A few days before Christmas, I read David Murray’s blog post about a fundraising effort to cover nontraditional treatment for a family’s terminally ill wife and mother. I thought about other people who had died after placing desperate hope in some unproven, promised cure: Farrah Fawcett, whose battle against anal cancer included treatments in a German clinic to boost her immune system, and my own sister, Annette, who died 18 years ago from breast cancer.
Cancer is ugly and scary. This year, about 562,340 Americans are expected to die of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the U.S., exceeded only by heart disease. In the U.S., cancer accounts for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths, according to the ACS statistics.
While cancer is ugly and scary, its treatment can be even more grim. Chemotherapy with its nausea, hair loss and other side-effects. Mastectomies and other surgeries. Radiation.
All for what? The 5-year relative survival rate for all cancers diagnosed between 1996-2004 was 66%, up from 50% in 1975-1977. So even with progress in diagnosing certain cancers at an earlier stage and improvements in treatment, one-third of all people in the U.S. who were diagnosed with cancer in 2004 aren’t alive today.
That’s why people like the Wieland family fight like hell to beat cancer. When someone you love has cancer, the first response, after the tears, is to stay positive and to expect to defeat the cancer. Unfortunately, studies show that a positive attitude doesn’t extend the life of a cancer patient.
Of course, support groups can affect quality of life, but the threat of death from cancer-related causes can open the door to long-shot treatments and no-shot money wasters dangled by charlatans.
As research intern Krystal Wilson said in an October 2007 online article for the American Council on Science and Health,
The popular guideline of staying positive while going through something as difficult as cancer diagnosis and treatment is unfair and very demanding of patients, and it is good to see a scientific study set the record straight. Even more critical is making sure that one uses science-based information while tackling a cancer diagnosis instead of falling prey to widespread mind-over-matter miracle cures promoted by quacks out to exploit desperate people.
That’s why I had mixed emotions when I read Murray’s post and checked out the “Lana’s Hope” site. I want to help the family in this small way, by spreading the news about the fund-raising effort. I want Lana to get those long-shot treatments that just might cure her cancer.
On the other hand, I want this emotionally drained family to avoid being taken by charlatans on the hope of a fake miracle cure. But I understand what’s driving them.
In the fall of 1982, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Aurora, Colo., just outside Denver, with a former college journalism buddy. I had called him the previous August from Decatur, Ill., where I had just decided to leave my job as a reporter at the Decatur Herald & Review. I told him that I had decided to move to Colorado “to see the mountains.” I was pleasantly surprised when he called me back later to say that he would go with me!
My friend, Bernie, quickly secured a nice position in the call center of a national check security firm. I was more focused on partying, and had floated through some low-paying, no-future “jobs.”
One day, the phone rang. It was my sister, Annette. It was about three months after she and her husband had their first child, a son. Annette was reaching out to her younger brother, to offer some encouragement.
During the phone call, Annette mentioned that she had been having some inexplicable back pains. A voice in my head said, “Tell her that is a sign of possible cancer.” But I pushed that thought aside; I mean, how weird would I have sounded, scaring my sister with the idea of cancer?
A few weeks later, I learned that Annette did indeed have breast cancer, and she needed to begin chemotherapy. I decided to move back into my parents’ home shortly afterward, stating that I wanted to be there to support Annette. The larger truth was that I needed the support of my family just as much.
Annette and her family went through a lot of ups and downs in the next eight months before she died on June 1, 1982. I later referenced that time in a song I wrote titled, “Cells of Fear”:
I watched a friend die of cancer.
You know, she never ever once asked the answer to why
Her life had to end that way.
As the months went by, her body witherin',
At the end it was me that was shiverin'
Standing there with nothing to say.
At the end, I'd just sit there and stare.
For her to die so young, without any hair,
Oh it just wasn't fair.
Oh the world will never seem fair.
The Truth can't reach you there,
While you're engrossed with those little cells of fear.
Near the end, as the cancer spread to Annette’s brain and lungs, choking her breath and stealing her sight, her family was desperate.
My mom told me that Annette’s husband had paid a fee and expenses to bring a “faith healer” from somewhere in Canada. “Don’t you say anything,” my mom sternly told me through tears. “This might be Annette’s last chance.”
I couldn’t help but glare at the “faith healer” as she was escorted past me in the hallway outside of Annette’s hospital room. I wasn’t going to watch the “show,” even if I had been invited. I wasn’t going to be invited because my unbelief might affect the potential “miracle,” some of my family thought.
So I spent a few minutes alone in the hallway, until the procession left Annette’s room. I may be making this up, but I have a partial recollection that someone commented that Annette was now “in God’s hands.”
I believe that she was always in God’s hands, and he did the merciful thing when he ended her suffering. That’s the way we deal with cancer: Expect to beat it, then if we don’t, hope to limit the suffering with a quick death.
I hope that Lana’s family raises the money to pay for the treatments they desire for Lana. If the treatments provide her with a longer, more enjoyable life, that would be a blessing.
I pray, as well, that they don’t fall victim to charlatans, dangling empty promises of hope. That is a curse.
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