Yes, ET is cancer. Why is that so important?

Do you ever feel like this when you're trying to come to
terms with your ET diagnosis? Yes, I thought so.

I belong to and participate in some of the private Facebook support groups for ET. When new people come on line, one of the first questions is often this: "What's wrong with me? Is ET cancer or not?"

Often the confusion arises when doctors tell patients that they have a "disorder" or a "pre-cancer" or "cancer but not really cancer," or (weirdly) a "benign cancer." Then they look up their disease on line, and find out that ET is a "rare, chronic blood cancer."

And they freak out.

It's beyond me why doctors don't realize that, when they give patients vague info, those patients are going to go online. And that's not going to make the doctor's life easier. But that's a doctor problem.

When new people ask the "is it cancer?" question, support group members often jump in and very vehemently affirm that ET IS cancer.  I wanted to learn more about why patients feel this is so important.