Think back to the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Criminals seized four airliners and crashed them into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Many on board the planes realized they were going to die and many trapped in the towers knew their end was near too.
Families watched horrified, knowing they were unable to save their loved ones.
3,000 people died on Sept. 11th, taken away from their families before their time, leaving behind grief and voids where their lives were.
Cancer creates a Sept. 11th every other day.
Cancer kills 1,500 people every day. Unlike Sept. 11th, the deaths are spread out across the country and not televised. Nevertheless, the victims die before their time. Loved ones watch in sadness and fear. The deaths leave voids in the lives of others.
This year, cancer will kill about 559,650 people. Grandparents. Fathers. Mothers. Children.
To those of you who have read this before, I apologize. But I realize not everyone reads political blogs on Friday nights. So I will repeat my tale from Friday:
I’m probably best known on Daily Kos for when I wrote happy stories on Friday nights.
Tonight, I want to tell you about the worst day of my life. Then I’m going to ask you to help me do something about it.
I loved my father a great deal. He was a good, decent, hard working man. He worked his eight-hour shift at the paper mill as a mechanic and electrician and then came home and worked on the farm often until dark and sometimes beyond.
One cold January night when I was 19, the two of us were digging a trench to run electrical wiring underground from the house to a new barn.
“Boy, I just can’t seem to catch my breath,” he said, leaning on his shovel.
My father never took sick days. The only time I recalled him missing work was when he passed kidney stones.
He went to the doctor about his shortness of breath. The doctor scheduled a biopsy. I remember well the growing feeling of fear as we sat in the hospital waiting room. My younger sister left because we did not know how long the procedure would take. Soon after she walked out, we saw the doctor coming down another hall and I raced to get her. The two of us sprinted back. The biopsy showed he had inoperable cancer. It had been in his lymph nodes and spread to his heart and lungs. The doctor told him he had less than a year to live.
That night my mother’s best friend from childhood came out to the farm after she finished working her shift at the hospital.
My mother had known when she was 10 years old she wanted to marry my father. He joined the Navy at 17 during the Korean War and was stationed at Norfolk, Va., when she turned 18. He sent an engagement ring to her friend and arranged for her to be at my mother’s when he phoned to propose and then her friend slipped the engagement ring on my mother’s finger. That night she was there to explain my father’s cancer treatment options to my mother and to comfort her. I walked her out to her car and then I cried for a long time on her shoulder. Twenty three years later I can remember how wet my face was with tears.
Twenty three years of life later, that remains the saddest and worst day of my life. Even his death seven months later was not as sad for by then death was a release for him.
I often wish my father was still alive to see my daughters and to see them sitting beside him on the tractor just as he did my brother’s daughters. I would have liked that. He was a good grandfather.
Many of us have seen the scourge that is cancer in our lives, either in our own or in those we love. Mcjoan’s brother. Jane at Fire Dog Lake is fighting it again. Dreaming of Better Days is undergoing treatment for it.
Now station wagon:
sad news and a BIG F-ING PROBLEM (78+ / 0-)
in stationwagonville. It has been 11 days since I went to my doctor with nausea and vomiting and a distended upper abdomen to an appointment with an oncologist yesterday who told my husband and me that I have advanced, too advanced to treat, liver cancer. Monday I have a biopsy on the tumors literally squeezing out functioning liver cells to see if the cancer is primary or secondary- they have not been able to locate any source outside of my liver. But the oncologist has a hunch that it might be my pancreas- which can be hard to see even with a CAT scan. If it’s secondary, chemo might be able to buy me a little time, but the prognosis is grim. We can’t process this all at once (mercifully) we keep cycling between waiting to wake up and being overwhelmed with sadness for our kids and other loved ones.
Liver cancer is a mean mofo. Symptoms don’t usually show up until it’s too advanced to treat.
I love you all, Kossacks. I just needed to come here and dump this out. I’m going to watch a movie with my son now. I’m grateful to all of you for giving me a learning place and a haven.
In order to hide their embezzlement behind a posse of demented hicks, Republicans’ slogans must be short and superstitious. Grand Moff Texan
by station wagon on Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 08:51:36 PM EST
As I mentioned on Friday, Prayers are important. I know enough about cancer that amazing treatments are being developed. Cancer treatment has come along way since my father died of it in 1984.
Many of us have been through this terrible disease, either suffering from it or losing someone dear to us from it.
I well recall the anger I felt at seeing my father ill. That anger creates an energy to this day.
Let us put that anger and energy to use.
Let us do our part to fight this scourge upon humanity.
As I said before, I can’t research a cure or new treatment for patients or donate millions for those who do.
But I can write to Congress and urge that they fully arm those who can. We spend hundreds of billions on defense projects while people are dying at home from illness and poverty.
We need to do more as a nation to find out why cancer rates are rising, what environmental factors might be causing certain cancers to appear at younger age groups.
As I wrote Friday:
I am not asking for us to fight against death. Death is as natural as life. Our motality is what makes each day count and our time on earth is better by knowing that.
But I am saying we can work to eradicate a disease that is horrific.
What we can do as a political blog is to advocate to make certain those on the frontline of cancer and scientific research have the tools and people they need.
From the comments on Friday, it is clear that not only do we as a nation need to fully fund the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, but also fully fund the National Science Foundation. It should not be a question of one agency played off another in order to research a cure. It should be more funding for all research. The secret to eradicate cancer and other diseases might not come from direct research, but from other, seemingly unrelated research in other fields.
I’d like to have titled this diary: “Let’s kick cancer’s ass”. It’s not going to happen easily. This has to be a long term committment from us and from our government.
Here’s the American Cancer Society’s page to email Congressional legislators. We’re not going to use their form letter however. Many of us have our own issues with the American Cancer Society for one reason or another. I’m going to include some talking points for you to feel free to use, but write of your tale of cancer. Reach inside and remember your fear and your anger and most importantly your love for those hurt by it to write from your own heart:
(Your cancer story here)
As my Congressional representative, here is what I want you to do:
o A minimum increase of 6.7 percent for the National Institutes of Health in 2008 in your program request letter to the Appropriations Subcommittee.
o Keep the promise of increasing funding for the National Science Foundation. Don’t just say you want to double the budget. Provide funding for it.
o In addition, stop looking at funding for scientific research at NIH, NCI and the NSF in five year cycles. Look at this as a long-term committment because cures won’t be found over night. Take a long term approach and develop budget plans for scientific research grants that look ahead 20 to 50 years. Developing a PhD researcher takes longer than the current budget cycles for scientific research.
o Let us work together to save lives. The economic benefits from such research can be tremendous. The lifesaving benefits can be priceless.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]
Feel free to use any aspects of my diary in writing your emails. Feel free also to print out your letters and send them to your Congressional representative.
I’m working on other diaries for this project. One of the diaries will urge people to donate to their local hospices and Meals on Wheels programs. The fight against cancer is long term. Sometimes victory will have to be measured by such things as pain-free days. Or helping someone go home to spend their final days. Another diary will ask people to write letters to their local newspapers to increase public awareness of the importance of tax-dollar supported federal and state research. And I also want us to write to the American Cancer Society to push them to fully support all areas of scientific research, no matter how controversial.
More than 10 million people in the United States are currently being treated for cancer or have survived cancer. Countless others love those people and are glad they are alive today. Politically, this is an effort that should be bipartisan because President Nixon created the National Cancer Institute out of memory of his sister who had died from the disease. In reality, we’ve seen too many right wingers declare a war on scientific research and play shell games with funding. Let’s change that. Let’s do what we can to save lives.