Cancer doesn't just take lives it ruins them... (in case this chart: http://goo.gl/nATb isn't enough for you)

OK, so, I haven't blogged too much about my own experiences with cancer--I've never had it, but my step-dad is fighting it right now. First, colorectal cancer and currently lung cancer. You don't want to know how he beat the colorectal cancer.

The point I'm getting to here is that cancer doesn't just kill people it often ruins their lives first.

Take the case of Karla Sandman--her brother-in-law @TeddySandman posted a page on his Ning site about her and how, at 28, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Here's just part of Karla's story:

For those of you who are not familiar with Leukemia it is a blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow or lymphatic tissues. The disease results from an acquired genetic injury to the DNA of a single cell, which becomes abnormal (malignant) and multiplies continuously. The accumulation of malignant cell interferes with the body's production of healthy blood cells. Damage to the bone marrow, by way of displacing the normal bone marrow cells with higher numbers of immature white blood cells, results in a lack of blood platelets, which are important in the blood clotting process. This means people with leukemia may easily become bruised, bleed excessively, or develop pinprick bleeds (petechiae).

White blood cells, which are involved in fighting pathogens, may be suppressed or dysfunctional. This could cause the patient's immune system to be unable to fight off a simple infection or to start attacking other body cells. Because leukemia prevents the immune system from working normally, some patients experience frequent infection, ranging from infected tonsils, sores in the mouth, or diarrhea to life-threatening pneumonia or opportunistic infections. Finally, the red blood cell deficiency leads to anemia, which may cause dyspnea and pallor.

Needless to say this has been devastating to watch her go through such agonizing pain. She dropped in weight to 80lbs, lost her hair, and pronounced almost dead on one occasion. My brother practically slept on the floor in her room at the hospital for almost a year and a half and due to the on going chemo therapy, blood transfusions, and bone marrow transplant it has eaten her body away to almost nothing. Now after at least 15 major surgeries including two shoulder replacements, two hip replacements, and she has now lost all her teeth (top and bottom) so pretty much anything you could imagine that can be wrong with a person is wrong with her. Because of the on going surgeries and one major one coming up it has left my brother in financial ruins.

via teddysandman.ning.com

Damn horrible stuff, too be sure. But this damn horrible stuff goes on all the time. Yet, if you do a search for "cancer" on Twitter (how I stumbled across Karla Sandman's story in the first place) you'll find that nobody really seems to think of cancer as preventable. Sure, loads of folks are certain that "we can find a cure!" but who is pointing a finger at government and asking the damn good question: "Why are you spending hundreds of billions on fighting terror but a tiny tiny tiny fraction fighting cancer?"

You think $10 here and $10 there can add up to enough money to do something hundreds of millions over years and years couldn't?

As I said in my April 12, 2010 post including a depressing chart illustrating just how common cancer is (answer: VERY), the USG spends less than $300 million a year on cancer research. Yet no one seems to mind the absurd imbalance in spending between that and terrorism. Terrorists don't come close to 7.4 million deaths cancer causes. So why aren't we fighting a war against cancer?

Think about someone like my step-dad who has to crap in a bag for the rest of his life. Think about Karla Sandman--fighting for her life while still in her 20s--what the fuck is going on here? How do we let this continue to happen? What kind of country are we when we let the spectacle of explosions and imagined "evil" trump the true terror of watching a loved one suffer, seemingly without end?

For the record, I personally know 3 people with cancer, right now. My step-dad, my step-mother-in-law and a family friend. My grand-father died of it, a college friend of mine died of it and another college friend survived it.

If you want to help Karla's family out, please check out Teddy Sandman's Ning page here: http://teddysandman.ning.com/page/karla-sandman-aid

My folks are starting to feel the financial pinch but I haven't talked to them about setting up a way to donate or anything. I'll have to talk to them about that. But whether you can help financially or not, please help all of humanity by no longer thinking about cancer as some random act of god.

It isn't--it's a disease that we can cure, but not without a LOT of money--more money than you or I could afford to give. Raise your voice, blog, Tweet, whatever--speak up about how the government needs to do something to fight cancer--something NOW so the people who are fighting to survive NOW have some kind of HOPE.

Like Mary K. Wilson, the wife behind the Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife blog, discovered the hard way, insurance isn't going to cure her husband's cancer and insurance may not even pay to keep him alive.

We need a cure. Now.

It's time we started demanding it from the body charged with keeping us safe--our government.

Posted via web from thepete's posterous