Vegans Don't Get Cancer-And Other Bullshit Lies

One of the hardest things about this cancer journey are the moments spent wide-eyed staring at the ceiling in the wee hours wondering the what ifs. This futile game of examining the past to see if I can change it is, yeah, I know FUTILE. But yet the questions will haunt me still:

What if I had never used an electric blanket? Eaten more kale? What if I Meditated more consistently and used the power of imagery to keep malignant cells away? Did my COVID wine happen to seal my fate? (Did you know alcohol is categorized as a carcinogen?)

Should I have gotten a shower water filter? Did I not breastfeed my kids long enough? Eat too many Doritos (burp!)? Is it because of environmental crap? The hormones in the milk I drank as a youth?

Oh, oh! I know! If I were vegan and a yogi. THAT’s the cancer-free ticket! Well, too bad for me because while I enjoy meatless meals regularly, I am neither vegan nor a yogi. And can I confess I don’t even LIKE yoga? (Is that a strike against me in the land of Karma?)

I really work on shutting down this line of inquiry because it never serves me well. And here’s the big fat hairy-assed elephant in the room.

Cancer doesn’t care if you are vegan, an ascended master, a fitness fanatic, or an organic food blogger.

Cancer discriminates against no one. You, yes, you can develop it. Statistics don’t care. Someone’s got to be in the small percentage of smokers that develop lung cancer (or the larger percentage of nonsmokers who develop it). Yup. There’s another mindfuck for you.

I look up statistics regarding alcohol use and breast cancer. Yes, there does seem to be a connection. Like increasing your risk 1x. What the hell does that mean? And does my daily wine habit for a few years compare to a someone else’s lifetime of daily gin and tonics statistically?

I don’t know. I don’t know. THEY don’t know for fuck’s sake.

Of course, there are clues. If you grow up on a nuclear waste dump, you will probably develop cancer. If you carry the BRCA gene, there is a good likelihood of developing cancer.

Obesity? Yup. Increased risk. (I have struggled with my weight over the years.)

And then there is the lifetime risk of breast cancer-it’s almost 13%. One out of eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. (Ladies, please keep up with those mammograms. And if you have dense breast tissue, like I had, get an ultrasound too.)

For each of these things, there is always the exception. Like my uncle who smoked and drank himself into a late grave, aged 90-something.

To summarize:

Be a vegan yogi who works for world peace and has rescue dogs-get cancer.

Live like the devil, smoke, drink, and steal from little old ladies-don’t get cancer.

I mean seriously. WTAF? Did you notice I stuck virtues in with my summary? Yeah, about that. There’s something in the public meme about cancer that also attributes cancer to some sort of moral failing, so I threw in that other shit just for fun.

And there’s one of the hardest things yet again. The search for certainty where there is none to be found. And we humans are fond of certainty.

So wadda do?

Acceptance. I file this stuff under the “shit happens” category. By acceptance, I don’t mean passive, lay-down-and-die. Far from it.

Accepting “what is” instead of “what if” (and all the useless questions what-if pondering) brings me peace and conserves my emotional energy so I can support my health better.

I exercise, cut back on wine, eat (mostly) healthfully, and work on eliminating as many sources of stress that I can. (And trust me, I have plenty of those.)

I know these things won’t guarantee a reoccurrence or even the development of another type of cancer. (GULP.)

But it DOES add to the quality of my life. Exercise helps me process stress and the trauma of going through cancer treatment. When I’m pulling hair from my head or regarding the patchwork quilt of scars on my body, I grieve. Sometimes I get pissed. I allow whatever emotion needs to be heard so I can move on to acceptance.

Sometimes I get stuck in anger. Sometimes not. Getting six-pack abs would be easier than getting a well-developed acceptance muscle!

The more I try to control things beyond my control, the unhappier and uptight I become.

I have two more chemo appointments coming up. I dread them. I do mental gymnastics to help me reframe the dread in a more positive light. This medicine is powerful and saving my life! The side effects mean cancer cells are getting crushed. Yadda yadda yadda.

Or I can pause and say fuck positive thinking and go with this:

Yes, this sucks. Big Time.

Acceptance.