REMISSION

This blog began innocently enough, but turned out to be one of the most difficult I’ve ever written.  I’ve said before that cancer affects you in ways you just don’t see coming.  Remission is very similar.  When your cancer is active, it completely takes over your life.  It directs your every thought – waking and sleeping.  It fills your weekly planner with labs, treatments, Dr. appointments, scans.  It even dictates your outlook on life – on a minute to minute basis. Your daily activities revolve around how your weakened body feels that day – do I have an appetite? do I have any energy to do anything?

   

Then one day, suddenly and thankfully, you find yourself with nowhere that you have to be. Your clean, blank calendar stretches out before you – no scheduled labs for a month, a returning appetite, returning hair, a slowly rising energy level, very few restrictions, and you honestly don’t know what to do with yourself.  I know, it sounds absolutely ludicrous.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I thank God every minute of every day that I made it to remission, but I still feel sort of lost.  I’ve actually made it into remission three times now, so you would think I’d be used to it. I have gotten better at handling it – but now I think I’ve gone overboard.  I’ve started a few lengthy, involved projects that were probably better left alone.  Now I’m stressful and overwhelmed every time I look at the pile of “stuff” I’m not getting done.  But that’s another story for another day!

While I was thinking about my feelings and about putting them down on paper, I decided to look up the word remission.  “Remission” is classified as a “period of time when the cancer is responding to treatment or is under control. In a complete cancer remission, all the signs and symptoms of the disease disappear.”  As a rule, remission does not mean “cure.”  It can, but it usually doesn’t.  A cancer cannot be cured without a remission; however, a remission does not always ensure that the cancer has been totally eliminated.  

I went a little further onto some other websites that looked reliable.  I thought I’d do a little research on how others handle it.  BIG MISTAKE!  Remember how I warned you a few months ago about using caution and common sense when reading about medical issues online.  You don’t always know where the information is coming from – possibly from someone’s warped sense of humor or from a person trying to further his/her absurd agenda.  I came across an article that looked promising.  I printed 8 pages and sat down with a glass of wine to read them.  Honest to God, I was depressed for 3 days over what I read.  No joke!  I finally had to shake myself and remind my distressed psyche that this was only one person’s opinion.  He/she definitely had an agenda – not to mention a huge chip on his/her shoulder, and probably a few ongoing litigations against Oncologists.

Since it’s not my goal to depress you or anyone, I’ll just give you a few lines from these 8 pages.  Be aware that the rest was much, much worse – but I think you’ll get the idea.

• When a cancer patient is put into “remission” there is always the concern the cancer will come back.  This is called regression.  For some types of cancer, the regression rate for orthodox medicine is nearly 100%.  In fact, in most cases when the doctor says the patient is in remission, he or she knows they did not get it all and that the cancer will come back.  It is a business tactic to keep the patient loyal to their oncologist. 

• Regardless of what causes a person to get cancer, orthodox cancer treatments proceed to totally dismantle any remaining remnant of the patient’s immune system.  The patient may have started with a weak immune system when they were diagnosed, but the more treatments they have, their immune system just gets weaker and weaker.  Thus, the cancer patient has virtually zero immune system by the time their doctors say they’re in “remission” and are sent home to die.
• Not only does a cancer patient in remission have a vastly weakened immune system, but any cancer cells which form will automatically have no enemy to get rid of them.
• The patient who is in “remission” is frequently told that they should stay on chemotherapy for life.  This is because chemo can never kill ALL the cancer cells and chemo can never restore the immune system.  What a highly profitable tactic!!  The ultimate goal of orthodox medicine is to have a world full of people who are on chemo for life.  This is exactly how to turn cancer into a chronic disease, in the rare cases where the cancer patient lived long enough to go into remission.  

The article ended by attempting to sell cancer patients – especially those lucky “few who actually make it to remission" – a product which promises to replace missing and damaged cells, rebuild the digestive tract, kill dangerous microbes in the bloodstream, and probably grow hair and cure nail fungus.  

I’m sure you’re wondering why I continued to read this drivel.  Because I’m an eternal optimist and I kept thinking something worthwhile would come out of it.  I actually did stop when they began to discuss “coffee enemas.”  Stupid, stupid me!  If you come across something like this, please don’t waste your time or upset yourself.  Learn from my mistakes and hit the delete button.  

  

This entire episode reminded me of the time I received a turquoise ribbon pin, representing support for Ovarian Cancer patients.  It was attached to a card with some statistics on the back.  I hadn’t really read the card until a few months after my diagnosis and surgery.  You have to remember that this was during the time when I couldn’t watch doctor shows, anything with blood or sickness, and I didn’t want to read anything about PPO – Primary Peritoneal Ovarian Cancer.  Imagine that – me, the Clinical Researcher – afraid to research my own disease.  So, this particular day I was feeling a little braver and more optimistic about my situation.  Things were going well, I was beginning to heal, the chemo drugs seemed to be working – and I read the card.  It informed me that “most women are diagnosed when the chance of survival for 5 years is about 30%.”  Even though I knew my odds, I really didn’t want to see it in black and white.  I’m currently into my 5^th year and feeling wonderful.  I intend to beat these odds, too!

Even though I knew this article was written by a gypsy-born, snake oil salesman, it still hit that soft spot deep inside.  The one that knows we’re all going to die, but is afraid to leave the party first!    

SURVIVAL TIP FOR TODAY:  Don’t waste your life reading depressing nonsense – there’s enough of that on the nightly news.  Put articles full of gibberish into the round file – that’s where mine went!