Viewing cancer: as vicious evil killer, or simply as natural biological process?

Even after all these years I still remember being in high school biology class that day when we were studying bacteria. As an instructional aid, the teacher had set out on a lab table four Petri dishes with clear, gelatin-like growth compound in them, and had sprinkled in each dish little bits of different bacteria samples. The point of the exercise was that over the following days we would see the samples begin to take hold and grow, and we would observe the appearance of different-colored molds, streaks, and such in the different dishes, as the various bacteria began to feed on the compound and grow.

And that's exactly what we saw over the next few days. White spores in one dish,. Black streaks in another, etc. Biology at work!

But I also remember thinking to myself at the time, what a primitive, mindless, soulless kind of life it was, almost more like tiny robots mechanically functioning than living things!

And you know what? That's essentially what cancer is: a primitive, mindless, soulless kind of life. It has no consciousness as far as we know, no sense of purpose other than its own survival, no kind of agenda other than existing, no feelings or emotions, and no perception of a world beyond itself. It's just a thing, a thing that just happens to be alive and within us.

And it's certainly not "out to get us." We are simply "in its way" as it strives to find and consume the resources it needs for its one simple purpose: surviving.

But do we sometimes perhaps allow our thinking to go beyond that "logical" view? Do we in fact sometimes think of cancer, perhaps at a subconscious level, in the same way we would think of a wicked, evil assassin with a razor-sharp knife, ready to stab us mortally at every opportunity, and pursue us to our demise, and we can't get away from him?

Perhaps it's easier for us to think of it that way, to imagine that it's like a monstrous evil human after us, or perhaps a mischievous demon, rather than as a kind of mindless biological bulldozer, simply rolling over anything in its path.

Perhaps it really is easier to visualize our enemy as purposed, driven, intense and evil, something we feel we can understand and face directly, rather than as a mindless biological machine that knows and cares nothing about us, other than that we provide it with the means for it to continue being the mindless biological machine that it is.

No, this view does nothing to stop this beast or slow it down. But perhaps just examining the psychology of how we perceive this thing may provide us with a better means of looking at and coping with this beast on an emotional level.

If some afternoons we stay out in the yard too long, and forget our sunscreen or hats, and we get sunburned, it wasn't because the sun was "out to get us." It was simply the result of laws of nature and biology at work, with the result that, according to predictable scientific pattern, skin tissue was damaged as a function of increased radiation exposure. There was no malicious intent involved, just the operation of natural law.

Perhaps it helps us to realize that that's all that cancer, or any disease actually, is: a natural process, subject to natural law. But it is also possible that it is curable by the application of remedies, according to natural law.

And that's what gives us hope. Cures for disease are made possible by natural law just as much as causes of disease are.

But in the meantime, for some it may prove useful to do this, to view cancer as just a natural process of biological, chemical and physical applications of natural laws, with no specifically malicious intent, while for others it may make no difference.

But understanding the psychology that all of this involves is surely helpful.

Jack –

Well, it looks like the two of us do have a couple of things in common, namely prostatitis (I assume yours is chronic, like mine?) and having had a TURP.

To your questions. No, my case of prostatitis has never cleared up, and I still have the standard symptoms I have always had that became apparent around age 60. Classic symptoms, primarily random groin area pain, pain during urination on a regular basis, urinary frequency getting worse (especially as time went by).

Foolishly, I ignored these symptoms for a long time, as their presence was unpleasant, but had not become so painful that I felt compelled to seek medical aid.

Of course that all changed in June 2011 when the BPH I was having became so severe that I was forced to seek medical help. A TURP operation followed about a month later, bringing excellent relief from the BPH troubles, but not helping with the prostatitis symptoms which continued. My uro during that period put me on Ciprofloxacin, which did not help. Later he followed up with Uribel and Pyridium for associated issues, but neither of them helped either.

So it looks like I have the form of prostatitis that is chronic and non-bacterial, and non-responsive to antibiotics. In other words, I'll probably have to continue to live with it.

Unfortunately, another symptom was added following IMRT treatment for the PCa, which was Dx'd in December 2011. It seems that I now sometimes see blood in my urine following any kind of heavy lifting or heavy exercise that stretches the muscles in the bladder area. My uro diagnosed the problem as my now having brittle capillaries in my bladder wall (made so by the repeated radiation treatments) which occasionally break and spill blood into my urine. He said it was a symptom of "radiation cystitis." If you are interested, I discussed this in a forum thread here once: .

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=2968471

(Page down a few screens to see my post).

Did you say you were doing AS? How's that going? Would you like to tell us about it?.

81guy
Yes I did, I'm not sure about anyone else, but the not knowing what is going on can get a person down.
I would like to get on with life but AS keeps you in limbo,always looking forward to the next psa and hoping it will be ok.i now understand why some professionals say to stop psa tests after 75,not sure I agree, all I know the waiting isn't the greatest feeling.
Jack

Has no meaning unless it kills you...wait a minute...if it kills you...the meaning can only affect your love ones...but what the heck...means nothing to you...your dead... so its all good...wait a minute...Im confused...say again TA...

It's a just a disease. Our society still likes to overboard and make everything either, "evil" or "good."

The process just is and has no motivation of it's own.

Peace,
Andrew

To Hopeforall:

Yes, AS keeps us in Limbo. (Actually, the Pope recently pronounced that Limbo is not real), but I was raised that way and know what you mean.

But, the big benefit of strictly following an AS protocol is that you keep avoiding the SE's of treatments. Why have to deal with those QOL issues if your diagnostics (in the opinion of your PCa specialists) do not warrant it?

Here is a good link, written by Tall Allen, for you to read over:

https://prostatecancerinfolink.net/2016/07/07/can-a-man-be-too-young-for-active-surveillance/

No good...no evil...As the Vlasic stork...with a decent imitation of Groucho{not Grumpy or Karl}Marx said
"thats the most ridiculous thing I ever hoId "

Aging/StJude's/Pravda?...refer to quote above!... Read the exorcist sometime...read da book...not da movie....Mo Bettah....