Another Friend, Diagnosed

My mom called to tell me that another one of my childhood friends has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Mom says, "I keep thinking, all these women of your generation--what did we do that made you all get cancer now?"

I've been pondering this question, since the call. I've been told that the two biggest risks for breast cancer are being female and aging, two factors you can't do anything about. The third is having the BRCA genetic mutations, another uncontrollable roll of the dice.

There is some anecdotal evidence that the wildly popular use of organic chlorine compounds in industry and everyday life after WWII contributes to reproductive cancers in both men and women (note the rise of prostate and testicular cancer rates, along with female cancers). Think about it though. Without the use of chlorine in water supplies and manufacturing, we might have just been felled at an earlier age by bacterial infections.

I once read that if a woman could make it through "the dangerous decade," between ages 50-60 without breast cancer, chances were that you wouldn't get it after 60. Dr. Mark disputes this though, saying that the risk just continues to go up as a woman ages. I just don't know.

Dr. Veltmann believes that the wild swing of hormonal levels in perimenopause and a couple of stress factors "switches on" the cancer response. When he and I traced the probable timeline of my cancer's beginning, I was stunned. "Are you telling me that being on the School Board gave me cancer?" I sputtered! It's a sobering thought, if his theory is right.

No one knows, I guess. All the "preventive" measures are actually just normal healthy living--eat right, exercise, avoid weight gain and excessive toxins. The rest of the guidelines are just early detection exercises, catching it before it has a chance to really get going. That's all they can give us at this point.

I don't think it's anything that my mother's generation did to my generation. I think it's just that all of us who are being diagnosed now are of a certain age, and an unseen cosmic digit fingered us for early termination. Luckily, we also live in a time and a place where most of us can now survive this disease, as devastating and disruptive as the treatments can be.

My friend's chances for long-term are excellent, as it is early and contained. But my heart goes out to her, because I know what she's going through right now, mentally and physically. And even if my mom's collective guilt for her generation is true, there's nothing to be done about it now. We'll just continue to do whatever we can to beat the beast.