Tag: moonshot

On World Cancer Day, This Book Title Speaks For All of Us: F*ck Off Cancer

Today, February 4, 2016 is World Cancer Day. “Taking place under the tagline ‘We can. I can.’, World Cancer Day 2016-2018 will explore how everyone – as a collective or as individuals – can do their part to reduce the global burden of cancer.”

Linda Brossi Murphy faced breast cancer with a heaping dose of humor and bravely shares her cancer experience in her book F*CK OFF CANCER: Cancer, shaken, not stirred, on the rocks with a twist! to benefit those who may follow in her footsteps. Those who have previously walked in her footsteps will also gain some degree of comfort, validation, and sisterhood as they read this book. As Linda pointed out: “The good news about this is that I was not alone. The bad news is that everyone’s life is touched by cancer.”

Truer words were never spoken, as every person I know has a relationship with cancer. There are, it seems, many paths to health. Linda chose to follow conventional treatment: surgery (two lumpectomies) followed by chemotherapy and radiation. She also chose to participate in a clinical trial, not knowing whether she was receiving the actual drug or a placebo in addition to the protocol outlined by her oncologist.

We’re all lucky that Linda followed a friend’s advice to write this book. Linda tells it like it is, leaving very little to the imagination (yes, her book includes photos to document her journey) as she graciously told her story of life with cancer. This story will help assess cancer treatment by studying how the treatment affected every facet of Linda’s life. Yes, we can call this anecdotal data and dismiss its value. OR we can give this type of data a little more respect and call it a case study. It is, after all, each individual’s experience that lets us know how our science (treatment protocol) actually plays out. Linda’s observation about chemotherapy illustrates the toll her treatment took on body, mind, and spirit:

Someday, in the future, chemotherapy will be looked at the same way we currently look at electric shock therapy. Barbaric! As we progress in understanding cancer and finding treatments, it will eventually be looked back upon as ludicrous that we sat people down and pumped them full of a broad-spectrum poison.

There simply must be a better way to treat cancer. Linda endured more than a year and a half of treatment, at one point joking: “I am fat, bald, toenail-less, burned from radiation, and scarred. How lovely!” So how the heck did this wild woman get through her treatment with her sense of humor fully in tact? With a little help from her friends, of course! She had a support team that included a vast group of family and friends. Each chemo treatment found a collection of supporters in Linda’s chemo room laughing, joking, and sometimes cajoling the hours away. This party atmosphere did not mean that Linda didn’t appreciate the serious nature of cancer. On the contrary, this was just one way Linda chose to tell cancer to f*ck off.

Linda also focused on her medical team: To show the members of her medical team how much she appreciated their treatment, Linda asked her support team to bake cookies for her medical team rather than to bring meals to her and her family. Not just once and done; she had a calendar and her support team signed up to bake cookies and make sure they got them to Linda ahead to time so she could deliver them prior to her treatment. She also threw an end-of-treatment party to thank everyone – friends, family, medical personnel – who had helped her through her treatment.

This book is a generous gift from a cancer conqueror to anyone who wants to know what it’s like to walk through the world of cancer treatment. There are laughs and tears along the way as you’d expect. Not surprisingly, there are also poignant moments when Linda and her husband faced mortality head on.  Little was easy; much was overwhelming. Each day also presented a new adventure, an opportunity to look at the world from a new vantage point. While making her way through a world of overwhelm, Linda chose to find a way to laugh every day as she walked through the halls of cancer treatment.

As we observe World Cancer Day in 2016, we owe it to Linda and everyone else who has faced a cancer diagnosis to:

  • Acknowledge that after 40 years of fighting a war on cancer, we need to change up our approach.
  • Stop expecting a different outcome without changing our behavior (treatment / research).
  • Provide support to cancer patients, rather than the cancer industry.
  • Focus on prevention. Prevention ≠ screening / detection.
  • Explore evidence-based complementary care.
  • Read this book and others like it to understand how cancer treatment affects the patient.

All eyes are on Vice President Biden’s moonshot. I applaud his and President Obama’s enthusiasm. We’ve also got answers right here on Earth that are waiting to be put into practice. What do you say? I say now would be the time.

On World Cancer Day, This Book Title Speaks For All of Us: F*ck Off Cancer was last modified: December 1st, 2016 by Deb Nelson

Joe Biden’s Moonshot Needs More than $2 Billion

Timing, as they say, is everything. Last week I published a blog post – Is It Time to Rethink Our Approach to Cancer Treatment? – hours before President Obama’s state of the union address. During that address, the president announced that Vice President Joe Biden would lead a new initiative to end cancer.

Listening to the State of the Union address last week I wondered how President Obama would use this speech to influence his legacy. He made a number of points that we’d expect to hear supporting children, families, and the middle class. And then, from out of the blue (at least from my non-inner-circle perspective), he announced that the vice president would be taking charge of an initiative to end cancer: a new initiative in the Obama administration that was first introduced by the Nixon administration.

This appointment by President Obama was actually quite logical since the vice president had apparently called for a moonshot three months ago to cure cancer. It’s also a sentimental appointment on the heels of the death of Beau Biden, the vice president’s son, who lost his life to brain cancer last year.

This appointment came as no surprise to the vice president, who published a blog post following the SOTU and shared it via twitter. The blog shared the vice president’s plans to “accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure.” He also indicated he wanted to hear from people if cancer had touched their lives. The vice president then went on to let us know that he intends to do two things:

  1. Increase resources — both private and public — to fight cancer.
  2. Break down silos and bring all the cancer fighters together — to work together, share information, and end cancer as we know it.

And that is when I sighed a heavy sigh. A sigh of cynicism, a sigh of sadness, a sigh of defeat. It sounds to me as though we are taking the same approach to dealing with cancer we’ve always taken. Now, simply because we’ve elevated the desire to deal with this disease we expect the same action to produce a different result.

Why, I wondered, were we continuing down the same road? The road of pouring seemingly endless amounts of money down a seemingly endless black hole? Increasing resources in my mind translates to more cash for the pharmaceutical companies. That might make sense to me if the results to date indicated this would be a promising route to take. Unfortunately, in 2015 cancer diagnoses in the US were expected top 1.5 million and cancer deaths were on track to surpass 500,000. It really makes me shake my head to think that $2 billion will be invested in the same fashion – more research conducted by the same people who have had access to billions upon billions of dollars in the past.

Is the vice president asking what will happen if we:

  • Explore the unconventional?
  • Invest in the science-based complementary treatments serving cancer patients so well?
  • Focus on at prevention?
  • Take a look at some “anecdotal” evidence?
  • Don’t invest $2 billion in research?

Since I’m not in the inner circle, I can’t say that these questions aren’t being asked. I’d be surprised, though, if discussion of any of these questions is on the agenda.

So…what did I do with my sighs of cynicism, sadness, and defeat? I let them take up a few moments of my time. Then I responded to the vice president’s request for information from anyone whose life had been touched by cancer by:

  • Leaving a response on his blog post.
  • Referencing his moonshot in a tweet or two.
  • Sending him a message via the White House website.

So far, no response. No worries. I’m off to write Vice President a note. After all, this moonshot could do us all a world of good if a few assumptions are kicked to the curb. My advice to the vice president is simple:

Be bold.
Be brave.
Ask difficult questions.

Joe Biden’s Moonshot Needs More than $2 Billion was last modified: December 1st, 2016 by Deb Nelson