Cancer Journal #42 July 25

 In prior blogs, I have suggested that standard medical treatment of cancer is, at best, incomplete and maybe actually counterproductive.  Seems like a willful blind spot is cultivated in conventional cancer care.  Exasperating!  How can nutrition be just left out of the way cancer patients are cared for?

I mentioned that I have read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee which is subtitled,  " A Biography of Cancer".  It left me with more understanding and sympathy for standard cancer care.  The book tells of the step by step process of understanding and treating cancer going back more than 100 years.  Missteps along the way, lessons learned from those missteps.  A long cast of characters, all smart and all energetic and committed to cracking this thing.  Beating some form of cancer only to have it reappear.  Sometimes beating it and having it stay beaten.  A six year old boy receiving an innovative treatment for a form of childhood leukemia that previously had been fatal in just a couple of months and having that boy surviving into his 60-70s.  It's a really good book with a really good story to tell. 

  I assume that training in oncology draws on that story, that way of thinking that has produced such impressive results in a wide range of cancer forms.  And they, as oncologists, are continuing that story.  There's a greatness there, a nobility, a The Brothers Karamazov kind of greatness and not just reading The Brothers Karamazov but a kind of participating in The Brothers Karamazov.  Hard to beat that!  But then to have The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  imposed on you in the form of a patient chirping about nutrition and complimentary treatments.  Enthusiasm is going to be subdued.  

When I asked my oncologist about nutrition, he made the tautological observation that it is good to eat good food.  That was OK.  The man was doing The Brothers Karamazov.   But that's not going to keep me away from Huck Finn or to maybe wonder about the long term viability of The Brothers Karamazov.  Speaking solely for myself, of course.


Comments

  1. Jan CAugust 2, 2021 at 6:47 AM

    It's a disgrace that good, sound nutrition isn't prescribed more, taught to us more and better, and seen as the foundation of all good health.

    I like your literary mentions/comparisons. :)

    That sounds like a really important book. Glad you ran across it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. charlieschaeferAugust 6, 2021 at 6:08 AM

    Yes, it really is too bad that nutrition is not integrated into our conventional health care system. I believe they do better in Europe. For one thing, we would have better guard rails against kooky and obsessional nutritional/supplement programs. Right now I really don't know where the line is between Goodhealthland and Wuwuland. I can have a general feeling but have no basis for knowing if my general feeling is correct.

    Yes, Emperor of All Maladies is a good, good book. It could use an updated final chapter on cancer developments since 2011 when it came out what has happened since then. It didn't talk at all about enlisting the immunity system to fight cancer. That's where the battlefront is now and I would really like to read his treatment of it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Candace, resident artist, Swallow Nest Art StudioAugust 7, 2021 at 6:12 PM

    Maybe you should write to the author and ask him to write another book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. charlieschaeferAugust 13, 2021 at 3:01 PM

      In response to this suggestion, I went on line to find out if there is anything like a current epilogue. I didn't find just that. However the author has been looking into why cancer grows some places and not others. A doctor back in the 1800s wondered why there is never cancer found in people's hands. The question was never answered but the author is looking into it, in hopes that it will maybe result in an effective therapy. Do whatever the hand does and extend it to the whole body. Good idea I think.

      Delete

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