It is not quite politically correct to write a post on my repugnance towards chemotherapy particularly as I have allowed it to enter my beloved's body. Was I seduced by medical glib? Was it the constant repetition of friends and dear ones stating that this cancer - Hodgkin's - responded well to chemo? Was it that even my Tibetan doctor reiterated the same? Was it because the decision I had to take would have to meet the aspirations of others who were chemo believers? I do not know. All I know is I said yes to the one thing I never wanted in my life. cancer had taken my parents not chemo!
The primogenitor of chemo was mustard gas, the very gas that killed millions in the second world war. The logic is that if chemo kills cells that divide then it will cancer cells. Now it will also kill cells in your bone marrow, intestinal tract and so on. We hope the good cells will resuscitate and proliferate. Mustard Gas was a weapon of mass destruction. When such weapons are used they destroy everyone: soldiers, children, women, old people etc. But we know that all will die. It is not as if the innocents will rise from the dead.
Chemo is a choice. But not an easy one as it is a sort of lie. Disraeli once stated that 'There are three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics.' Chemo falls in the third category. Statistics are often presented in a somewhat false way and you get 'statistic-ed.'!
I was first told by the first oncologist I met at the hospital where Ranjan was being treated that Hodgkin's was 80% curable! By the time we began chemo the odds were 60/40! 60 for cure and 40 for what cancer specialists call remission.
Now hang on. We are all on remission from the instant we are born. As Oriana Fallaci says in her Letter to an Unborn child: Life is a death sentence. So cut out the remission bit.
So to me a drug whose objective is to poison the system-creating horrendous pain and illness often worse than the disease itself makes little sense.
The primogenitor of chemo was mustard gas, the very gas that killed millions in the second world war. The logic is that if chemo kills cells that divide then it will cancer cells. Now it will also kill cells in your bone marrow, intestinal tract and so on. We hope the good cells will resuscitate and proliferate. Mustard Gas was a weapon of mass destruction. When such weapons are used they destroy everyone: soldiers, children, women, old people etc. But we know that all will die. It is not as if the innocents will rise from the dead.
Chemo is a choice. But not an easy one as it is a sort of lie. Disraeli once stated that 'There are three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics.' Chemo falls in the third category. Statistics are often presented in a somewhat false way and you get 'statistic-ed.'!
I was first told by the first oncologist I met at the hospital where Ranjan was being treated that Hodgkin's was 80% curable! By the time we began chemo the odds were 60/40! 60 for cure and 40 for what cancer specialists call remission.
Now hang on. We are all on remission from the instant we are born. As Oriana Fallaci says in her Letter to an Unborn child: Life is a death sentence. So cut out the remission bit.
So to me a drug whose objective is to poison the system-creating horrendous pain and illness often worse than the disease itself makes little sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment