From: "Dr. D. Kossove" <doctordee@telkomsa.net>
Subject: I Didn't Give Myself Cancer   by Barbara Sigmund
Date: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 7:05 PM

Date:    Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:56:56 -0500
From:    Suzie Siegel <suziesiegel@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: great article

Although I'm not Christian, I really like this
article, which ran in 1989 in the New York Times.
Barbara Sigmund has since died. My apologies for the
long post.
I Didn't Give Myself Cancer
by Barbara Sigmund
Whatever happened to the tragic sense of life?

In late October, a medical exam revealed that my eye
cancer--an ocular
melanoma--had spread to various parts of my body.
Very soon thereafter, the
self-help books started arriving. I had caused my own
cancer, they told me,
so it was up to me to cure it.

"Bull," exclaimed my husband, when I informed him of
having this interesting
new fact to face so soon on the heels of the news
itself. (When my husband
exclaims like that, you must understand, the bull can
still be seen on the
not-too-distant horizon.) "What about babies? Did
they cause their own
cancer"?

Good question, and one that I had reason to
contemplate directly. A few days
later, I watched three, four, and five-year-old kids
with cancer dance, sing
and play insouciantly at a dinner for the Emmanuel
Cancer Foundation, a New
Jersey society set up to support children with cancer
and their families.

Clearly, these children had not "caused" their own
cancer through "stress"
in their young lives or "lack of self-love" or
a "need to be ill" or a "wish
to die." No, they had been struck by a hydra-headed
sickness that lists
where it will.

And so it is with most of us with cancer. I did not
cause my own disease.
Overexposure to the sun is the only known suspect in
melanoma, but the sun
hasn't glimpsed my head unhatted nor my skin unoiled
for decades. Only
people who deliberately use or expose themselves to
proved carcinogens can
justly be accused of self-inflicted cancer.

Perhaps, then, I've just been too "good," although I
can muster a sizable
loyal opposition on that one. In a turnabout of the
age-old agonized
question asking why bad things happen to good people,
we are now told
that--aha!!--bad things happen only to good people
(so repressed, you know).
Cancer cells are internalized anger gone on a field
trip all over all
bodies. Give me a break.

But, say the gentle proponents of the self-cure
books, what you are
objecting to is merely "the dark side" of those
theories. Don't forget, I'm
reminded, these books also tell you how to heal
yourself.

Yes. And everywhere I turn I see evidence that the
last frontier of rugged
individualism in American is relentless self-belief.
Even in the beauty
parlor, I run across a book excerpt trumpeting, once
again, that the only
limit on the success and happiness we can achieve is
the belief in limits
themselves. No racism, sexism, sickness, poverty or
just plain lack of
talent need apply.

But, alas, there is more to fear than fear itself.
Evil, illness, accident,
injustice and bad luck strike the self-improved and
unimproved alike.

Does this mean I don't believe there is any merit to
theories that positive
and more loving attitudes can't help us bear and
possibly cure our
sicknesses, even cancer? Or that changes in ourselves
and the way we live
can't influence these things? Of course not. After
all, almost 2,000 years
ago, Jesus instructed the man he healed at the
Bethesda pool that he should
go his way and sin no more.

But seven years ago, I lost my eye to cancer. This
time, the odds are better
than even that I will lose my life. And it simply
doesn't help to tell me
that, rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, I can beat the odds if
only I learn to love
myself enough. Of course, I want to live. I'm at the
top of my form, happy,
useful, looking forward to new challenges. My boys
are in their early
twenties now, and I want to see their lives unfold.
And I long for that
first merry dumpling of a grandchild, whom I can all
but taste and feel,
should one of those boys ever get around to doing
this duty.

But if I die, I don't want to feel like a failure. My
doctor tells me I've
embarked on an unknown trail. He does' know of anyone
else with melanoma who
had undergone my particular chemotherapy. It's scary;
I want the dignity of
that reality.

I want to face the reality of randomness in life, as
well. We humans would
rather accept culpability than chaos, but randomness
is the law of life.
That's not altogether bad. As my youngest son reminds
me, the chances of
getting better are better than my chances of ever
having been alive at all.

It's dicey, though, by definition. I continue to need
all of the prayers and
good wishes, positive energy fields and love that I
have been graced with
these last weeks. I also need friends who tell me
they kick at doors and
utter foul words on my behalf.

It isn't through lack of love in return that I report
that picturing white
blood cells as so many little men of war against the
cancer cells, "imaging"
techniques, or a no-nonsense American determination
to redirect their lives
may be fine and life-giving for others, but not for
me. I'm sticking with
the medal of Jesus and Mary around my neck and
novenas to St. Jude. It's
strictly a utilitarian decision. The data base of
success stories is larger
by far.

And I can always fall back on that eighth century
scamp, Eric the Viking,
who bellows across the centuries, "You can fight the
gods, and still have a
good time."
 