Posts for category ‘cancer’

I was sitting in my office working when I heard a noise in the back yard. It was the elderly woman from the next street over wandering through. I assume that she was looking for a way out; the yard is completely fenced in. I put my shoes on and went out the front door intending to go back to see if I could help her.

In the street I met a woman just standing and watching my yard. I asked her if she was accompanying my neighbor. She said yes but her charge gets very upset because she doesn’t like to be followed.

She informed me that the woman has Alzheimer’s disease. I had already surmised that over three months ago. It was a sad thing to see.

My neighbor is a retired school teacher. My son Max and I have known her for years from our many walks in the neighborhood. She would always come out and speak to us. She loved seeing my son and when we were with her she would talk nonstop about her boys.

And then about three months ago we were passing by and she waved to us. But the way she was talking I knew that she was gone. Even though she was very friendly I could tell she had no idea who we were. She said, “Your son is a nice little boy.”

Alzheimer’s is a tough thing to deal with if you are a caregiver for someone who has it. I can’t even imagine what it is like for someone who is afflicted with it.

The disease is actually a brain disorder which is progressive and fatal; and there currently is no cure. It destroys a person’s brain cells little by little causing memory loss. It has become the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

My friend’s caregiver asked me how I knew about the illness. I had two grandmothers that died of it. One grandmother stayed locked in her apartment afraid to step outside. She used to look out her window and was convinced that there were people on the roof of the building across her street trying to get her. At the end she had no idea who I was which I found devastating.

While tucked away in that apartment she suffered two mild strokes about two years apart. It was always believed that they contributed to her condition. I remember that she was always asking when her oldest son was going to take her away from there. She never knew that he had already died.

Then he finally took her away with him when she was 77 years old.

My other grandmother was a very active woman. She was always traveling and meeting people. Not long after a fall she took when she was 91 we noticed that there was a problem. She was forgetting small things and imagining others. But as the disease progressed it took a different turn from the first.

She began to distrust everyone. She believed that strangers were trying to separate her from her family and her money. I remember one occasion when she was sitting on my mother’s couch. She thought her daughter was a strange woman who had kidnapped her. She was screaming; shouting for Mom to let her go home.

When she noticed me across the room she yelled to me, “Please sir, I don’t know who this woman is. Will you take me out of here? At least call the police!”

And when she realized I wasn’t going to do any of these things she became even more upset because this man was part of the gang that had taken her.

She was 98 years old when she died, 20 years after my other grandmother.

My Dad also appeared to have the symptoms of Alzheimer’s; but it was more a result of the medicines he was taking. When he was dying of cancer doctors started giving him morphine to ease the pain. Almost immediately the signs appeared. His short term memory was gone. He had no idea who I was. And the wife he had met when he was 5 years old and had known for 55 years was now a complete stranger.

He finally died of cancer at 60. He didn’t have Alzheimer’s but I had lived through both of my grandmothers’ illnesses so it certainly felt like he did.

And as I talked to my neighbor’s caregiver the memories flooded back. I was able to express some of them to her as we waited for the woman to come out from the back yard. She told me that she could not go back to help her because the woman didn’t want it, “just see what happens when she comes out.”

My friend finally emerged by sneaking down the side of the house. When she realized we could see her she stepped out defiantly, “I do not like you following me. I’m going to call and get you fired for this!”

“Ok Marie,” the aide responded. As she wandered up the street straightening barrels left over from trash day the aide said goodbye and began to follow her to keep her from harm.

I know the pain of watching your loved ones waste away from this crippling disease. I have cried countless times as I helped them do even the smallest things.

But I cannot imagine what it was like for them to find themselves living with strangers. Being forced to allow them to care for them. Wondering where their spouses and children have disappeared to. Why aren’t their loved ones coming to save them?

It was heartbreaking watching my neighbor walk down that street, not knowing where she was going, or what she was going to do.

People seem to be really hung up on chemotherapy for curing their cancers. According to Cure Search this kind of treatment uses drugs to treat a disease. Most people know it for cancer treatments. But does it work?

Recently I was talking to a longtime friend who informed me that his Dad is going through it now to treat a rare form of bone cancer. He told me that there has been no improvement in his condition. In fact, he appears to be getting worse. He wants his Dad to stop this because he is convinced that the drugs are actually killing him.

Does his belief have any basis in fact?

Doctors have known for quite some time that a cancer can come back in a more virulent form within 5 years. This is why they keep their patients monitored and test them every six months. According to Doctor Andrew Weil medical schools are teaching their doctors-in-training to expect a recurrence.

How can this happen if the treatment destroys the cancer cells?

Most people believe that if they undergo chemotherapy the cancer cells in their bodies are going to be destroyed. Once this happens they will be cancer-free.

As a result they don’t understand why it can suddenly show up worse in 5 years. Not only that, it can appear in other parts of the body as well.

My Dad had throat cancer in 1980. It was treated and believed to be cured. He continued to work and have a productive life. Then in 1985 it reappeared. This time doctors found that it had spread through out his body. Now, there was nothing they could do. He was gone within 6 months.

Why if it was cured did it come back? An illustration:

Most probably not all of the cancer cells had been destroyed.

We have all seen those antibacterial soaps that are advertized on television and the radio. Some of us may have actually used them. Have you noticed how the containers say they will destroy 99.9% of the bacteria on your body when they are used?

This means that one percent is still on your body. Please note that there are two kinds of bacteria. Some are good and beneficial. The others can be very destructive. What is left is the strongest. Remember Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest”? Because they are stronger they can mutate and become even more powerful…super germs.

It is the same thing with the cancer cells. If any are missed they become stronger. When they reproduce they can migrate to other parts of the body. Once there they must mutate to survive in that area.

They now become much harder to eradicate.

But are people cured if the cancer doesn’t come back within 5 years?

Possibly, but frankly 5 years is not enough time to prove that someone is cancer-free. It can come back anytime and anywhere in the body and will probably be much worse.

My Mother is a breast cancer survivor. It was found in 1989 and taken care of. After that she had tests done every 6 months for 5 years; it never came back. After seeing how my Dad’s cancer recurred she has made sure that she continues to get tested every 6 months. It has now been over 20 years.

But can the chemotherapy actually play a part in making it worse?

The best case, if you can call it that, is that the drugs only misses some cancer cells. In reality though they do much more than kill the bad cells. Like the anti-bacterial soaps they do not distinguish between good and bad. They also destroy cells and bacteria that help us survive

That is why doctors advise their cancer patients to improve their diets. There are foods that can prompt the regrowth of the good bacteria and cells to help keep them healthy.

What is my friend going to do if he doesn’t want his Dad to continue the chemotherapy?

He has been talking about using alternative medicine. Some of these appear to work; others don’t. There is a claim by The Health Wize Report that chemo has only a 4 percent success rate while some alternative therapies are much more successful.

He has been researching other methods because he is convinced that there is something out there that will help his Dad much more than the chemo has. Something that won’t kill him.

On a side note, I have talked about my clients that I take care of as a health care assistant. One girl has multiple sclerosis very badly and has been in a wheel chair for quite some time. Her doctor started her on chemotherapy in the belief that it will help her situation improve.

On the contrary all we’ve noticed is her health declining at a much more rapid rate. Another of her doctors has convinced her to get off of these drugs and looked into alternative methods of saving her life. I have heard that she has been slowing taking herself off of them.

So what am I saying here?

• Don’t believe that chemotherapy is definitely going to cure you. Do a lot of research to make sure it is right for you.
• 5 years is not necessarily enough time to determine if you are cancer-free.
• Understand that not only may the chemo drugs miss cancer cells but they may also contribute to a decline in your health.
• If you are going to subject your body to this kind of therapy make sure you are eating properly.
• If the chemo doesn’t work, or even if you aren’t sure that you want to use it, research the alternatives out there to find the ones that really may work. Some may just be proverbial “snake oil” junk.

The most important thing is to not give up. If it doesn’t work find something else. But whatever you choose, whether it is chemo or an alternative, make sure it has a good success rate and it is right for your body.

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day holiday.  Did you have a chance to honor anyone?  As most of us know this is the day we commemorate the men and women from the United States who died while in the military.  It first became a holiday to honor both the Confederate and Union soldiers that died in the Civil War but after World War I it included American casualties in any war.

It is also the day that I celebrate the veterans.  I applaud them as they pass by during the parades.  I go to the cemeteries and watch the ceremonies.  This year my town honored a young soldier that had fought in Iraq and won many medals, but was actually killed while on leave back here in the States.

I also honor my Dad.  He was a veteran of World War II and died in the 1980s.  For many years now I have gone to clean his gravesite on the Saturday before the holiday.  He has two stones, one at his head, and one that was installed by the military at his feet.  I rake the area, clip the grass around the stones, and weed and edge the dirt and grass around them.  After that I wash the stones to make them shine for when my Mother arrives on Monday morning to place a single red rose on the plot.

This year my boy Max joined me.  He was fascinated by what I was doing and immediately joined in.  He is 8 years old and my Father never had the pleasure of meeting him.  This didn’t stop my boy from honoring his Grandfather.  Towards the end of our work I realized I had forgotten something to clean the stones with.  Without a second thought Max took off his tee shirt and rubbed them both down.  It amazes me sometimes the initiative he shows at such a young age.

As we worked I told Max stories about his Granddad.

Dad, his brother, and their father all were in World War II.  My grandfather served in the south pacific while his sons were in Europe.  Dad was a prisoner of war camp guard before joining the army air corps (the precursor to the air force).  He loved to fly and parachute.  When I was my son’s age he would take me out to Orange Massachusetts where there was an airfield.  We would sit on the side of the road and watch the jumpers falling out of the sky.

After the war he got married, worked, and played hard.  He was an extreme skier, parachutist, hunter, and boater.  He gave all of this up when a friend ended up in a body cast for a year from a skiing accident.  In those days there wasn’t any insurance and he wouldn’t be able to afford supporting a wife and a half a dozen kids if he got hurt.

He was a school teacher who also worked several part time jobs to keep food on the table.  And he loved kids.  If he could have, he would have had a dozen.  As it was he had 5 of us; and along with our mother, a couple of cousins, a grandmother, and a grandaunt he had his work cut out for him.

In 1980 he developed throat cancer.  He had been a heavy smoker for years so his doctors weren’t surprised.  To combat his illness they buried gold nuggets into his throat so that they could give him radiation and that seemed to work.

For 5 years he appeared to have recovered but at the same time he was unable to stop smoking.  And then in the end it was discovered that the cancer had spread throughout his body.  It was time for chemotherapy.  This time he lost his hair and wore a wig from then on.  He began to waste away and still he could not stop smoking.  He used to joke about losing his teeth.  He could actually take them out of his mouth with the root intact and then place them back in.  When questioned about the cigarettes he would shrug and say that he had lived a good long life.

In the spring of 1985 I found and put an offer on a house.  Dad cosigned the purchase and sales agreement with me.  I had to keep leaving the real estate office at the time because I kept coughing uncontrollably.  I later found I had walking pneumonia.  I recovered but Dad kept getting sicker and sicker.  At the final signing I went to the office alone and signed the papers.  My Dad was not able to travel then so the agent brought them to his house so he could sign them too.  She actually guided his hand as he wrote his name.

After she left he couldn’t even function.  My brother and I put him in a chair and carried him out to the car while my mother towed his oxygen tank behind us.  After we placed both him and the tank into the car we drove to the hospital down in Boston.  After putting him to bed my Mother placed on the table the usual bowl of M&Ms that my Dad always kept for the nurses during his stays here.  Not long afterward he was loaded up with morphine and entered a drug coma.  This was Saturday, on Tuesday the doctors recommended we take him off of life support.

The doctors were amazed that he fought to stay alive even in his coma.  On Wednesday morning I went to work.  I just couldn’t imagine there would ever be a time when my Dad wouldn’t be around.  But part way through the morning I left the office and went to see him.  I took the elevator up to his floor and waited for the door to open.  At the very moment the door opened my family was standing on the other side waiting to go home.  I missed his death.

The death certificate said “cause of death: pneumonia.”

It took two years for me to finally mourn his death.  In 1987 I was in Jamaica with my brother.  Late one night I was lying on the beach and it finally hit me that he was gone and I wept until the early morning.  I didn’t go to his grave for 9 years after he died.  I don’t know if I blamed him or me for his death but I had dreams constantly of the doctors finding a cure and using it to revive him.

In 1994 I finally visited him at his grave and I have been going several times a year ever since.  And on Saturday Max and I performed our yearly ritual of cleaning his grave as we honored my Dad for all that he did for his country and for his family.