Know what got the message to “never give up“? Cancer cells. Yes these tenacious buggers keep outwitting even the most lethal treatments. We hoped immunotherapy would be a panacea, and it does prolong life for many patients, but now we learn that eventually, cancer can mutate and return. Target cells so that radiation can attack them? Great idea yet they outsmart. Our own macrophages destroy cancer all the time but cancer cells are finding a way around our natural immunities. Just this month so many scientific breakthroughs and yet….cancer survives.
Tell us something we don’t know. Yes these demon cells have survival instincts, and we are only just learning how very clever and devious they are. But when you put a challenged body with a determined brain and a bold, loving, courageous heart, the cancer “patient” actually has the advantage.
“Doc, it seems impossible and I am trying, and I am up for anything.” That is why science will not give up on you. Our own will to live is so great that we again and again triumph against the odds. We all personally know cancer survivors, many in our own families. Look to what people will do to survive any life-threatening, devastating situation. In Nepal just this week they are pulling people out of tunnels, finding them under the muddy rubble, deep in buildings and at no point giving up. Recall the miraculous Thai cave rescue (Netflix) of the soccer team, remarkable will to live and to rescue.
The desire and the force for survival is fierce. You don’t have to be a mother who lifts a car. You can learn CPR ( because we are all living as seniors) and bring someone back. You can rescue a child who fell in a pool. You can drop everything to come to someone’s aid. While remarkable research keeps tackling, life keeps going on and giving us opportunities to keep surviving. It isn’t always the fittest, it often is the most vulnerable. So have faith that although cancer is tricky (an understatement) there are millions surviving now, even if not fully cured or cancer free, living their best life with and in spite of disease.
While so much effort is ongoing for cancer cures, perhaps we just need to look to this tenacious spirit of survival to understand that it isn’t the disease, it is the desire.