Cancer and the treatment options are a personal choice and individual journey. Cancer is prevalent in the U.S., and universal in its destruction. We all know people struggling with it, many who have beaten it, and still more who lost their lives to it. My sister, Diana, died from head and neck cancer after years of trying the Western medicine solution of combining chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Four months after her death, my husband, Kevin, was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile duct cancer, and was treated with the same Western medicine combination, including a liver transplant, and was put into complete remission. To say cancer treatment is an individual choice to a universal epidemic is an understatement.
When my husband was first diagnosed, we looked for something or someone to blame. People we came in contact with gave us plenty of choices: “Blame it on the government, big pharmaceutical companies, major corporations, your ancestors.” But can it be that simple? I believe as Americans perhaps we have some culpability. Our routine is to chase the American Dream to an unattainable level. We work to a degree, which allows us to afford items that often we don’t even need. We work so hard and so much. We eat crappy fast food and don’t exercise, and as a result our relationships suffer. Even the art of blaming is a toxic habit.
Charlie Plumb said that what helped him get through six horrendous years in a POW camp was the knowledge that ultimately we are given the power of choice. “In a daily routine, or in a communist prison camp, each of us has the choice to succeed, to fail…or to become the victim of circumstances.” That quote, which I had heard more than 15 years ago at a motivational speaking engagement, is what I recalled and what anchored me when I faced both my sister’s and my husband’s diagnosis.
People said to me, “You are so strong.” Was I really? What choice did I have? Strong is choosing to turn around and run into a burning building to save someone— to me that’s strong. My “building” was already burning; I just needed to choose to pour water when and where I could and not burn myself in the process. To not become a “victim of my circumstances.” I promise, given the choice, neither my husband nor I would have chosen to run into that “building.” Yet we made a choice to be proactive, to control what we could control. We allowed ourselves to cry and to grieve, and even to blame and to feel self-pity; but only for a brief time. Then we got our buckets and began to pour water. Illness for us became a dance. A fire-burning dance. It often seemed once one fire was out, another reared its ugly head. We had no power over the flames. Yet we had power over our response to those flames. Hope this month’s article “Wellness, Naturally,” by Dr. Jillian Finker (page 20) offers the insight that it starts with us taking responsibility and loving ourselves, feeding ourselves the right foods, making time for exercise, nurturing relationships, and when faced with adversity to recognize “that there is always hope.”
More importantly, I hope “Rethinking Cancer”(page 30) leads to the recognition that the advantage of a healthy lifestyle is much more important than just what we look like on the outside.
Although, let me be honest, if we have to put out fires, it doesn’t hurt if we also look good while doing it!
Kelly Martinsen, Publisher
