Cyndi's Two Cents

The Big C

It was just a little more than a year ago I wrote about her in this column:  Cancer.  The Big C.

She’s an ugly, evil and intrusive monster that slinks and slithers her way in to the lives of every one of us in some way, at some time, during our time on Earth.  Cancer has most certainly altered or impacted the life of every single person on this planet.

She paid my mom a visit in early 2016.  The odds – according to the medical diagnoses – were not in Mom’s favor, yet she prevailed as she had 13 years earlier in her fight against breast cancer.  None of us who love her took lightly the blessing we received when the surgeon was able to remove the tumors and confirm the cancer had not spread.

We hold our breaths with each follow-up scan and test, appreciating modern medical science and technology.  As Christians we offer our thanks in prayer. Oft times we celebrate silently because neighbors, friends or non-immediate family members receive less favorable news.

According to the American Cancer Society there will be an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the US this year. The society’s website details a plethora of habits or actions people should stop doing to keep cancer at bay.  Eat healthy, exercise, avoid alcohol, sunlight, radiation and cigarettes.  Yet there are no guarantees this behavior will keep the Big C from invading your body.  Being in overall good health does better prepare your body for the battle ahead if cancer comes calling.

Cancer doesn’t care how much money you have or how well respected you are in your community.  She doesn’t care about your religion or ethnicity.  She doesn’t care if you voted for Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump for President of the United States.  Statistically, your chance of a cancer diagnosis increases as you get older, but childhood cancer is an absolute reality.  According to the American Childhood Cancer Organization about 16,000 children under the age of 21 are diagnosed with cancer every year and approximately 1/4 of them will not survive the disease.

In the past week, an acquaintance a few years younger than me (I’m 54) succumbed to the cancer she’d fought for 20 years.  Another acquaintance with 4 young children was diagnosed with a stage 4 cancer 8 months ago and given an “at best” diagnosis that with intense treatment could buy her 6 months of life.  She ditched the doctors and took off on an all-natural journey that included having the mercury fillings in her teeth removed, time in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and a changed diet.  She looks healthy and says she feels healthy, but hasn’t had any medical testing done to detect the severity of the cancer in her body since her initial diagnosis.  She says it is all in God’s hands.

I trust my Lord, but I lean toward His guidance in medical and pharmaceutical advancements.

There are treatable, curable cancers today.  It wasn’t that many years ago when a cancer diagnosis was a death sentence.

Every person who gets cancer will die, but so will the rest of us.  It’s how we live that matters.