“Do you smoke,” asked The New Doctor (TND). I said no, I quit some 15 years ago when I
gave up my beloved pipes, tampers, tobacco pouches, reamer, two kinds of tobaccos
mixed just so, and the little fuzzy wire and fabric cleaners you can wrap
around a finger and make into springs, to the delight of all children. So no, I
don’t smoke. Good, he said, because we both knew that a prime cause of bladder
cancer is either tar or nicotine, or both. (This being said, like with people who
get lung cancer 20 years after quitting, the damage may already have been
done.)
He guided the scope gently and said, “Ah,” which is never
good. “There are recurrences. Do you want to see them?” Not really, but I
looked at the overhead monitor anyway. Yes, here and there, several small areas
that were no longer a healthy pink but instead seemed to have mold on them. So
that’s what cancer looks like? Bathroom mold? How mundane, how quotidian and not
good. Not good at all. “And there seems to be an area over here that looks
abnormal as well. Well, we’ll have to do a biopsy again. At the hospital, I suppose.”
He stripped off his sky blue latex gloves. “I’m glad you don’t smoke.”
It takes me a few days to wonder why he doesn’t ask about
other agents either known or believed to cause the disease. Cell phones, second-hand smoke, smog, sugar
substitutes like Equal and Certa and whatever the stuff in pink packages is
called. What about caffeine and red meat and irradiated vegetables? Tomatoes
sprayed to look redder and bananas large enough to colonize small nations?
Stress-causing bureaucrats and gridlock? Well, perhaps not the last two…
I drink several cups of very strong decaf coffee a day, and
sweeten them with the artificial yellow stuff. I cook simple foods—stews, rice
dishes, omelets, whole wheat pasta. Could any of these have caused my cancer’s
resurgence? And what of the hours I spend each day before a computer screen
that, I suppose, may emit death rays I am not even aware of. What of the
35-inch flat screen television set? The Boze radio, the iPad and Kindle and
Sony laptop? The airport scanners and magnetic anti-theft gizmos in the entrances
of stores? Those new light-bulbs that look like coiled snakes and the traffic
cameras and radar guns? And of course all the plastic and Styrofoam containers
that keep our food safe from microbes and other pollutants.
I have mentioned all of these items—and there are a lot more
of their ilk—because at one point it was widely held they might be
cancer-causing. In some cases, the jury is still out. Cell phones have not been
around long enough to make definitive studies, but even meat grilled over
charcoal on an outdoor barbecue is thought to have potentially nasty
side-effects and we really have no clear idea, cancer-wise, of what a long-term
fast-food diet might imply.
Me, (a little humor here, be warned) I’d be tempted to say
the list should include people who say “You know” a lot, Asian ladies who turn
left in front of me without signaling, men shod in sandals in winter, and any
woman wearing a full burka while shopping at Victoria’s Secret.
I suppose my point is that really, we have no idea what
causes what. It would be easy to blame any appurtenance of modern-day life but
probably foolish to do so. We do know that, according to Third World Network
(TWN), an independent non-profit international organization, “During the past
20 years, at least 30 new diseases have emerged, for many of which there is no
treatment, cure or vaccine, or the possibility of effective prevention or
control.” Additionally, the inappropriate use of antibiotics “has resulted in
increased antimicrobial resistance and is seriously threatening drug control
strategies against such common diseases as tuberculosis, malaria, cholera,
dysentery and pneumonia.”
And while there has been a slight decrease in cancer-related
deaths between 2004 and 2008, other forms of the disease are on the upswing: there
are been a marked increase in oropharyngeal, esophageal and HPV-linked cancers;
liver, thyroid, pancreatic and kidney cancers, melanoma and head and neck cancers,
particularly among the poor. According to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer
Facts and Figures, in 2012 an estimated 1,640,000 cancer cases were reported,
with an estimated 577,000 deaths. Damn. That’s a lot of cancer, and in a very
weird way, it makes me feel better to know I’m just a statistic and not the
object of vengeful karma. But only the tiniest bit better.
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