Leukaemia Patient Helps Create Chemotherapy Game

jasoncart writes "Whilst trying to visualize his illness, leukaemia patient and gamer Ben Duskin came up with a concept for a video game, according to a story on Ferrago. With the help of Eric Johnston and his employers LucasArts, the PC game, whose object is '...to destroy all mutated cells and to collect the seven shields which provide protection from common side effects of chemotherapy', is now in beta and available for free download from the Make A Wish Foundation - there are also screenshots available on Ferrago. The best news of all is that Ben is now in remission."

Comments

Re:Postive thinking.

[Mahrtian]

For the record, I am currently two years in remission from Hodgkins Lymphoma.

When going through chemotherapy, especially for Lymphoma/Leukemia from what I understand, your body is in shambles. There are some drugs that help boost you white/red blood cell
counts Neupogen/Epogen (sp?) and others that help with the nausea, but besides that there is very little that modern medicine can do. So some Oncologists actually recommend visualizing the cancer cells being destroyed by the drugs/immune system. They claim that the positive attitude can stimulate your body's recovery system. This game is a perfect way of doing that. Not to mention, it keeps your mind busy on something else than the pain.

This is not to knock modern medicine, without which I wouldn't be here.