I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my head and I'm not sure how to compose them, so forgive me if this post isn't very organized.
Cancer sucks. This weekend we lost a family friend to the disease. The disease stripped her of her former self and broke bones. It just seems so unfair. Now her husband and young child must pick up the pieces and carry on.
Last week my Uncle's father was diagnosed with cancer. That family already dealt with this horror before when my Uncle's mother had the disease.
Another family friend, who has been horribly ill, is going to see a specialist on Tuesday. One doctor thinks it could be Chron's disease. Another doctor says that colon cancer often has the same symptoms as Chron's disease and he wants to do a scope.
It seems like the stupid thing is running ramped these days. I am honestly surprised cancer isn't the #1 killer of humans. I am sure we all know someone (if not a family member) who has dealt with the disease. Heck, my grandmother died due to cancer and her sister battled breast cancer (2x if I am not mistaken).
So how do we beat this stupid thing? Is there one thing we can do to prevent it? It seems like every week some study says, "If you eat lots of item 'X' you can prevent cancer." The following week another study says, "Eating too much of item 'X' can cause cancer." Can we not make up our minds? Do we really even know?
Thinking about how ramped the disease runs I have to wonder if I will be forced to deal with the disease. My grandmother had ovarian cancer and my great aunt successfully kicked breast cancer, so am I going to have to fight the same battles they did? It seems a bit unfair to be 25 and wondering if cancer will effect me, but I can't help it.
2 comments:
I'm sorry to hear of your loss, Carma. I lost two grandparents to cancer, and my last remaining grandmother has it bad. So I know your feeling.
I think a large part of the astronomic rise in cancer is due to the chemicals we ingest daily, whether pollutants, pesticides on our food and in our water, or something else entirely.
It is scary. I had a cancer scare several years ago. Thank God, it was nothing. The only thing that calms my fears is that even if I do get cancer, at the end of the fight I will be with the Lord.
My first thought here is that cancer isn't really just a single disease. It's like referring to "the country of Africa." There are many many sub-diseases under the umbrella of cancer - or, "on the continent" to continue the analogy. Therefore, research, treatment, and prevention becomes that much more multi-faceted and complex.
And I agree with Todd in some respects: pesticides, preservatives and our chemical/non-natural diets certainly must, somewhere, bear some of the blame.
But I also think that as we as a population have better health care earlier on, and more consistently throughout our lives, we live longer on average and therefore see a greater incidence in the detection and diagnosis of diseases our forefathers & mothers might not have lived long enough to develop--or perhaps been aware that they had.
Finally, perhaps that which we call cancer now was less understood and went by other names in years gone by.
All these factors, perhaps, combine to raise cancer to what looks to be an alarming prevalence today.
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