@nancyra Thanks for the feedback. I also don’t like using the term cancer for ET. It’s important to stay positive no matter what health situation you are encountering.

@nancyra I have had ET x 17 yrs. My dad also had it, so I knew it wasn't a death sentence, and I was able to avoid some of the shock and fear others feel on first being diagnosed.

However, it wasn't just "some organization" that changed the classification to cancer. It was the World Health Organization. Some docs don't accept that change. But whether disorder or cancer, we've got it for life.

Medical textbooks for decades said that ET was an asymptomatic blood condition. It was rare and mostly found in older women. As a result, patient complaints were chalked up to something else, often post-menopausal changes. Wasn't until the last 10 years that docs have started to track symptoms.

ET can remain asymptomatic in many people their entire lives. They are lucky and probably don't get why others are complaining.

But ET can cause fatigue, deep vein thrombosis, strokes, heart and lung clots, enlarged spleen and liver, migraines, itching, and histamine increases.

Over the course of his last 15 years, Dad had clots, itching, fatigue, and enlarged spleen. They affected his quality of life even though he died at 82 of something else.