EARLY DETECTION

Over the past four weeks I have covered a lot of ground learning as much as I can about Cancer, why it occurs and how it is treated. I am not trying to learn the medical side that I will leave to the Doctors, but rather the prevention and early detection of the disease. I was "very lucky” that cyst that popped in my neck lead me to an early detection of the cancer I have. However, if I had been half as diligent to the inside of my body as I have been to the outside it might have been detected at an even earlier or a pre-cancerous stage.

Many of us spend a good deal of money keeping fit with gyms, spas, personal trainers, beauty parlors and skin treatments….at a cost of half of that amount we could save ourselves a lot of pain and suffering if not our lives. With our environment, water and soil being as contaminated as it is and with histories of cancer in our families it is time for all of us to be more diligent. Very simply it is time to stop putting off the basic health tests that we should get every year and to take advantage of the technology that is available today that was not there just a few years ago.

Women are a bit better then men getting tests with pap smears and mammograms being part of their lives on a regular basis however don’t count on only one or two tests a year.  A close friend of mine, beautiful, successful, a top photographer in Philly, went diligently every six months for check ups only to find that the Doctor and lab had misread her reports for four years.  She was diagnosed with stage four cancer two years ago.  We thought we were going to lose her.  Fighting like a cat with eight operations, chemo and radiation she survived and is running five miles a day with dogs.  She is building her body and immune system up working with Eric Sauer a registered pharmacist and naturopathic consultant.  I am working with him also and will get back to what he does a later time.

Things you should do right away if you are over forty or have a history of cancer in your family especially men: get a complete physical and blood workup once a year; for both men and women get a colonoscopy. It is painless and can detect cancer at its earliest stages. I was told that rarely does anyone with a healthy liver and digestive system develop cancer. Ask your primary physician to prescribe a P.E.T scan for you. If for any reason your insurance does not cover it …pay for it yourself. This one and half hour procedure scans your entire body and detects the earliest stages of any cancer cells. Now that is early detection, way before it manifests itself to you and your doctor. We all have the potential to develop cancer whether it comes from smoking, drinking and genetics or from pollutants in our environment. What allows the cancer to develop is our immune system being lowered by all of the above and of course stress. I have been the king of stress in the last few years and will be have my second surgery tomorrow followed by chemotherapy and radiation. I guess this story will go on for awhile. I will let you know how it goes.