Sometimes people are so sure that if they eat this berry or that concoction daily that they will never get cancer. They forget that the newspaper articles say these things “may help prevent cancer.” They don’t prevent cancer. But they do give us an illusion of control.
Unfortunately, sometimes people get cancer regardless of what they do or don’t do.
I have eaten organic blueberries for breakfast every morning for many, many years. I have eaten well in general — broccoli, cauliflower, very little red meat — and am at a good weight. Got my colonoscopy on time at age 50. Was diagnosed with stage I colon cancer at age 53. Was under an oncologist’s care for three years with regular scans and annual colonoscopies, then was diagnosed with stage IV three years after the first diagnosis. Two major surgeries, brain laser surgery, and twelve rounds of chemo in all.
Sometimes things just happen, no matter how careful you are. People in their late teens and early twenties get colon cancer. Young parents get colon cancer. Runners get colon cancer. Sometimes it happens.
I wonder what causes colon cancer to all different kinds of people. No one in my family has had colon cancer. I hope that medical researchers discover the cure someday for this disease — cancer — that brings so much heartache and loss to families.
I have been blessed to raise my children to adulthood, and I am not afraid of death except that I don’t want to leave my family. But things just happen, accidents happen, illnesses happen, and life can seem very fragile sometimes.
I am an ordained minister — have a seminary master’s degree — and, oddly, I believe there is usually no sense as to who gets cancer and who doesn’t. We are all in vulnerable bodies. We think we have control — eat this, don’t eat that, do this and not that — and a certain amount of that kind of thinking is good. We don’t want to ask for trouble in our bodies by neglecting our health.
But sometimes things just happen to our vulnerable bodies no matter how well we take care of ourselves, and all we can do is manage the best we can and pray for the grace to move through what lies ahead with dignity … and to be immensely grateful for family and friends and the moments that we do have.