancer before the symptoms had progressively got worse.
As each step of my mums treatment, from Whipple Surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy, I would  Google each step to learn more about what my mum was about to go through. It helped me to get through each stage of her treatment and understand better of what was happening to her. But also I could see how without your primary carer guiding you and you solely relied on the diagnosis of Dr Google, you could seriously scare yourself into believing you had some other lethal disease.
For carers of Cancer patients I had stumbled upon a website where you could share your experiences (the carer) with other carers of patient suffers. http://www.cancerforum.org.au. The Cancer Forum website is run by the Cancer Council. They are;
“Cancer Forum is the official journal of Cancer Council Australia and the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (representing health professionals working in cancer).
It is one of the world’s few issue-designated cancer review journals, providing the clinical oncological and cancer research communities with multiple in-depth reviews on key aspects of cancer.
Cancer Forum has been published continuously since 1974. It has been significantly enhanced and is now available to a much wider international audience with online publication from the March 2009 issue.
As Australia’s contribution to international cancer literature, Cancer Forum is made available at no cost to subscribers worldwide.”³
So how has my knowledge of this topic? Well from not knowing that pancreatic cancer existed before my mother was diagnosed with it, my knowledge on not just pancreatic cancer, but cancer as a whole, has somewhat grown. I now understand how hard it is to treat and why it is so difficult to find a cure as each cancer and type of cancer is different from the next.
The criteria in which I selected my websites for research was from the Google searches I used, and I primarily focused on Australian websites and ones that were .org.au or .gov.au as these sites were ones I trusted and are backed by the Australian government or Organisations.
I have listed below the references from which I drew the most helpful information in regards to the topic of pancreatic cancer in Australia. They are a good starting point, but there are many other helpful websites and forums out there to help people through their journey of learning about Pancreatic Cancer.
Sadly my mother passed away July 2009. After a battle of 14 months with the disease, Whipple surgery,  chemo and radiotherapy, she was passed onto palliative care and passed away a few weeks after her treatment had ceased.
¹”Pancreatic cancer | Better Health Channel.” Home | Better Health Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Pancreatic_cancer>
²”Cancer Council New South Wales :: External Research by Cancer Site – Pancreatic Cancer.” Cancer Council New South Wales. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=2420>
³”About Cancer Forum.” July. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. <http://www.cancerforum.org.au/aboutcancerforum.htm>.