Saturday Soapbox

I like making analogies. Always have. It never occurred to me that there might be people in the world who DIDN'T like analogies, who perhaps even ardently disliked them...until I acquired a boyfriend (years ago, water under the bridge) who despised them. That was an odd time (decade), of me trying to figure out how to communicate with a guy who couldn't stand the way I communicated. I mean, using analogies is CORE to my way of articulating myself. Anyway....I'm heading off in a direction that's leading me away from the point of this post.

The point is that a new analogy came to me this morning as I was thinking about an exchange I recently had with a friend about breast cancer and chemotherapy. Nutshell: I said that chemo is useless in most cases of breast cancer. I don't remember the exact percentage, but of all breast cancer cases, the huge majority DO NOT respond to chemo. It's more than 80 percent. I think maybe even 90 percent. This is documented. This is factual. But because doctors do not know which women have one of the minority types of breast cancer that will respond to chemo, they go ahead and prescribe chemo to ALL the women who have the types of breast cancer that don't respond. Slowly, slowly, some tests are being developed so that they can learn how to identify which women's cancers will respond to chemo. But these tests have been too slow in coming, and they are still not OUT THERE yet.

Most women are still subjected to a horrendous and harmful treatment protocol FOR NO GOOD REASON. The women are not helped by it; they are harmed. Their immune systems are severely compromised. Their hormones get messed up. Sometimes they go into early menopause. Their hearts are damaged. Their bones are damaged. Their nerves are damaged. Their brains are damaged (chemo brain, it's called -- and in many women, the damage is permanent, not just temporary, though the doctors won't say that.)

When I started spouting off about this (not for the first time, I admit)  to my friend (and a few other friends who were standing around), I became, as I sometimes do when I get going on this subject, passionate in my expression of my frustration, anger and despair over the situation. This topic is not fun party conversation. Puts a damper on things. Anyway. Okay....

Granted, there was a small breakthrough about two years ago when it was announced at a major annual cancer conference that doctors were over-prescribing chemo to women with breast cancer. So they have cut back A LITTLE. But not nearly enough. Change within the mainstream medical world is slow, slow, slow. And as long as this dependence on such an inadequate and horrific treatment continues, no new and better treatments will be developed. Keep in mind that the drug companies make bijillions of dollars from the chemo industry. Keep in mind that oncologists make the bulk of their income from prescribing and administering chemo. It's all they know.

At one point in my mini-diatribe, my friend spoke up, as she has in the past, to say that she has some dear friends who have gone through chemo and who feel that it saved them. They're proud and glad that they made the right decision for themselves. This was THEIR choice, even though it might not have been mine. She felt, I think, a need to defend them.

I think she was trying to say to me, in essence, "When you denigrate chemo (note from me: for breast cancer, not every kind of cancer) you are also, albeit indirectly, denigrating the women who chose to do it. You are, in a way, insulting them, their intelligence, and their right to opt to follow the advice of their trusted doctors."

I understand how I could be coming across this way. It's as if I'm not supporting other women who have breast cancer. It's as if I'm criticizing them, saying, "You did the wrong thing. It's as if I'm saying, "My way is the only way, and you blew it."

Well, here's my analogy, finally. It's like when you criticize the war, and the war-supporters get upset with you because you're not supporting the troops. But you're not really criticizing the troops per se; you're criticizing the war and the leaders who got us into the damn thing.

By the same token, when I criticize chemo as a breast cancer treatment, I am not criticizing the women who have chosen to do it. I don't mean to disrespect or dismiss them when I'm up railing away, advocating for change. But I can't, in all good conscience, not speak up. Loudly. Insistently. I think that many very intelligent, courageous women have been bamboozled by a system that doesn't respect their right to be given ALL options for treatment -- a system that has patronized and misled too many of us, with too much misinformation.

While I'm at it, I may as well add that I am also critical of our mainstream breast cancer fundraising organizations (ie. the Komen Foundation) because unfortunately their money goes mainly to "research" that I do not support, and their information is totally conventional. They've got thousands of women out there walking and marching "for breast cancer," but I can't get behind the pink ribbons and uninformed party line jargon. These organizations support an ongoing lack of good solid information and education. Women have a right to so much more than these heartfelt but misleading "rallies."

And on that unpopular note, I shall move on to breakfast.
 

Comments

[Blogmaid]

I like your comment that criticizing chemo as a treatment for breast cancer is analogous to criticizing the war — you’re not criticizing the troops, just the way they are being led. My guess it that most women are so scared of this disease, that if they are diagnosed with it they want to do something ASAP, and are more apt to follow the advice of doctors who have gone to medical school than they are of lay people who have done copious amounts of research, particularly if that advice differs so radically. There is probably also a sense of being more able to leave it behind once the treatment is finished, and a feeling that they did all they could to fight the disease. All that being said, I admire the way you have been speaking out and taking control of your treatment on your own terms. How can we make you an authority so that others (ie the mainstream medical establishment) will be more willing to listen?