JUST SO I DON’T SPILL

I have spent so much of the last nine or ten years researching breast cancer, even though I try not to share everything I learn with you, right now I am compelled to share yesterday’s news.

There are a few people on the tube that I really admire so when they say something, I listen. One of those is Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We are tight.

‘Sanjay’ says that the newest revelation in cancer research was the low dose aspirin a day to keep the cancer from returning. That is too easy. If that proves out, there will be a cluster of pharmaceutical companies rushing to refute it. Aspirin is not patentable. Cancer research and treatment is a $200,000,000 industry. It has to be more complicated than that.

They are also claiming that estrogen is being used for the ongoing treatment as well. That too will be fought like the plague. It is not a belief shared by the cancer fighting industry. The toughest period of my life was the year and a half that I was denied estrogen. It ended with a trip to Mexico. I was much more concerned at that time with quality of life. I knew from nothing about the rest.

My adamant following of ‘Sanjay’ was reinforced not long ago when I saw him holding a baby in Haiti and you could see the pain on his face when he had to admit that he couldn’t help the child. He reluctantly handed the baby to a nurse but not without kissing his fingers and placing them on the baby’s head. That kind of caring and empathy go a long way toward healing people (and getting perks from the baby freakazoid in my soul.)

Please hand me the bottle of aspirin.