5
November 9
Church of Our Lady, Manannah
Sonorous: from the moment I stepped out of the car, I could hear the organ. Before Mass began, the organist continued to set the tone of the service, leading and practicing parts of the Mass in her clear and loud voice. And by loud, I mean she was as loud individually as the rest of the church combined. I have never heard anyone sing with such fervor and volume.
After the gospel, Father Jeff Horejsi’s homily dwelt on the Sadducees in Luke 20:27-28, who do not believe in heaven, challenging Jesus about the afterlife by focusing on God of the living and not the dead since all are alive. Many examples are included in the Bible of Jesus being challenged and his incredible gift for using parables or examples to quelch any conspiracies. In a most consoling message for me, Father Jeff illuminated the concept that physical death is not the end. I was so thankful I had faith to calm my anxiety and fear. Going through this without a belief system was something I could not fathom. I even had my own tattoo-worthy-mantra, “I thank God that I have God to thank.”
Lifestyle Changes
In some kind of existential loop, gratitude itself was a huge gift. Certainly, I had moments of “why me?” What did I do wrong? Was it because I didn’t eat the crusts of my bread? Too much Diet Dr. Pepper, not enough spinach? Since fifth grade, I was guilty of wearing a bra and also deodorant, but both had been cleared of any carcinogenic malfeasance. The genetics counselor pretty much made me aware that it was unlikely we’d ever know so I quit beating myself up, but even though physical death is not the end, I wanted to stay as physically healthy as possible for as long as possible. I improved my nutrition. Spinach salads were my lunch all school year and slowly weaned myself off Diet Dr. Pepper. I had ¾ of a can, ½ a can for a few days, ¼ can and then no more. On the very day I had my last sip, a senior gentleman of the Bernick’s Pepsi distribution family company passed away and I did feel a pang of guilt.
Focusing on a plant-based diet, I ate more vegetables and less red meat. Grilled cheeseburgers dropped from a popular favorite to a rare treat. I avoided the dirty dozen and tried to eliminate chemicals in our home. After stage III, I rarely drank alcohol. Maybe I’d have a schluch of Scott’s Guinness or local brewery special every so often, but I figured anything I consumed should be working to limit cancer, not encourage it. We added intermittent fasting, eating only between 11 am and 7 pm to help limit inflammation by keeping glucose level stable for longer periods of time. Thirty-five minutes a day was my exercise goal to keep my BMI in the normal weight range. My goal was to help my immune system as much as possible so it only had cancer to fight.When we started looking at moving to Paynesville, relocating was on my pro list. Even if I didn’t feel there was anything causing my breast cancer in Richmond, moving 12 miles to city water had a positive edge. I tried, damnit!
Along the way well-meaning folks would recommend food or supplements to me. While some suggestions were well-researched like olive oil, others were more anecdotal like dandelion wine. One I embraced was a tablespoon of black strap molasses I mix in warm almond milk to boost my lab values. When iron or magnesium levels ran low, a few weeks of my Florentini cocktail, named for my aunt who suggested it as a former chemo nurse, showed increased numbers. Since few studies existed on supplements’ interaction with chemo, both dietitian and the pharmacist were adamant against taking anything. A few people tried to lure me into their multi-level marketing scheme’s supplements. One had a few studies on mice that the company paid for and paid to have published, but my librarian research skills were tingling as I read them, knowing which databases were well-regarded in the medical field. It all made me doubt the heavily-processed pills full of fillers from heavily-polluted China would be beneficial let alone safe. Instead I put all my trust in my Mayo-trained medical oncologist and well-regarded radiation-oncologist.
And sometimes, I heard about Big Pharma. For those who might believe Big Pharma is all in cahoots and have had a cure for cancer but won’t share it as it would drive down their profits, kindly consider how many people would need to be involved in this conspiracy.
My inner retired librarian chafed at the conspiracies that gained momentum so I used my own best advice when finding information on the internet: utilizing published, credible sources, sources that fire writers who are wrong, checking that more than one source verifies the information. Some of my favorite teaching moments were when I asked students if they knew who updated ROCORI High School’s information on Wikipedia then showed them that Tom in Utah was the primary editor. I’d suggest that maybe Tom was a ROCORI grad but when I showed them that Tom mostly liked to edit pages about school shootings and seemingly had no other connection to our school, they were upset. They were too savvy to bite on the fake home page I created because I failed to keep the lunch menu up to date, but I liked that they were honing their BS detectors. To reinforce, “just because you can find it on the internet does not mean it’s true,” I shared a Wikipedia article about Paul Revere that Sarah Palin’s staffers revised after she misspoke about Revere. Rather than have Palin be incorrect, they attempted to rewrite history.
Although I never had the nuts to counter someone’s Big Pharma conspiracy rant in person, my research led me to smarty-pants David Robert Grimes, Oxford University physicist and cancer biologist, whose mathematical equation estimates how many people would be involved in popular conspiracies and how long a large-scale conspiracy can last.
Science thrives on being open and gradually self-correcting, and a willingness to be guided by evidence rather than dogma,” Grimes said in an email. This means criticism and questions are an inherent part of the scientific process. However, Grimes thinks conspiracies, especially large one, go too far and should be separated from science.
Big Pharma is hiding a cure for cancer. The cancer cover-up has the highest number of estimated conspirators — 714,000 people — and thus should have been revealed in 3.17 years.
The sheer number of people involved is proof enough for me because there would definitely be cases of cancer in the Big Pharma group and those “in” on the conspiracy who would demand treatment for themselves or their loved ones.
Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine explains why medical conspiracies endure:
Medical conspiracies, in particular, endure because they’re more emotional and much more salient to people than a moon-landing hoax, Radford said, “Medical conspiracies deal with people’s lives. They deal with people who are sick. They deal with people who are dying. And that’s very personal,” he said. “A conspiracy about the moon landing is less personal.”
The Big Pharma conspiracy was only mentioned to me a few times. But a few people got kinda blamey and it took great effort and much time to forgive them. An elementary teacher I barely knew sought me out right after I returned from recovering from my bilateral mastectomies and reconstruction and informed me that breast reconstruction caused breast cancer to recur because it turns the cells inside out. Now, I could not explain the Krebs cycle to anyone, but I knew that cells did not get turned inside out. Another acquaintance extolled the virtues of dandelion tea preventing breast cancer: she drank it and did not have cancer. Too flabbergasted to ask aloud, I could only wonder, “Damn, why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
Oddly, I even had to be thankful about the type of cancer: I had it easier with this popularized cancer with crafty T-shirts rooting to “Save Second Base” or I Heart Boobies bracelets found on the wrist of many a young teen. And I was thankful I had cancer at a time in history when women’s cancers were discussed in public, advanced from the social stigma that persisted into the 1980’s and unlike the blame still heaped on those with lung cancer. Because our radiation appointments were scheduled right after each other for weeks, Zelda, (not her real name, but she looked like I’d picture 75-year-old Zelda Fitzgerald) with stage III lung cancer and I became confidants even to the point of calling ourselves ‘zap zisters.” While she was so apologetic for her cancer, I never apologized for mine. My biggest risk factor was being female and I wasn’t about to change that up!
My health challenged me and though thousands of webpages had recommendations for some really zany ways to treat cancer, I went with good old science. It seemed that the more outlandish the promise, the more a webpage was really e-commerce disguised as health information. Putting my money in someone else’s pocket was not going to help me.