Cancer

Whether you are the one who has it or whether or not a loved one has it, cancer is certainly LIFE CHANGING. The first question is how much is to be sacrificed for life. (While cancer can cause death, it is the "cure" that is truly life changing.) In many cancer cases, there is no amount of sacrifice that will buy life. In some cases there is unnecessary sacrifice when something less would have sufficed. And in far too few cases no sacrifice is necessary as the process for buying life actually enriches it.

There is the American Medical way: slash, burn and poison. Using those terms obviously displays a bias. The whole approach is one intended to kill the cancer before the body is killed. The real problem is that the statistics lie, or rather statistics are used to lie. This is pretty bad when such poor statistics for survival are lies.

The statistics are all about five year survival rates. It should be survival to the actuarial tables of a life without cancer. It also counts only if the specific cancer the patient was originally diagnosed with comes back. Remember that radiation and the chemotherapy chemicals are so carcenogenic that they can only be given in doses with large pauses between them. On top of that, surgery, radiation, and the chemicals used in chemotherapy suppress the immune system. If in the course of treatment the patient dies from some other disease or complication brought on by the lack of immunities, the patient is no longer counted.

There are a whole lot of lives changing from cancer. More and more people are getting some form of it. It used to be that this was explained that our longer lives were allowing these degenerative diseases to finally show up. If you look around, there are more and more children getting cancer. Certainly they haven't lived long enough to allow their cancers to finally appear.

The person with a cancer diagnosis has their life changed instantly. There is, at a minimum, all of the medical appointments. The problem is that most of the appointments, if not all, are with specialists who generally know only one area. If lucky, they may know who to refer you to for other areas. If unlucky, they may just think they need to refer you because of rote formulas. Of course, once referred, the next specialist applies their specialty, because the patient obviously needs it or they wouldn't have been referred.

The people around the cancer patient have their lives changed as well. During the treatments the patient cannot be the same. Many of the treatments are so debilitating that the patient may be physically worse off. A recent newspaper article said that chemotherapy definitely affects the brain. Even if that doesn't result in mental issues, the whole situation is scary, frustrating, and psychologically draining enough without further complications. It's hard to remain upbeat and supportive when your life is changing every bit as much as the cancer patient's. Often the patient's decision making powers are reduced. This last is particularly frustrating to me.

Then when a cancer returns...

Thinking through my privacy

I never thought I would be blogging so I haven't given much thought on just what I might say that preserves the privacy of the people I care about more so than even mine. While I consider myself to be a private person, as a manager, I am more a discreet person.

A manager has a lot of responsibilities but the greatest one is getting the most out of the team. Sometimes this means letting the super stars run and sometimes it means holding them close to create the draft that accelerates everyone. This cannot be done if the manager is indiscreet, talks without thinking, or worse appears to hold an offensive position.

Then there is my private life, in which the circumstances for people around me have profoundly affected my life. How can I write about my profound life changing experiences without disclosing more than they would wish me to, even if they or I were not readily identifiable?

How sanitized can this be without restricting the catharsis of the writing? Is having readers and commentors part of that catharsis? I know I'm not interested in reading someone else's angst.

May 30, 2007