Keep your friends close, your enemies closer

 
The Emperor of All Maladies:  A Biography of Cancer (Siddhartha Mukherjee).  A little light reading for the beach.

My boy reading Dan Gutman at the beach

I like to read at the beach.  My reading guru friends had recommended a bunch of books for me to take on our trip:  To the End of the Land (David Grossman), Super Sad True Love Story (Gary Shteyngart), and  The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson ).  And, I downloaded them onto my Kindle.  But, first, I read the book about cancer.

Some (Jay) might argue that last year was enough about cancer and that I didn't need to subject myself to a book about cancer.  But, I kind of felt like the book is required reading for anyone who's gone through cancer treatment.  As if I somehow feel (hope) that there is direct relationship between knowing about your disease and surviving your disease--ah, if it were only that simple.  Not so much.

Still, I wanted to keep my friends close and my enemy closer.

A Biography of Cancer is so well written--I almost forgot (not really) it was about cancer.  It is easy for a non math and science person (me) to understand the research, the genetic mutations, and the science of cancer.  And, fascinating for the history and literature person (also me) to learn more about the history of the disease, the treatments and the politics. 

It was enjoyable (in that weird way that books about cancer can be enjoyable), and it made me think.  If cigarettes are the "smoking" gun behind most lung cancers.  And, HPV is the cause of most cervical cancers--and, if bacterial infection and chronic inflammation causes many stomach cancers, what is causing breast cancer?

What caused my breast cancer?

I wonder, what will we know about breast cancer ten years from now that we don't know now?  What is it in women's lives that makes the breast cancer statistic 1 in 8 women in a lifetime?   What are we eating, drinking, breathing, doing that is causing breast cancer? 

Cancer is smart, and cancer is complicated.   And, like many of its hosts, cancer is a survivor. 

My breast cancer (estrogen and progesterone receptor positive) has a standard (and generally successful--fingers crossed) treatment protocol in 2010.  But, wouldn't it be nice, forget nice, wouldn't it be awesome if women didn't have to have their breasts cut off, trudge through four months of chemo and be burned inside and out by radiation for 28 (or more) consecutive days to be treated?

Forget nice, it would be off the charts awesome if we could prevent breast cancer.  It would be ridiculously awesome if my 11 year old daughter and her friends will be able to prevent (not just survive, fingers crossed) breast cancer someday.

For me, I'm working (it's a part time job) on preventing a recurrence.  I go to my follow up appointments at Sloan Kettering, take tamoxifen, get on my treadmill, eat out of non plastic containers, take vitamin D, drink green tea, continue to eat foods on the anti cancer diet (Brussels sprouts, kale, anyone?), keep my body fat down, stay away from high glycemic foods, stay connected to friends, get enough sleep.

And, with Cancer in My Rear View Mirror, we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed.