I'm Sorry...Did She Eat Dairy?
By Jolina Petersheim
My senior year of college, I was giving a tour for campus admissions when we passed the chemistry department. I informed the prospective student and her mother that University of the Cumberlands had lost the pharmacy school they had planned to build.
"I'm glad they're not going to build the pharmacy school," the prospective student's mother retorted. "You can't poison people's poison and expect them to regain their health."
I had known the mother was a holistic health nut from a mile away: the lean, marathon-runner's body, carrot juice-tinted skin, teeth so white they rivaled those on Pepsodent commercials, and a confidence chanting, "I am in control of my body!"
I purposefully ignored her and continued highlighting the attributes of the quaint campus.
Heedless of my nonverbal cues, she continued her rant, "The reason cancer is so prevalent in our country are all those toxins we put into our body."
I felt my body bristling as I battled to maintain a professional demeanor. I remembered my best friend after drinking her first Barium sulfate shake, her face stark white and clammy from nausea, her eyes glimmering in fear. I remembered the clumps of auburn hair that fell from her head, swathing her shoulders like a cloak. I remembered the months spent worrying the cancer would never leave--the months spent worrying the cancer would return.
"Our family are all vegetarians and runners," the mother said, digging a hand into her bushy brown hair and shrugging. "It's just the way to live. If you eat healthy and maintain an active lifestyle, cancer cannot exist in your body."
Feigning a smile while inside I seethed, I said, "What happens when you are a vegetarian, eat organically, maintain an active lifestyle, and you still get cancer?"
The woman paused in her walking and searched my eyes, "That really can't happen because cancer would have nothing to thrive on in that environment."
I felt both triumphant and defeated as I revealed, "My best friend has cancer, and she did all of those things."
"I'm sorry," the woman murmured touching my arm, "did she eat dairy?"
A dogmatic ideology such as this is an example of how our society seems to blame people for having cancer instead of offering assistance to alleviate the disease.
It is almost as if we believe by finding something or someone to blame for the problem, the problem with be unable to affect our own lives. If we make it a point to avoid red meat, the milkshakes at Dairy Queen, hydrogenated oil, processed sugar, distilled water, the sun, florescent lighting, aluminum-based deodorant, fluoride toothpaste, standing under power lines or in front of the microwaves and--the newly discovered--talking on cell phones, we are told by homeopathic physicians that our health will remain intact and our lives fulfilled.
This theory seems presumptuous considering cancer is the world's top killer, and that by 2030, there will be 75 million people living with cancer around the globe. (*) Look around you: at the grocery store, in your children's classrooms, while you're cashing a check at the bank. How many of these people, regardless of diet or lifestyle, will be affected by cancer in the years to come?
There is no doubt a plan of action needs to be created to prevent this epidemic from completely ravaging our world. In the meantime, the first question we need answered is how to help cancer patients who are struggling with the disease today.
We can help by saying we are sorry simply because cancer has chosen their bodies to afflict, not use those two words as a tag line introducing a new product to eradicate their cancerous cells. We can help by learning how to employ supportive silence rather than a list of health spas or herbs.We can help by allowing them to eat what they want to when they want to rather than putting them on a raw fruits and veggies regime that would cause a dietician to rebel. Most of all, we can help by learning how to treat cancer patients normally. For those with cancer already have enough doctors and nurses poking and prodding them; they do not need the additional intrusion of a well-meaning family member or friend. Even though it is terrifying to know a common cold could place them into the hospital, we need to keep our mouths shut when they whip off their mask to take a sip of summer air. We need to allow the cancer patients to walk barefoot if they want to-even if we fear they will cut their feet and lose those carefully stored platelets.
But, the second and far more difficult question we need answered is how to rebuke the people who believe they already have the solution to dealing with cancer without having first experienced cancer in their own lives.
How do we stop them from coming up to us with all the charisma and bouncy hair of a pep-rallying cheerleader, offering the "cure-all" through reverse-osmosis water purifiers, The Hallelujah Diet book, and quarter-sized antioxidant tablets? How can we possibly do this without offending them to the same extent we have been offended?
Instead of smiling while inside we seethe or conking them over the head with their carrot juice container, we should tell them it is discouraging for cancer patients and their families when someone, completely removed from the situation, comes up and offers a solution to the problem their oncologists have been trying to solve for years. We should tell their "cure-all" makes it hard for cancer patients to think all those hours spent retching into a bucket after having their veins injected with chemotherapy were possibly all for naught. We should them those with cancer do have mirrors. They can see the patchy baldness, the yellowed skin, the ringed eyes; they do not need the assistance of a "helpful" stranger to remind them of their disease, and their need for a cure. We should tell them that until they have truly placed themselves inside the cancer patient's body, they have no right to tell her or him what to do with it.
But the majority of those who should be reading this, who should be placing themselves inside the cancer patient's body, never actually will until they too become the one out of three who are diagonosed with cancer. For until that point arrives, the ideas surrounding cancer create too much fear about catching it. A fear that even though they run marathons, chug carrot juice, and avoid dairy products like the eighth deadly sin, they too might one day succumb to statistics (that regardlesss of diet and lifestyle) are not in our favor.
(*)Stobbe, Mike. "Cancer to be world's top killer by 2010, WHO says." USA Today 9 Dec. 2008. The Associated Press. 17 June 2009
Jolina Petersheim's most personal experience with cancer began when her best friend (of 18 years) was diagnosed with cancer her sophomore year in college. Since then, she has watched her battle Hodgkins Lymphoma twice and receive a bone marrow transplant last summer. While her friend recovered on Vanderbilt's 11 North, Jolina was nicknamed "Florence Nightingale" as she spent the better part of that summer beside her. A year later, her friend is the recipient of a clean PET scan and bone marrow biopsy. Jolina is a graduate from University of the Cumberlands with degrees in English and communication arts. Her work has been published in Washington Poets Association, Pensworth, Branchwood Journal, The Patriot, and The Robertson County Times. She lives near Cookeville, Tennessee with her husband on 40 acres of untamed territory.
"I'm glad they're not going to build the pharmacy school," the prospective student's mother retorted. "You can't poison people's poison and expect them to regain their health."
I had known the mother was a holistic health nut from a mile away: the lean, marathon-runner's body, carrot juice-tinted skin, teeth so white they rivaled those on Pepsodent commercials, and a confidence chanting, "I am in control of my body!"
I purposefully ignored her and continued highlighting the attributes of the quaint campus.
Heedless of my nonverbal cues, she continued her rant, "The reason cancer is so prevalent in our country are all those toxins we put into our body."
I felt my body bristling as I battled to maintain a professional demeanor. I remembered my best friend after drinking her first Barium sulfate shake, her face stark white and clammy from nausea, her eyes glimmering in fear. I remembered the clumps of auburn hair that fell from her head, swathing her shoulders like a cloak. I remembered the months spent worrying the cancer would never leave--the months spent worrying the cancer would return.
"Our family are all vegetarians and runners," the mother said, digging a hand into her bushy brown hair and shrugging. "It's just the way to live. If you eat healthy and maintain an active lifestyle, cancer cannot exist in your body."
Feigning a smile while inside I seethed, I said, "What happens when you are a vegetarian, eat organically, maintain an active lifestyle, and you still get cancer?"
The woman paused in her walking and searched my eyes, "That really can't happen because cancer would have nothing to thrive on in that environment."
I felt both triumphant and defeated as I revealed, "My best friend has cancer, and she did all of those things."
"I'm sorry," the woman murmured touching my arm, "did she eat dairy?"
A dogmatic ideology such as this is an example of how our society seems to blame people for having cancer instead of offering assistance to alleviate the disease.
It is almost as if we believe by finding something or someone to blame for the problem, the problem with be unable to affect our own lives. If we make it a point to avoid red meat, the milkshakes at Dairy Queen, hydrogenated oil, processed sugar, distilled water, the sun, florescent lighting, aluminum-based deodorant, fluoride toothpaste, standing under power lines or in front of the microwaves and--the newly discovered--talking on cell phones, we are told by homeopathic physicians that our health will remain intact and our lives fulfilled.
This theory seems presumptuous considering cancer is the world's top killer, and that by 2030, there will be 75 million people living with cancer around the globe. (*) Look around you: at the grocery store, in your children's classrooms, while you're cashing a check at the bank. How many of these people, regardless of diet or lifestyle, will be affected by cancer in the years to come?
There is no doubt a plan of action needs to be created to prevent this epidemic from completely ravaging our world. In the meantime, the first question we need answered is how to help cancer patients who are struggling with the disease today.
We can help by saying we are sorry simply because cancer has chosen their bodies to afflict, not use those two words as a tag line introducing a new product to eradicate their cancerous cells. We can help by learning how to employ supportive silence rather than a list of health spas or herbs.We can help by allowing them to eat what they want to when they want to rather than putting them on a raw fruits and veggies regime that would cause a dietician to rebel. Most of all, we can help by learning how to treat cancer patients normally. For those with cancer already have enough doctors and nurses poking and prodding them; they do not need the additional intrusion of a well-meaning family member or friend. Even though it is terrifying to know a common cold could place them into the hospital, we need to keep our mouths shut when they whip off their mask to take a sip of summer air. We need to allow the cancer patients to walk barefoot if they want to-even if we fear they will cut their feet and lose those carefully stored platelets.
But, the second and far more difficult question we need answered is how to rebuke the people who believe they already have the solution to dealing with cancer without having first experienced cancer in their own lives.
How do we stop them from coming up to us with all the charisma and bouncy hair of a pep-rallying cheerleader, offering the "cure-all" through reverse-osmosis water purifiers, The Hallelujah Diet book, and quarter-sized antioxidant tablets? How can we possibly do this without offending them to the same extent we have been offended?
Instead of smiling while inside we seethe or conking them over the head with their carrot juice container, we should tell them it is discouraging for cancer patients and their families when someone, completely removed from the situation, comes up and offers a solution to the problem their oncologists have been trying to solve for years. We should tell their "cure-all" makes it hard for cancer patients to think all those hours spent retching into a bucket after having their veins injected with chemotherapy were possibly all for naught. We should them those with cancer do have mirrors. They can see the patchy baldness, the yellowed skin, the ringed eyes; they do not need the assistance of a "helpful" stranger to remind them of their disease, and their need for a cure. We should tell them that until they have truly placed themselves inside the cancer patient's body, they have no right to tell her or him what to do with it.
But the majority of those who should be reading this, who should be placing themselves inside the cancer patient's body, never actually will until they too become the one out of three who are diagonosed with cancer. For until that point arrives, the ideas surrounding cancer create too much fear about catching it. A fear that even though they run marathons, chug carrot juice, and avoid dairy products like the eighth deadly sin, they too might one day succumb to statistics (that regardlesss of diet and lifestyle) are not in our favor.
(*)Stobbe, Mike. "Cancer to be world's top killer by 2010, WHO says." USA Today 9 Dec. 2008. The Associated Press. 17 June 2009
Jolina Petersheim's most personal experience with cancer began when her best friend (of 18 years) was diagnosed with cancer her sophomore year in college. Since then, she has watched her battle Hodgkins Lymphoma twice and receive a bone marrow transplant last summer. While her friend recovered on Vanderbilt's 11 North, Jolina was nicknamed "Florence Nightingale" as she spent the better part of that summer beside her. A year later, her friend is the recipient of a clean PET scan and bone marrow biopsy. Jolina is a graduate from University of the Cumberlands with degrees in English and communication arts. Her work has been published in Washington Poets Association, Pensworth, Branchwood Journal, The Patriot, and The Robertson County Times. She lives near Cookeville, Tennessee with her husband on 40 acres of untamed territory.
