Question

What is and what causes cancer? I know it has something to do with sickle cells. And how does it kill you?

Answer 1

Lets start of with that Cancer has nothing to do with Sickle cells (You might be thinking of malaria). Sickle cells are a erytrocyte (RBC). Cancer is a dare i say mutated cell.
I suggest you read up the the relation between Telomere and Cancer instead.

Answer 2

I found the document i usually refrence to read incase someone is interested in the basics of Cancer.
http://www.bioon.com/biology/UploadFiles/201103/2011031415252763.pdf

Answer 3

Cancer is a disease with many possible causes.
It is not the disease that kills you, but the therapy which causes side effects(chemotherapy).

Answer 4

@kajolc.2496 I'm pretty sure cancer can kill you just fine, especially if you do NOT try chemotherapy (and other standard forms of treatment).

Cancer involves cells multiplying out of control. This can happen for many different reasons and can occur in many different parts of the body.

Sickle cell anaemia is something different: it's a genetic disease where haemoglobin proteins stick together in long chains and change the shape of red blood cells to that typical sickle shape. It's a bad disease to have, but it provides some resistance to malaria, at least in its heterozygous form.