In addition to Pumpkin Spice everything, October has become cancer awareness month. I’ve been more than aware of cancer for many years. My dad died of cancer, and I’ve worked both personally and professionally with many people over the years who have battled this horrific disease.
Cancer sucks, but I am not one of those people who walk for a cure or think pink.
Why don’t I support organizations that focus on raising awareness or supposedly curing cancer? For one thing, I’m not convinced that all that much fundraising actually goes to research that will find a “cure”. But more importantly I feel strongly that we need to be looking closely at causes instead.
Here’s a story that explains my philosophy:
One summer in the village, while the people in a town gathered for a picnic, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown!
Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the townspeople were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river.
“Where are you going?” shouted one of the rescuers. “We need you here to help us save these babies!”
“We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!”
It is clear to me that my calling is to work upstream. And focus on what we can do to reduce cancer.
Prevention is not always sexy.
Me, back in my drill fill and bill days of the roaring 90’s – circa 1995
I’ll never know how many root canals I prevented by spending extra time encouraging parents to brush their kid’s teeth and drink water instead of juice.
I’ll never know how many cases of cancer were prevented by my public education efforts around diet soda, cottonseed oil and other hazardous ingredients.
For October, I plan to write more about how to prevent cancer. Let’s pause and find the cause. The life you save may be your own, or someone you love.
