Connections

The Blog That Builds Hope.

The Legacy

My first born is having her first born. My daughter has turned me into a grandfather, and I could not be happier. Though this grandchild is not due until next summer, I am already filled with anticipation and joy for the coming birth. I believe life is a gift from God, and that my children came through my wife and I, but they came from God. With that gift comes the responsibility of imparting some wisdom. The one thing we cannot have in our youth is wisdom. You can be young and smart; you can be young and brilliant; but wisdom takes experience and observation. One of my favorite sayings is paraphrased from Mark Twain, “There are things you learn holding a cat by the tail you cannot learn any other way.” I could try to describe to you all day long what an orange tastes like, but nothing can replace the experience of trying it for yourself. Now, obviously, there are certain things that one must learn without having to experience it such as you do not have to get burned to know how hot a fire is. There are other bits of wisdom I would like to pass to my first grandchild:

Pulling from my own medical training, I refer to Hippocrates and say to make a habit of doing good, or at least do no harm.

I want you to play outside as this allows you to stretch your imagination.

I want you to read and write. We are losing generations of history, as there are fewer and fewer people who write in a journal or diary.  My father has kept personal daily diaries for as long as I remember. I took my son to Kenya this summer and had him keep a personal journey of his trip.

I want you to never pick up a tobacco habit. This is one of those pieces of wisdom I hope you never have to experience. I do not want you shortening your life with lung cancer, throat cancer, stomach, pancreatic, or bladder cancer, heart disease, or stroke. If you start smoking, that is what you will do.

Personally, I entered into this branch of medicine to try to help eliminate my job. Through clinical trials, we have come upon new treatments that are targeting cancer, leaving normal cells alone, thus lessening treatment side effects. Through machines that can measure circulating cancer cells in the blood, we can quickly tell if treatments for breast and colon cancer are being effective.  Through genetic testing of the cancer itself, we can tell if a woman with breast cancer is at high risk or low risk of recurrence, thus sparing her from having to undergo unnecessary treatment. Ultimately, I hope we find a way to alert our body that a cancer is present and allow our own immune system to take care of it just like we would an infection.

We have yet to learn how a cancer cell can hide or cloak itself to remain undetected in the body, escaping our own immune system’s ability to detect it, and continue to grow. Once that key is found, I feel we will be able to eliminate this disease.

We have yet to learn what causes a cancer cell to begin in the first place. It is frustrating to see a colon cancer in someone who ate right and exercised their whole life; or a lung cancer in a nonsmoker; or a liver cancer in someone with no history of hepatitis or cirrhosis; or a breast cancer in a vibrant healthy woman with no family history. Even more frustrating are those who claim they have some miracle cure across the border, which those in the U.S. won’t allow in due to pressure from big pharmaceutical companies, when it is actually them who deceive a desperate patient. The cancer community is international and all meetings share information from around the world. Any new treatment found anywhere is rapidly disseminated to everyone. There is no known secret cure, no code of silence. That would be the greatest hoax in the history of the world.

And finally, I want to tell you, you can never be good enough to earn God’s love, nor bad enough to lose it. This world of ours at times allows the evil to thrive and the virtuous to suffer. I have personally struggled with the book of Job. Where I have struggled is with Job having his children taken from him. Though the book ends with him and his wife having more children, they cannot replace those who were killed.  Anyone who has lost a child or a loved one can attest to that. There is a scar left upon the heart permanently. I have to go back to the fact that all gifts come from God and that even God’s gift of his own son, the risen Christ, kept the scars of his crucifixion. Physical scars can sometimes be easier to deal with than emotional ones. I find people much more likely to discuss an aching shoulder than a broken heart.

This Christmas share in your happiness or share in your sorrow, if not with loved ones, then with God. Sharing in happiness is twice the joy, and sharing in tragedy is half the sorrow.

To all those I have had the distinct honor of sharing in the joy of good news about your health, or the sorrow of a loved one’s death, I wish God’s peace upon you.

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