Cancer is in our lives, let’s get it out of it.

Cancer has touched the lives of every American at least once. Even if no one has cancer in your family everyone knows someone who has either had it or has it. Millions of Americans battle some type of cancer every day. There are over one hundred known forms of cancer and that list continues to grow. While survival rates have started in a positive direction there is so much work that still needs to be done.

I have been hit incredibly hard by cancer over the last few years. Believe me it is a heart wrenching experience to go through because you care so much, but it is also so very selfish on our part to be the one’s complaining. This is not about our feelings; it is about the person waging this battle. Recently, my mother and my best friend started to wage a battle with this terrible disease. I never realized how much intestinal fortitude they have as they each go through this. Trust me it is not just a battle it is a war.

My mother has to be the strongest person I have ever met. Day after day and hospital stay after hospital stay my mother endures some of the longest days you could ever imagine. She never complains, never tells us how hard it is, and never gives you a reason to be sad for her. I would give all that I have so she would be cured of this terrible disease. You can hope and pray every day that today is the day she wakes up and she is completely cured. That day is not going to come right now because there is no cure as of yet for her type of cancer. We just have to be there and be loving, supportive, and try to be as half as strong as she is. My mom just finished going through chemo and radiation on the same day and not one time did her smile leave her face. Truly a remarkable woman and an even more remarkable mother.

Somehow those petty little things my mom and I bickered about all these years are certainly not that important anymore are they? Neither does all of the times my mother told me what to do and gave me advice I did not want to hear. Mom whatever you say is fine with me.

I was listening to a telethon last week for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and a thirteen year old boy was speaking about his own personal battle with cancer. This amazing young man told the host on the radio that the main reason he fights so hard is because he knows his mother and father are not strong enough to go on without him. My god, thirteen year olds should be worried about their first kiss or a baseball game after school and not whether their parents are strong enough to be without him. This young man is an inspiration to all.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services charged with making sure that drugs and biologics are safe and effective before they go on the market. Unfortunately, this is a very slow process and I believe most people would like get this process moving by cutting some of that red tape. Time and time again drugs that could save patients do not get to them because of the long approval process. While the FDA tries its best as they do their due diligence. The approval process needs to become much more effective to help some folks much quicker.

Research costs billions of dollars every year. The government spends about five billion dollars a year on cancer research. I am a proponent of government controls on spending but I certainly believe that as long as the five billion dollars is well spent then I wish we gave another five billion dollars. Cancer Research receives another five billion dollars a year from private sources as well. There is plenty of waste that goes on and there are plenty of critics on how to spend the research money however, all and all the money is going to a great cause.

There are plenty of success stories that will bring a tear to your eye and make you believe that someday cancer will be a thing of the past. Until it is a thing of the past , we must all band together and help in the fight to put the word cancer in our distant memory. Go out and buy that pink ribbon, ride that bicycle to raise money, or drop that spare change into that jar in the supermarket. Cancer is in our lives, let’s get it out of it.

Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/drcchasse
E-mail me at drcchasse@verizon.net
voice 206 350 4670
fax 206 350 6437

All proceeds from advertising will be donated to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, so please visit our sponsors