On the Side | Brad Hicks
Cancer killed my dad’s dad.
Cancer killed my dad’s mom.
Cancer killed my wife’s grandmother, uncle and dad.
This story is not unique to my family. It is repeated throughout families around the world. Cancer is a scourge that nearly all of us share. It’s an indiscriminant attacker, going after the young, the middle-aged, the old, the seemingly healthy, and those who were exposed to materials that led to their condition.
This Saturday, the Montgomery County Relay for Life will be held in downtown Villisca. Cancer survivors and those afflicted will walk to symbolize their battle. Others will walk in memory of a loved one, or in lockstep with those who have, or are, fighting the good fight.
Not everyone has time to join a team and spend six hours or so walking around Villisca’s downtown in support of the fight against cancer. Some people can’t walk. Some people are reluctant to join an event. Some people have to work.
That’s OK, because the fight against cancer is 24-7-365 – and then some.
Several weeks ago, I watched a special on television about the effort to fight cancer at the genetic level, and the great strides that have been made against some types of cancer. My wife watched another program about fluorescing aquatic life in the deep oceans, and how scientists are learning those fluorescing materials can be used as markers to attack cancer cells.
All of these tremendous scientific efforts take money. In the case of the fight at the genetic level, it took the researchers a significant amount of time to be able to test their theories, because they needed financial backing to get other scientists to verify their work.
Donations to events such as the Relay for Life can help local people in terms of managing their treatment, etc. But those donations also help find ways for researchers to finance efforts to battle cancer in new ways.
Our nation spends a lot of money on health care. As we see with the new efforts at Montgomery County Memorial Hospital, there are attempts being launched to create healthier communities. The amount of money spent on cancer in the U.S. has to be staggering, if not incalculable. Besides medical expenses, there are travel, missed work, treatments for side effects, family health and financial impacts going long into the future, higher insurance rates for all – the list is immense.
Progress is being made. In general, people live longer after a cancer diagnosis than they did a generation ago. There is more of a willingness to allow experimental treatments, though often people are forced to pay for those on their own because insurance will not cover them.
Our major news services and political parties do the people of this nation a great disservice in many ways, and one of them is turning health care matters into political ones. This nation has the wherewithal to push scientific discovery like no other place on Earth. Our work in the 1960s and 1970s in the space program is still resulting in paybacks today. We need a “space race” against cancer, and a government that is willing to push investment in science to get it done.
So if you cannot walk this weekend, or some other weekend when the Relay for Life is held in other counties, consider writing your federal lawmakers and the president. Urge them to put more money into fighting the scourge that impacts nearly every single one of us on a daily basis. Let’s take down cancer.
Contact Brad Hicks at publisher@redoakexpress.com.