Not So Fast, Sparky....

So, one of the first things Cancer takes from you is Peace. *POOF*, that's gone when you hear the words "You have cancer".

                         The second thing that bastard Cancer takes from you is Time.

I'm feeling the ticking of the second hand echoing in my bloodstream these days like an Edgar Allen Poe tale. Tests, appointments, forms to fill out...endless, brain-frying-minutiae forms. I should be sitting down by the creek with the dogs or laughing with my kids and grandkids, but--- forms, appointments and tests and phone calls eat up every day. Another day I don't get to appreciate my life as it now is, as it will certainly not be again after I have surgery and treatment, possibly for a very long time, if not for the rest of my life span.

The third thing Cancer robs from you is Control ( aka Security). As in, I HAVE NO FUCKING CONTROL OF ANYTHING ANY MORE.  ( Sorry for the swears, but not really)  However deluded we humans might be about control, we all crave it. It's probably illusory anyway--? But still, we labor arduously, even feverishly, at achieving control & security, busy little worker bees frenetically stuffing nectar into our carefully constructed hives.

    Cancer sez "Lemme just relieve you of that pesky bit of superstition, that lil crutch you been leanin' on your whole life" and takes away, maybe for a very long time or even forever...your belief that you have control of your life.  That may be impossibly hard for someone without cancer to grasp, to wrap your head around, but I promise you--- it's a thing.

   With all due respect to the memory of the extraordinary Miz Keller, I could do with a little less daring adventure. Just sayin'.

  So during my form-filling and reading of info-dense consent forms that make me wanna throw my paints, dogs, books & a sack of biscuits in the truck and disappear, I did quite a bit of research into Breast Cancer Treatment.  It's not the surgery that puts you in the bullseye, it's the toxic & lengthy treatment that jeopardizes your life. You don't need a Health Care degree to grasp that truth. 

Recall how "Bleeding" used to be the big number in health care, back in the 1400's to mid 1700's? "Doctors" once bled (my cousin!) George Washington of nearly half his blood volume. It was a miracle he survived that. I believe one day not too far in the future, Researchers and Physicians will look at the current favored treatment regimen for Breast Cancer the same way we regard "bleeding" nowadays. To say current treatment is barbaric would be a masterpiece of understatement. 

I fully realize millions of women are saved each year through this same treatment but so many, too many, die as a result of "complications" of treatment. There are a host of other conditions, including other cancers, that this same treatment can saddle you with. There is also the terrifying reality of people losing their homes r/t medical debt. I worry about that one a great deal. 

If I lost my home I wouldn't care too much what happened to me next and I'm being painfully frank in stating that. It took my entire adult life for me to actually own my own home. I fought so hard for this place and I'll be damned if I let Cancer steal this from me too, along with everything else. When I go outta here permanently, it'll be in a body bag. Seriously. This place is my legacy to my kids & grandkids; nobody is taking it.

So... in my research internet travels I came across some very interesting information. Turns out there is an awakening, an acceptance, if you will, of the breast cancer treatment/medical community that many women are getting WAY more radiation treatment than they need; the cost is suffocating, the side effects are debilitating & dangerous and it demands a level of suffering that is impossible to quantify in mere words. 

There are women right here in my state who opted for three weeks of radiation treatment instead of six or seven weeks and had good outcomes. Women simply aren't aware they can ask for shorter treatment, and admittedly, at this point it's only a segment of breast cancer patients who can ask & qualify for shorter treatment, mainly old babes like me with early cancers. Here's a lil info for you from an article NPR published as recently as October 2017:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/21/558837836/many-breast-cancer-patients-receive-more-radiation-therapy-than-needed

I want you to know this in case, God in Heaven forfend, you or a loved one in my age range ( almost 68) are diagnosed with Breast Cancer. You have choices. <--Which is another way of expressing I have choices. 

I fully expect some medical community push-back and we'll see what form that takes, but I'm not a sheep to be pushed up a hazardous mountain path only to fall off the cliff at the top. Huh-uh. Not me, baby. I suspect if I say THERE'S NO MONEY TO PAY FOR SIX WEEKS OF RADIATION THERAPY, that oughta do it. It happens to be true and that truth may just save me. 

If I sound cynical about the medical profession I want to clarify: I have crazy-amazing Doctors I am humbly grateful for. But being grateful does not disenfranchise me of choices. I think people are raised/trained not to question a Doctor, except Critical Care Nurses didn't get that gene...actually, make that most Nurses aren't trained to blindly obey Docs. We question them as a routine, given part of our sacred responsiblity as hardline Patient Advocates. 

That's what I'm doing now, only I'm the patient as well as the advocate. I love me some Doctors, now, but they put their britches on the exact same way we do. They can adhere to certain treatment regimens out of fear of med-legal liability ( sued for not "doing enough"), because there are distinct financial incentives to medical practices to conduct treatment a certain way, and because a certain percentage of patients have survived that treatment. Each of those has common-sense reality benefits, of course. But that doesn't mean they're always the correct and only choices for ALL patients. 

Medicine changes almost hourly; we often don't see the benefits from it for many years or even decades after these changes and that's part of the medical heirarchy I spoke of in another post. We have to do a much better job of balancing safety with offering new therapies that can save peoples' lives. 

Maybe one day, one of my Grandchildren will talk about cancer and say "Do you believe they used to pump toxins into people who were already sick, and then fry them with radiation that could give them whole new cancers and horrible, debilitating side effects?!"  

                   The response will be "No way, get outta here!" in the same incredulous way 

                                            we now speak of bleeding patients.

                                                          We have choices. 

                   Equip yourself with the flaming, righteous sword of information.  

                                                                   I am.