Pulling the Rabbit Out of the Hat

Cancer Prevention and Early Detection

Wouldn’t it be good if we could prevent cancer from starting? And wouldn’t it be amazing if we could detect the presence of cancer early enough so that everyone would be cured of cancer? I think so.

This is a renewed focus in cancer care. While most of our efforts today have two goals — stop people from dying, and continuing cancer research to find new ways of keeping people alive — it’s time to focus more attention on preventing people from getting cancer in the first place.

Dan Fogelberg

It’s oddly reassuring to rub elbows with famous people who had prostate cancer, like Dan Fogelberg, the soft-rock singer who grew up here in Peoria, Illinois. I can walk to the places he lived, went to high school, and to Bradley University where his dad was the band director and let him conduct a rehearsal when he was 14. Fogelberg’s songs like “Leader of the Band” and “Longer” were a mainstay of the soft-rock era of the 1970s, ’80s, and early ‘90s.

How Did I Get Cancer?

 Genetic Testing

The same question dogs everyone who gets cancer: Where did it come from? It’s not a critical question because we already have cancer, and our focus is on getting rid of it. 

Yet I wanted to know. If my cancer came from an outside source and is environmentally-caused, like exposure to a lawn herbicide or a crop pesticide, which seems to be a problem in agricultural areas, especially in Iowa and Illinois, then I want to stay away from it. Were there industrial carcinogens in my drinking water from fracking? Maybe a pathogen snuck in through a cut in my skin.

Going To The Monastery To Face Cancer

 

I am delighted that my new essay was published today by the Chautauqua Journal. 

It’s called “Unmasking In the Monastery.” This makes me so happy!

https://www.chautauquajournal.com/post/unmasking-in-the-monastery

Happy Holy Fools Day! (I’m serious.)

Mark